Apple on Wednesday seeded the first public beta of its upcoming iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, macOS Tahoe 26.1, and watchOS 26.1 updates for testing purposes. The new betas are equal to the first developer betas, which were released on Monday.
Public beta testers can download the iOS 26.1 and iPadOS 26.1 updates by going to the Settings app, then tapping on “General” -> “Software Update” and choosing the iOS 26 or iPadOS 26 Public Beta options on their iPhone and iPad devices after opting into the beta through Apple’s public beta testing website.
The macOS Tahoe 26.1 public beta can be downloaded by registered public beta testers from the settings app on their Mac.The update will be released to the public in the fall.
The tvOS 26.1 public beta can be downloaded from the Settings app on compatible Apple TV’s after signing up for Apple’s public beta testing program. The updates will be released to all users in the fall.
The beta has so far been reported to add support for additional languages in Apple Intelligence, including Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese (Portugal), Swedish, Turkish, Chinese (Traditional), and Vietnamese.
The iOS 26.1 update also adds more languages that work with AirPods Live Translation, including Japanese, Korean, Italian, and Chinese (both Mandarin Traditional and Simplified).
The Phone keypad now uses Liquid Glass for the numbers.
User can now swipe on the music player in Apple Music to switch songs, by sliding a finger over where the song title is listed, and it’ll go to the next song or back to the previous song.
The slider for scrubbing through videos in the Photos app has been updated.
Some Calendar app views now show events from different calendars with a full color background.
The name of Rapid Security Updates appears to have been changed to Background Security Improvement, which is mentioned in the iOS 26.1 code.
“Background Security Improvement improves the security of your iPhone by installing security improvements and system files before they are available in iOS Software Updates. In rare instances of compatibility issues, these deliveries may be temporarily removed and then improved in a feature software update.”
As usual, MacTrast and Apple both warn users to not install any betas on their daily driver iPhone or iPad. Instead, only install betas on a device set aside for testing purposes.