iOS 5.1 Beta Seeded to Developers: Jailbreakers Beware, You Can't Downgrade

Apple Inc. has released the beta of iOS 5.1, the upgraded version of its newest mobile operating system, to developers; iOS 5 was similarly released, a month ago.

The initial release of iOS 5 saw several Apple users report bugs, including poor battery performance and Wi-Fi problems. In order to patch the issues, Apple released iOS 5.0.1, but the update could not fix the bugs. Apple eventually had to admit that the update failed to resolve the issue completely.

Now, however, with the release of iOS 5.1 beta, questions are being asked if the forthcoming version of the operating system will be free from the bugs that plagued its predecessors. It is also interesting to note that Apple went straight to a 5.1 version, skipping iOS 5.0.2.

According to an iDownloadBlog report, the iOS 5.1 beta is available for the iPad 2, the iPhone 3GS, the iPod Touch (third and fourth generations), the GSM and CDMA compatible iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S. The software must be installed using iTunes 10.5.

Jailbreakers will need to remember that once a device is upgraded to iOS 5.1, it can't be downgraded to iOS 5 or any other earlier versions of the system.

Check out the full iOS 5.1 beta release note:

iOS SDK Release Notes for iOS 5.1 beta 1

Important: This is a preliminary document for an API or technology in development. Although this document has been reviewed for technical accuracy, it is not final. Apple is supplying this information to help you plan for the adoption of the technologies and programming interfaces described herein. This information is subject to change, and software implemented according to this document should be tested with final operating system software and final documentation. Newer versions of this document may be provided with future seeds of the API or technology.

Contents:

Introduction
Bug Reporting
Notes and Known Issues

Introduction

iOS SDK 5.1 provides support for developing iOS applications and includes the complete set of Xcode tools, compilers, and frameworks for creating applications for iOS and Mac OS X. These tools include the Xcode IDE and the Instruments analysis tool among many others.

With this software you can develop applications that run on iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch running iOS 5.1. You can also test your applications using the included iOS Simulator, which supports iOS 5.1. There are two Xcode iOS SDK 5.1 images, one for installing on a Macintosh computer running Mac OS X 10.6.7 (Snow Leopard) or later, the other for installing on a Macintosh computer running Mac OS X 10.7 (Lion).

This version of iOS is intended only for installation on devices registered with Apple's developer program. Attempting to install this version of iOS in an unauthorized manner could put your device in an unusable state.

For more information and additional support resources, visit:

http://developer.apple.com/pro...

Bug Reporting

Please report any bugs not mentioned in the Introduction section using the Apple Bug Reporter on the Apple Developer website (http://developer.apple.com/bug.... Additionally, you may discuss these issues and iOS SDK 5 in the Apple Developer Forums: http://devforums.apple.com. You can also access more information about iCloud for Developers at: http://developer.apple.com/icl...

Notes and Known Issues

The following issues relate to using the 5.1 SDK to develop code.

Accounts

When creating an iCloud account, you can use any Apple ID as long as it is a full email address and not a MobileMe account. If you have a MobileMe account, you can move that account to iCloud. You can find more information at:http://me.com/move

APIs

The NSNetService class and CFNetService APIs do not include P2P interfaces by default. To browse, register, or resolve services over P2P interfaces, an application needs to use the Bonjour DNSService*() APIs noted below.
Setting the interfaceIndex parameter to kDNSServiceInterfaceIndexAny in the following API's will not include P2P interfaces by default. To include P2P interfaces, you must now set the kDNSServiceFlagsIncludeP2P flag when using kDNSServiceInterfaceIndexAny or set the interfaceIndex to kDNSServiceInterfaceIndexP2P. The affected APIs are:
DNSServiceBrowse
DNSServiceRegister
DNSServiceResolve
DNSServiceRegisterRecord
DNSServiceQueryRecord
GameKit
App Icons and Profile Photos are not loading in apps using Game Center.

iCloud Storage
Provisioning profiles must be enabled for iCloud in the iOS Provisioning Portal. You can enable a provisioning profile for iCloud by navigating to the App ID section of the iOS Provisioning Portal and configuring your App ID for iCloud. After enabling the App ID for iCloud, regenerate your provisioning profiles to enable them for iCloud.
The setSortDescriptors: method of NSMetadataQuery is not supported.
In iOS 5, files that are protected via Data Protection cannot be used with iCloud Storage APIs.
File names are case-insensitive in Mac OS X but case-sensitive in iOS. This can lead to problems when sharing files between the two using iCloud. You should take steps on iOS to avoid creating files whose names differ only by case.

Movie Player
Starting in iOS 5.0, in order to facilitate finer-grained playback control, a movie player is not automatically prepared to play upon creation. Call the prepareToPlay method to prepare the movie player. For more information, see MPMoviePlayerController Class Reference

Music Player
Using shake-to-shuffle causes Music app to freeze and playback to stop.

Newsstand
FIXED: Deleting an issue that was marked as the currently reading issue could cause a crash.

Security
In iOS 5, the signing of certificates with MD5 signatures is not supported. Please ensure that certificates use signature algorithms based on SHA1 or SHA2.

Xcode/Developer Tools
A bug in the documentation organizer causes an exception when you type in any field in the content area. To prevent the need to log in to the developer website from Xcode, download documentation sets locally using Xcode's documentation preference pane and enable the 'Check for and install updates automatically' checkbox as a workaround.
uninstall-devtools script mistakenly removes files and packages even if Xcode is still running. Be sure to quit any running copy of Xcode before starting the uninstall-devtools script.
The Network Link Conditioner daemon cannot be launched after installing the Networking Link Conditioner without a reboot. You can manually workaround the issue with a restart or by the following command: sudo launchctl load /system/library/launchdaemons/com.apple.networklinkconditioner.plist.]
In the iOS 5 development tools, it is possible to extract APIs used by an application and have them checked for use of private APIs. This option is offered when you validate your application for app submission.

(Source: Jeremy Gonis via iDownloadBlog)

Follow Kukil Bora on Twitter: @KukilBora

MUST READ: OS Jailbreak & Hacking In-Depth: 'iOS Hacker's Handbook' Will 'Jumpstart' Apple Hackers