Friday April 3, 2026 10:58 am PDT by Juli Clover
Apple today seeded revised first betas of upcoming iOS 26.5 and iPadOS 26.5 updates to developers for testing purposes, with the software coming four days after Apple seeded the initial betas.
Registered developers can download the betas from the Settings app on the iPhone or iPad by going to the General section and selecting Software Update. It's not clear why Apple has seeded new beta updates, but there may be a bug fix that couldn't wait for the second beta.
iOS 26.5 and iPadOS 26.5 do not include new Siri capabilities, suggesting any Siri updates are being held until iOS 27. The Maps app has a Suggested Places feature for recommending locations to visit nearby based on trends and recent searches, plus Apple is laying the groundwork for ads.
Apple is again testing end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for RCS messages between iPhone and Android users. Apple tested the feature in iOS 26.4, but removed it before the update launched.
In the European Union, Apple is testing proximity pairing, notification forwarding, and Live Activities for third-party wearables like earbuds and smartwatches.
More detail on what's new in iOS 26.5 can be found in our beta 1 features guide.
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