Apple published the first public version of iOS 26 On July 24, more than a month after the company announced the next software to its Global Developer Conference in June. Apple said that in June, the new iOS version would be available for the general public this fall, but that the developers and beta testers can try a first version of iOS 26 now on their iPhones.
If you are a public beta tester or developer, you can download the first public version of iOS 26 by going to Settings> General> Software update. Faucet Beta updates To make sure that the public beta version iOS 26 is selected. Then type Update And follow the prompts on your screen.
On July 15, Mark Gurman de Bloomberg predicted on X, formerly Twitterthat the public beta version would be published towards Wednesday July 23. Since Apple has released the beta version on Thursday July 24, this still counts in my book.
Before downloading the public beta version iOS 26, you should know that this is not the final version of the software. This means that the update can be buggy and that the battery life of your device can be affected, so it is better to keep these problems out of your main device. If you want to try the beta version, I recommend downloading it to a secondary device.
You should also know that iOS 26 is compatible with devices more recent than the iPhone 11. So, if you have an iPhone XR – as I do – you cannot download the developer or the public beta version of iOS 26. Believe me: I tried, and my XR would not load the page to download the beta developer despite that I really want to see if my device almost 7 years old could manage the operating system.
For more, here is what you need to know about Liquid Glass, how iOS 26 reorganizes the alarm of your iPhone and everything you need to know about the update.
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