Apple launched the iOS 26.1 release candidate (RC) on Tuesday, more than a month after the company released iOS 26, which introduced Liquid Glass, call screening and more to your iPhone. The iOS 26.1 RC brings a few new settings and features to developers’ and beta testers’ devices, including a new way to adjust Liquid Glass and a useful security feature.
Since this is the RC, I recommend downloading it only on something other than your primary device. The update might be buggy and battery life may be short.
There’s no word on when Apple will release iOS 26.1 to the general public. However, Apple usually releases an RC a week or two before making an update available to everyone, so I expect the company to release iOS 26.1 soon.
Here are the features developers and beta testers can try now, and what could be on your iPhone when Apple officially releases iOS 26.1.
Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add as a preferred Google source.
Another way to adjust Liquid Glass
With the iOS 26.1 RC, Apple is letting you adjust your iPhone’s new Liquid Glass design even more. If you go into Settings > Display & Brightness > Liquid Glass, you can choose for the new design to be Clear or Tinted.
“Clear is more transparent, revealing the content beneath,” Apple writes for the setting. “Tinted increases opacity and adds more contrast.”
Changing Clear or Tinted appears to only adjust certain Liquid Glass elements for now, like your Notification Center and some search bars throughout your iPhone. However, it doesn’t appear to change Liquid Glass elements on your Home Screen. But you don’t need to be running the RC to adjust Liquid Glass on your Home Screen.
To adjust Liquid Glass on your Home Screen, long-press on your screen, tap Edit in the top left corner of your screen, then tap Customize. From here, make your app icons either Clear or Tinted, then you can tap Light, Dark or Auto along the bottom of the Customize menu to adjust the Liquid Glass elements on your Home Screen.
If you aren’t running the RC and don’t like Liquid Glass, you can also go to Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size and then tap the toggle for Reduce Transparency to adjust the new design.
Automatically install Security Improvements
Apple introduces a useful new security setting in the iOS 26.1 RC that allows your iPhone to download and install Security Improvements on its own. You can find this by going to Settings > Privacy & Security > Background Security Improvements.
“Background Security Improvements provide additional protection to your iPhone in between software updates,” according to Apple. “In rare instances of compatibility issues, these Security Improvements may be temporarily removed and then enhanced in a future software update.”
This menu also allows you to uninstall a Security Improvement. To do so, tap the three dots (…) next to the installed update. A new menu will appear with the option to Remove & Restart. This can be helpful if you feel the Security Improvement is causing you more issues than it’s fixing.
This feature reminds me of Apple’s Rapid Security Responses. The company introduced RSRs in 2023 as a way to quickly deploy security fixes to devices. While a good idea in theory, Apple hasn’t used iOS RSRs since the release of iOS 16.5.1 (c) in July 2023.
This isn’t a flashy setting, but it’s useful and allows you to stay up to date on smaller security updates without doing any extra work. Once enabled, this setting takes care of the rest, so you don’t have to check your iPhone every day for new updates to potential security issues.
Stop accidentally opening your Camera with this new toggle
The iOS 26.1 RC also introduces a new toggle that could prevent you from accidentally opening your Camera from your Lock Screen. To find this toggle, go to Settings > Camera and scroll to the bottom of the menu. There you’ll see a toggle for Lock Screen Swipe to Open Camera.
“Swipe left on the Lock Screen to quickly access the Camera,” Apple writes for the setting.
Phone call haptics control
In the iOS 26 RC, there’s a new option to turn off haptics when your iPhone connects or drops a call. That way your iPhone doesn’t vibrate and make you think you got another message or notification each time you get on or off a call.
To access this setting, go to Settings > Apps > Phone and tap the Haptics toggle.
Local Capture options
Local Capture is an easy way to record high-quality video and audio recordings of video calls on your iPhone, and the iOS 26.1 RC introduces a new Settings menu for the feature. The menu gives you the option to select a save location for your recordings, as well as a toggle that lets you only record audio when using Local Capture.
“Add Local Capture to Control Center to record your own audio and video during a call to save and edit later,” Apple writes in the Local Capture settings page.
New Accessibility option
The iOS 26.1 RC introduces a new option to prefer single-touch actions over sliding actions on your iPhone’s screen. You can find this new option by going to Settings > Accessibility > Touch and scrolling to the bottom of the page.
Alarm gets another update
One of my favorite small upgrades in iOS 26 was the ability to change your alarm snooze length. In the iOS 26.1 RC, Apple makes it harder to accidentally dismiss your alarm. When your alarm goes off in the RC, you now have to swipe to stop it rather than hit a button. This could be annoying if you’re trying to shut your alarm off fast, or it could help ensure you’re actually awake before you turn your alarm off.
Changing songs in Apple Music
Apple Music got a handful of new features in iOS 26, but the iOS 26.1 RC doesn’t change much about the app or service. Instead, the update lets you change songs in a new way.
With the iOS 26.1 RC, instead of tapping the next or backward buttons to change songs, you can swipe left or right on the song title from the music player within Apple Music. You can do this when the player is taking up your whole screen or when you’re looking through Apple Music and the player is small and near the bottom of your screen. The song title even appears to jump left or right when you change songs now, too.
More Live Translation languages
The iOS 26.1 RC adds more languages to the new Live Translation feature. Apple introduced this feature to iPhones and AirPods with iOS 26, and the RC lets developers and beta testers use it with these languages.
- Chinese (Mandarin, simplified)
- Chinese (Mandarin, traditional)
- Italian
- Japanese
- Korean
Apple Intelligence in more languages
If you have an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone, the iOS 26.1 RC brings the AI features to these languages.
- Chinese (traditional)
- Danish
- Dutch
- Norwegian
- Portuguese (Portugal)
- Swedish
- Turkish
- Vietnamese
Calendar update
Not a major change, but the iOS 26 RC updates the Calendar interface. If you view your calendar in List View, any calendar events you have on a specific day will be colored across the whole bottom part of your screen.
New video scrubbing bar
The iOS 26.1 RC also brings a small change to the video scrubbing bar in Photos. If you go into Photos and watch a video, you’ll notice that the bar across the bottom of your screen is more compact and inline compared to the past scrubbing bar, which had the play/pause and volume buttons above the bar.
This is another small change that you might not have even noticed.
Those are a few of the new features developers and public beta testers can try with the iOS 26.1 RC. Apple might release another RC before it launches iOS 26.1 to the public, but I’d expect these new features and changes to land on your iPhone in the next week or two.
For more iOS news, here’s my review of the iOS 26, how to reduce the Liquid Glass effects in the update and how text screening works in the update. You can also check out our iOS 26 cheat sheet.
Watch this: Apple Maps Could Feature Ads, Fitbit App Overhaul Arrives, Threads Adds Disappearing Post Feature | Tech Today
