Apple launched the fourth public beta of iOS 26.1 on Tuesday, greater than a month after the corporate launched iOS 26, which launched Liquid Glass, call screening and more to your machine. The iOS 26.1 beta brings just a few new settings to builders’ and beta testers’ gadgets, together with a brand new strategy to regulate Liquid Glass and a helpful safety function.
Since this can be a beta, I like to recommend downloading it solely on one thing aside from your major machine. The replace could be buggy, and battery life could also be brief.
Additionally, on condition that it isn’t the ultimate model, extra options might land in your iPhone when iOS 26.1 is launched. There isn’t any phrase on when Apple will launch iOS 26.1 to most of the people.
Listed here are the options builders and beta testers can strive now, and what may very well be in your iPhone when Apple formally releases iOS 26.1.
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One other strategy to regulate Liquid Glass
With the iOS 26.1 beta, Apple is letting you regulate your iPhone’s new Liquid Glass design much more. For those who go into Settings > Show & Brightness > Liquid Glass, you may select for the brand new design to be Clear or Tinted.
“Clear is extra clear, revealing the content material beneath,” Apple writes for the setting. “Tinted will increase opacity and provides extra distinction.”
Altering Clear or Tinted seems to solely regulate sure Liquid Glass components for now, like your Notification Middle and a few search bars all through your iPhone. Nevertheless, it would not seem to vary Liquid Glass components in your House Display screen. However you do not must be operating the beta to regulate Liquid Glass in your House Display screen.
To regulate Liquid Glass on your Home Screen, long-press in your display screen, faucet Edit within the high left nook of your display screen, then faucet Customise. From right here, make your app icons both Clear or Tinted, then you may faucet Mild, Darkish or Auto alongside the underside of the Customise menu to regulate the Liquid Glass components in your House Display screen.
For those who aren’t operating the beta and don’t love Liquid Glass, it’s also possible to go to Settings > Accessibility > Show & Textual content Measurement after which faucet the toggle for Reduce Transparency to regulate the brand new design.
Mechanically set up Safety Enhancements
Apple introduces a helpful new safety setting within the iOS 26.1 beta that enables your iPhone to obtain and set up Safety Enhancements by itself. Yow will discover this by going to Settings > Privateness & Safety > Background Safety Enhancements.
“Background Safety Enhancements present extra safety to your iPhone in between software program updates,” in response to Apple. “In uncommon cases of compatibility points, these Safety Enhancements could also be quickly eliminated after which enhanced in a future software program replace.”
This menu additionally lets you uninstall a Safety Enchancment. To take action, faucet the three dots (…) subsequent to the put in replace. A brand new menu will seem with the choice to Take away & Restart. This may be useful in case you really feel the Safety Enchancment is inflicting you extra points than it is fixing.
This function jogs my memory of Apple’s Rapid Security Responses. The corporate launched RSRs in 2023 as a strategy to rapidly deploy safety fixes to gadgets. Whereas a good suggestion in idea, Apple hasn’t used iOS RSRs for the reason that launch of iOS 16.5.1 (c) in July 2023.
This is not a flashy setting, nevertheless it’s helpful and lets you keep updated on smaller safety updates with out doing any additional work. As soon as enabled, this setting takes care of the remainder, so you do not have to verify your iPhone every single day for brand new updates to potential safety points.
Cease unintentionally opening your Digicam with this new toggle
The iOS 26.1 beta additionally introduces a brand new toggle that might stop you from unintentionally opening your Digicam out of your Lock Display screen. To seek out this toggle, go to Settings > Digicam and scroll to the underside of the menu. There you may see a toggle for Lock Display screen Swipe to Open Digicam.
“Swipe left on the Lock Display screen to rapidly entry the Digicam,” Apple writes for the setting.
Native Seize choices
Native Seize is a straightforward strategy to report high-quality video and audio recordings of video calls in your iPhone, and the iOS 26.1 beta introduces a brand new Settings menu for the function. The menu offers you the choice to pick a save location in your recordings, in addition to a toggle that allows you to solely report audio when utilizing Native Seize.
“Add Native Seize to Management Middle to report your personal audio and video throughout a name to save lots of and edit later,” Apple writes within the Native Seize settings web page.
New Accessibility choice
The iOS 26.1 beta additionally introduces a brand new choice to want single-touch actions over sliding actions in your iPhone’s display screen. Yow will discover this new choice by going to Settings > Accessibility > Contact and scrolling to the underside of the web page.
Alarm will get one other replace
Certainly one of my favourite small upgrades in iOS 26 was the power to change your alarm snooze length. Within the iOS 26.1 beta, Apple makes it more durable to unintentionally dismiss your alarm. When your alarm goes off within the beta, you now must swipe to cease it somewhat than hit a button. This may very well be annoying in case you’re making an attempt to close your alarm off quick, or it might assist make sure you’re really awake earlier than you flip your alarm off.
Altering songs in Apple Music
Apple Music bought a handful of recent options in iOS 26, however the iOS 26.1 beta would not change a lot concerning the app or service. As a substitute, the replace enables you to change songs in a brand new manner.
With the iOS 26.1 beta, as an alternative of tapping the subsequent or backward buttons to vary songs, you may swipe left or proper on the track title from the music participant inside Apple Music. You are able to do this when the participant is taking over your complete display screen or whenever you’re trying by means of Apple Music and the participant is small and close to the underside of your display screen. The track title even seems to leap left or proper whenever you change songs now, too.
Extra Stay Translation languages
The iOS 26.1 beta provides extra languages to the brand new Live Translation function. Apple launched this function to iPhones and AirPods with iOS 26, and the beta lets builders and beta testers use it with these languages.
- Chinese language (Mandarin, simplified)
- Chinese language (Mandarin, conventional)
- Italian
- Japanese
- Korean
Apple Intelligence in additional languages
You probably have an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone, iOS 26.1 beta 1 brings the AI options to those languages.
- Chinese language (conventional)
- Danish
- Dutch
- Norwegian
- Portuguese (Portugal)
- Swedish
- Turkish
- Vietnamese
Calendar replace
Not a significant change, however the iOS 26 beta updates the Calendar interface. For those who view your calendar in Listing View, any calendar occasions you’ve on a particular day might be coloured throughout the entire backside a part of your display screen.
New video scrubbing bar
The iOS 26.1 beta additionally brings a small change to the video scrubbing bar in Pictures. For those who go into Pictures and watch a video, you may discover that the bar throughout the underside of your display screen is extra compact and inline in comparison with the previous scrubbing bar, which had the play/pause and quantity buttons above the bar.
That is one other small change that you simply may not have even seen.
These are just a few of the brand new options builders and public beta testers can strive with the fourth public beta of iOS 26.1. There’ll probably be extra betas earlier than the OS is launched to the general public, so there’s loads of time for Apple to vary these options.
For extra iOS information, this is my review of the iOS 26, methods to scale back the Liquid Glass results within the replace and the way text screening works within the replace. You can too try our iOS 26 cheat sheet.
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