Oh my. iOS 4.3 just went into beta and… oh my.

I had two wishes for iOS 4.3, based on iOS 4.2 shortcomings that made me want to NOT AT ALL DO ANY VIOLENCE TO A LARGE WHITE BIRD, EVEN IN JEST, BECAUSE SOME PEOPLE DON’T REALISE THAT I’M JUST JOKING. And these things were:

• Get my orientation lock back, because having a mute switch for only some sounds on an iPad is about as useful as a chocolate teapot made with an exciting arsenic/cocoa mix (i.e. not at all).
• Get AirPlay in the hands of devs, so either the Air Video or streamtome guys can figure out how to enable me to fire videos at my Apple TV. (First one to the finish line gets my cash!)

Ars Technica reveals that iOS 4.3:

• Provides a preference within the Settings app for defining the functionality of the hardware lock switch. (YAY!)
• Provides APIs that will “extend AirPlay support to their own apps instead of just the limited few from Apple”. (YAY!)

All that remains now is for Apple to remove these features at the last minute, just to spite me, and for the phone to ring one day:

Hey, Craig, it’s Steve. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!