Apple on Friday seeded revised first betas of its upcoming iOS 26.5 and iPadOS 26.5 updates to developers for testing. The revised betas came four days following Apple’s initial beta releases of the new operating systems.
Registered developers can download the updated iOS 26.5 and iPadOS 26.5 beta software using the Software Update section of the Settings app.
It’s not clear why Apple has seeded new beta updates, but there may be a bug fix required that couldn’t wait for the second beta to implement.
The seed doesn’t include any new Apple Intelligence Siri features. While Apple had been widely-expected to unveil the new Siri features in iOS 26.4, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman warned in February that the iPhone maker would be missing that deadline, due to Apple running into unforeseen problems while testing Siri. The report said Siri was having issues with improperly processing queries and also took too long to respond to requests. Gurman said we likely wouldn’t see some or all of the new Siri features until iOS 26.5 and iOS 27.
Apple engineers had reportedly been internally testing Siri on iOS 26.5, and those involved had told Gurman that the updates included all of the features Apple had promised at WWDC 2024. However, none of the new features have made an appearance, including in yesterday’s initial beta, indicating we likely will not see the new and improved Siri unti iOS 27, which will be unveiled in June at Apple’s WWDC 2026 event.
Apple continues testing secure messaging between Android and iOS devices in the betas of iOS 26.5, iPadOS 26.5. It didn’t make the public release of iOS 26.4 and iPadOS 26.4, but the feature is back in the iOS 26.5 beta. In the Messages section of the Settings app, the End-to-End Encryption toggle is back in the RCS options, and like before, it is enabled by default.
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.