Apple iOS 5 beta 3 dropped a few hours ago and we weren’t expecting to find too much in it but we’re happy to report a few new goodies including enhanced gesture controls which could eventually lead to an iPhone without any physical buttons.
You’ll be very happy to know that the Apple iOS 5 beta 3 finally has the ability to add a custom ringtone or tone to a text message. Yes, that thing you’ve been able to do with your dumb phone for years is now a possibility with your top-of-the-line iPhone.
The more interesting thing about the iOS 5 beta 3 is the enhanced gesture support in the AssitiveTouch accessibility feature (thanks to 9to5Mac for first spotting this). This opens up the door for more iPhone gesture controls and it’s easy to see how this could be fully implemented to create an iPhone that doesn’t have a Home button. These enable you to open up a menu on the home screen which lets you do all sorts of things like going to the home screen, adjusting the volume, changing the orientation and more with a few taps.
Of course, we’ve seen these enhanced gesture controls on previous betas and Apple has said it is just testing these out and these won’t land in consumer products. Yet. Of course, the enhanced gesture in iOS 5 beta 3 looks really ugly and outside of the overall aesthetics of the platform. On the positive side, this should be of great help for those who actually need the assistance.
Update: Here’s a video demo of said gestures:
