Apple’s iOS 5 Beta 4 Update Now Available, First To Be Released Over-The-Air

It’s been just 11 days since Apple released Beta 3 of iOS 5 to developers, but a new Beta is already up in the air — literally. iOS 5 Beta 4 has just gone live, and it appears to be the first update to support installation via iOS 5’s new over-the-air update system.

We can’t actually get the update to work over the air right now, but the patch notes specifically define it as an option. To quote:

“If you are doing a OTA software update from beta 3 to beta 4, you will need to re-sync your photos with iTunes.”

If you’re not already on the iOS 5 Developer Beta to give it a shot yourself, you’re not missing out on much:

Fortunately, as shown in the image below, the update can still be downloaded manually and installed through iTunes. It’s not 100% clear whether or not Apple plans to release the OTA update today (just a day after Lion, which is currently distributed exclusively through the App Store. Way to stress test that new cloud server, Apple!), but it certainly looks like it shouldn’t be long.

Update: Readers in comments and folks on Twitter are reporting that they got the OTA update to work. Here’s what it looks like when it actually, you know, works (Thanks @FungBlog)!

So What’s New?

As any late-stage Beta should be, it’s mostly bug fixes and little tweaks — but here’s some of the bigger stuff we’re hearing:

  • The aforementioned OTA installation support
  • Video content in all applications and websites should now be AirPlay-enabled by default
  • Wireless syncing now works with Windows

This list will be updated as new reports come in.