As we keep warning prospective testers, Apple’s software betas are prone to bugs. Until a big software update is pushed live to the general public—and sometimes even beyond that point—it should be regarded as unfinished, flawed, and liable to go wrong in all sorts of unexpected ways.
This particularly applies to a first developer beta, the most speculative and the least finished of an update’s run; the one that has been subject to precisely zero testing in the real world outside Apple’s labs. And so the first dev betas of iOS 26, macOS 26, watchOS 26 and so on, which became available on the first day of WWDC 2025 earlier this month, were a risky proposition. And the second betas, which landed last week, were eagerly awaited. And it seems they were worth the wait.
In a brief coda to his latest Power On newsletter, Bloomberg reporter Mark Gurman outlines the key elements that have changed from the first to the second dev betas. And top of his list is a biggie: “The performance and overall stability across all the operating systems have improved to a noticeable degree.” This means that they are less likely to cause problems for the devices they are running on, whether that means a minor reduction in speed, the loss of key functions, or a total bricking.
This is particularly important because stability worries are one of the key factors deterring testers from installing early betas, which in turn means fewer testing data points and less feedback for Apple. At this point only app developers are allowed to run the betas (even if it’s an open secret that many non-devs participate anyway) but it’s crucial for Apple to get the fundamentals right before it opens the public beta in July.
And some other off-putting annoyances have been tackled in the second beta. Gurman notes that Apple has adjusted the blur effect in Control Center, an effect which in the first beta had caused legibility issues for both text and icons, and tweaked the Safari interface in iOS to make it easier to access buttons and tabs. The Liquid Glass redesign looks nice enough, but there had been some concerns that it was sacrificing usability for aesthetics, and it sounds like Apple is trying to redress that balance.
There will be plenty more changes before iOS 26 launches officially in the fall. There are plenty more things that need to change. But based on the upgrade from first to second developer betas, Apple has made a good start.
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