Apple iOS 8.3 Brings Wireless CarPlay, New Emojis, And Boatload Of Bugfixes

When you fire up your iPhone, iPad, and/or iPod touch today, you may be greeted with a message letting you know there's an update to iOS available. That's because Apple completed its beta testing of iOS 8.3 and has begun rolling out the final version this week, which among other things contains a boatload of new emoji characters.

It seems Apple put a lot of thought and effort into its emoji implementation. Not only are there new ones to choose from, but they're now organized into categories that you can scroll through. They're also more diverse, though if you find a specific one that doesn't look the way you want to it, you can adjust its skin tone. Outside of people emoji characters, you'll also find new flags and updated items like the phone and computer that now look like an iPhone and iMac.

There's quite a bit in the iOS 8.3 update that go beyond emoji characters, one of them being wireless CarPlay. This allows iPhone owners to connect their handsets to their CarPlay-enabled dash, if they have one, without using a Lightning cable.

Siri received a bit of love, too. She now speaks more languages and is able to place calls that immediately start from the speakerphone without the need to toggle it manually. When you're not using Siri, you'll find new italic and underline format options for the keyboard on iPhone 6 Plus devices when in landscape mode.

All this and more comes on top of a long list of bug fixes that runs the gamut from Wi-Fi and Bluetooth issues to enterprise tweaks. However, it may have introduced some as well. Some users have complained on various forums that after installing the iOS 8.3 update, Touch ID stopped working in the App Store. While not a critical feature, it's certainly an inconvenience, and hopefully one that Apple will resolve with a minor update sooner rather than later.