Apple’s WWDC keynote has just finished up and there was lots of news to digest, notably a fresh design language and a renaming of all the operating systems.
While Apple unveiled iOS 26, iPadOS 16, tvOS 26, watchOS 26 and VisionOS 26 tonight (June 9) it is important to note that you can’t simply download and update your existing device and get the software right away.
Before a general release arrives later in the year – we’d suspect at a similar time to the launch of the rumoured iPhone 17 Air – there’s a thorough beta process for developers to get their heads around the new software and build many of its features into their apps.
In typical fashion, Apple has made the first betas of all the updates available to registered developers to download and try on their development devices, and all these can be accessed via the Apple Developer site or through the device itself.
No Public Beta yet – expect that soon
During the keynote, it was announced that, like in previous years, there will be a Public Beta too, although that is not available at this stage.
The closest we got to a release date confirmation of the Public Beta was a vague reference to “next month”, so we can safely assume it’ll arrive sometime in July.
What’s new?
We’ve rounded up the best features in iOS 26, iPadOS 26, watchOS 26 and MacOS Tahoe 26, all of which ship with the new Liquid Glass transparency look that gives all of Apple’s software a unified look.
There are new features for the AirPods too, a dedicated Gaming app and some clever Live Translation tools.
