Apple iOS 8.3 now available for download

Today Apple officially released iOS 8.3 for all supported iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch devices. According to Apple, the update aims to boost performance on your device, allowing apps to open faster than before. The company also released OS X 10.10.3 with support for the new Photos app.

Other areas of iOS that users should notice an performance boost in will include Wi-Fi, Safari tabs, third party keyboards, Messages, keyboard shortcuts, the simplified Chinese keyboard and the Control Center.

The emoji keyboard also is the subject of some changes as iOS 8.3 improves the emoji picker, offers 300 new emoji choices and adds more skin-tone options to emojis that are supposed to represent people.

The new iOS build also makes some repairs to issues that affect screen rotation, CarPlay, Wi-Fi, Messages and more.

Besides that, you can expect iOS 8.3 to fix various other bugs from iOS 8.2 while improving the overall performance and stability of the OS.

As usual, the update is available OTA (over-the-air) and can be downloaded through the Setting > General > Software Update. You can also download the update file through iTunes, or manually download the IPSW file and install it using iTunes.

Apple iOS 8.3 Download Links

• iPad Air 2 (6th generation WiFi)
• iPad Air 2 (6th generation Cellular)
• iPad Air (5th generation WiFi + Cellular)
• iPad Air (5th generation WiFi)
• iPad Air (5th generation CDMA)
• iPad (4th generation CDMA)
• iPad (4th generation GSM)
• iPad (4th generation WiFi)
• iPad mini (CDMA)
• iPad mini (GSM)
• iPad mini (WiFi)
• iPad mini 2 (WiFi + Cellular)
• iPad mini 2 (WiFi)
• iPad mini 2 (CDMA)
• iPad mini 3 (China)
• iPad mini 3 (WiFi)
• iPad mini 3 (Cellular)
• iPad 3 Wi-Fi (3rd generation)
• iPad 3 Wi-Fi + Cellular (GSM)
• iPad 3 Wi-Fi + Cellular (CDMA)
• iPad 2 Wi-Fi (Rev A)
• iPad 2 Wi-Fi
• iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G (GSM)
• iPad 2 Wi-Fi + 3G (CDMA)
• iPhone 5 (CDMA)
• iPhone 5 (GSM)
• iPhone 5c (CDMA)
• iPhone 5c (GSM)
• iPhone 5s (CDMA)
• iPhone 5s (GSM)
• iPhone 6
• iPhone 6 Plus
• iPhone 4s
• iPod touch (5th generation)

If you are a user who relies on jailbreaking your device, you may want to stay clear of iOS 8.3 for now as there is no working jailbreak at this time. The Last jailbreakable firmware was iOS 8.1.2. If you happen to be on 8.1.2 or older version and care about your jailbreak, do not update to iOS 8.3.

Next in line for Apple will be iOS 8.4, before the company shifts its focus to iOS 9. iOS 8.4 is expected to introduce support for Apple's new streaming service powered by Beats, while iOS 9 is expected solely focus on the overall performance of iOS across all devices.