• The second iOS 27.2 developer beta has landed, and code points to several upcoming features
• These include an anti-snatching tool, so the phone locks itself if it detects a sharp grab or when disconnected from your Apple Watch
• There are changes hinted at for Shortcuts, Apple Music, and CarPlay Ultra too

The second iOS 27.2 developer beta has now landed, and while on the face of it this doesn’t look much different to the first beta, behind the scenes there’s quite a lot of new stuff to find.

Digging into the code, 9to5Mac has found more details of an anti-snatching feature that we’ve previously reported on. This as-yet-unannounced feature is apparently called ‘AutoLock’ internally at Apple, and is designed to lock your phone if a thief grabs it.

It sounds similar then to Android’s Theft Detection Lock, and the code in this beta suggests that it would use various signals to tell whether an iPhone has been stolen, such as a sharp acceleration (which could happen when a phone is first snatched), loss of connectivity to a paired Apple Watch, a paired Apple Watch being unreachable, prolonged loss of network activity, or the device remaining unlocked for a certain period of time.

Any of these things could trigger an iPhone to automatically lock itself, but there are also references to safeguards aimed at preventing false positives. These include things like successful biometric authentication, and certain innocent app activities that could otherwise be signs of theft.

Other hidden features

On top of this, as spotted by X user @itspdfu (via 9to5Mac) iOS 27.2 beta 2 also includes code for a new album release countdown in Apple Music, and for the ability to support actions from third-party apps in Shortcuts new ‘Describe a Shortcut’ tool. So you’ll be able to include third-party apps in shortcuts built using natural language, rather than having to use the old shortcut builder.

Finally, @aaronp613 has found evidence that CarPlay Ultra will soon offer a ‘Drive Mode Theme’, allowing you to change things like the gauge style and color. Though right now CarPlay Ultra is only available on Aston Martin vehicles, so this might be of limited usefulness.

Of course there’s the usual caveat with all this that while Apple is seemingly working on these features, we can’t be sure of if or when they’ll actually launch. But they all sound like worthwhile upgrades, so hopefully they will roll out — and soon.

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