Apple has released a new version of iOS that supports the News+ subscription service and Siri casting capabilities for Apple TV.

Apple never announced iOS 12.2 yesterday. But it was clear during its event yesterday—which included News+, Apple TV Channels, Apple Card, and Apple Arcade—that each of the new services would be tied to some coming release of iOS. And that with most of the services not arriving until the fall—the same timeframe for new iOS and iPhone releases—that most will thus be tied to iOS 13.

The outlier, it appears, is News+. With the release today of iOS 12.2, News+ is now available to iPhone and iPad users, albeit only in the United States and Canada.

“Apple News+ is a new subscription service that extends the Apple News experience with hundreds of magazines and top newspapers,” the release notes for iOS 12.2 explain. “Our editors handpick top articles and magazine issues, and you also get personalized recommendations on the topics most interesting to you. Automatic downloads make it easy to read magazine issues offline.”

iOS 12.2 also includes the ability to use Ask Siri on your iPhone or iPad to cast any video from your device to your Apple TV, four new Animoji (owl, boar, giraffe and shark; on supported devices only), new AirPlay controls for TV in Control Center, new Apple Pay and Wallet capabilities, Screen Time and Safari improvements, support for AirPods 2, and some bug fixes. It even supports AT&T’s silly “5GE” branding on compatible networks.

If you want to update immediately, open Settings on your iPhone or iPad and navigate to General > Software Update.

Tagged with Apple News