Apple has released a second round of developer betas for iOS 11.4, tvOS 11.4, and watchOS 4.3.1, approximately two weeks following the initial set of betas. The release notes reveal only minor changes and fixes compared to the first beta, which brought back Messages in iCloud expressly “for testing and evaluation purposes” and saw the return of AirPlay 2 support in iOS — both features that made an appearance during the iOS 11.3 beta cycle only to be removed before the final release. It remains unclear, however, whether these features are planned to arrive in iOS 11.4, or are simply once again being included solely for testing purposes.
tvOS 11.4 similarly adds support for AirPlay 2, allowing multiple Apple TVs to act as AirPlay 2 targets to allow streaming to multiple devices simultaneously — a feature also expected to appear on Apple’s HomePod in an upcoming software update. As the more minor version number implies, watchOS 4.3.1 adds no user-facing features, although new warnings suggest Apple is taking steps to drop support for watchOS 1 apps at some point in the future, like with the release of watchOS 5, expected later this year.