iOS 4.3 to be Released on Feb 14th to Support AT&T Personal Hotspot?

A new report from MacStories, citing a “reliable source,” suggests that the next major iOS update for the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad will be released on Monday February 14th. iOS 4.3, which brings AirPlay support to third-party applications, and the new Personal Hotspot tethering feature, is rumored to go public through iTunes at around 10 AM Pacific/1 PM Eastern in just 10 days. The report claims:

According to several reports surfaced earlier this week, Apple is targeting a release of the next major iOS update, version 4.3, in two weeks. We just got word from a reliable source that iOS 4.3 should be available on February 14th at 10 AM PST.

iOS 4.3 is currently in its third beta, which was released to developers earlier this week, and it is believed that the final public release of the firmware will launch to support AT&T’s roll-out of its own Personal Hotspot service, currently only available to Verizon Wireless customers.

The first beta of iOS 4.3 was released to developers in mid-January, and also introduced new multi-touch gestures for the iPad which allowed for quicker access to the multitasking bar and home screen. Apple later informed developers, however, that the new gestures were just a preview to test compatibility, and that they wouldn’t actually make it to the final release of the 4.3 firmware. Although, the Cupertino company did promise that they would come with a later release of iOS.

The reliability of MacStories and its source can be neither complimented nor ignored. The site incorrectly predicted a December 2010 release of iOS 4.3, along with recurring application subscriptions, in a report that was published last November. However, it must be given credit for correctly predicting that Mac OS X 10.7 Lion would introduce various features and user elements to Apple’s operating system that are derived from iOS.

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