Following its Worldwide Developers Conference keynote a few weeks ago, Apple released an initial beta version of its new operating systems, marking the debut of its year-based versioning with all systems designated as version 26. On Monday, June 23, 2025, the company officially rolled out the second developer betas for iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26, and most of its other software updates, continuing the development cycle for these unified, year-aligned platforms.
Andrew Cunningham for Ars Technica:
For those who don’t normally dabble in Apple’s beta programs, the company offers two tracks: a developer beta and a public beta. The developer beta builds are offered earlier but tend to be buggier and less stable, and they change more from release to release. The public betas, which typically hit in mid- to late-July, are usually roughly the same code as the third or fourth developer beta and represent a nearer-to-final, more stable experience. Once the public betas begin, both developer and public beta builds are usually updated more or less in lockstep, though the developer betas are still usually available slightly earlier.
The new iOS and iPadOS betas will run on just about any hardware that can currently install and run iOS and iPadOS 18, with a couple of older exceptions. The macOS beta will run on any Apple Silicon Mac and on a handful of Intel Macs released in 2019 and 2020. The other betas will generally run on anything that supports the current versions, with some caveats (Liquid Glass effects only show up on newer Apple TV 4K boxes, for example, while the first-gen Apple TV 4K and the old 1080p Apple TV will run the update but without Liquid Glass).
If you don’t have spare devices you can dedicate to testing, we’d recommend waiting until the public beta in July before you even think about running any of these betas, and only after you’ve backed up all the important data on those devices.
MacDailyNews Note: Ahead of the public betas, find out more about the Apple Beta Software Program here.
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