Just like any other Apple iPhone event, Apple has seeded the Golden Master version of its upcoming iOS version i.e. iOS 8, to the developers. Apple is all set to release the final version of iOS 8 to the general public on September 17. Registered iOS developers can download iOS 8 GM from the iOS Dev Center.
A GM version of iOS is pretty close to what general public is going to get when it’s made publicly available and it carries the same build number as the one installed on the new iPhone.
During the iPhone 6 unveiling event today, Apple also announced that the iOS 8 will be available to the public on September 17th. iOS 8 was first unveiled at WWDC 2014, during the keynote. It comes with loads of new features and improvements to the mobile OS, such as interactive notifications, widgets, 3rd party keyboards, new Messages app and much more.
Apple has released five betas for iOS 8, which makes it the least number of betas released for any firmware by Apple. The fifth beta for iOS 8 was pushed more than a month ago, which included improvements related to SMS Relay, and optimized memory management.
Once released, iOS 8 will support the following devices:
iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c, iPhone 5, iPhone 4S
iPad Air, Retina iPad mini, iPad 4, iPad mini, iPad 3, iPad 2
iPod touch 5G
You can download iOS 8 GM from the iOS Dev Center, but it requires a registered developers account which costs $99 annually. You can update to iOS 8 GM only by downloading fill-sized firmware from iOS Dev Center. OTA update is not available for it.