Apple on Friday seeded the first beta releases of its upcoming iOS 26.5, iPadOS 26.5, macOS Tahoe 26.5, watchOS 26.5, and tvOS 26.5 updates for testing purposes. The public betas come four days after Apple provided the initial betas to developers. It should also be noted that Apple seeded updated iOS 26.5 and iPadOS 26.5 betas to developers earlier on Friday.
Registered public beta testers can download the public betas from the Software Update section of the Settings app on each device.
iOS 26.5, iPadOS 26.5, and macOS Tahoe 26.5 include a new Suggested Places feature for recommending nearby locations to visit, and Apple is also laying the groundwork to start showing ads in Maps.
Apple is testing end-to-end encryption for RCS messages between iPhone and Android users again, and there are proximity pairing, notification forwarding, and Live Activities for third-party wearables in the EU.
As usual, MacTrast and Apple both warn users to not install any betas on their daily driver devices. Instead, only install betas on a device set aside for testing purposes.
