Early betas are brutal, but iOS 26 is already on the road to recovery
Apple's first iOS 26 beta was so rough that it had some falling over themselves to write it off forever. But that's an overreaction to say the least, and Apple is already showing why you can't judge an update by its beta 1 release.
Control Center is much more legible in iOS 26 developer beta 2
I've long been of the opinion that people shouldn't install beta software, especially on their iPhones. That's doubly true when we're talking about an initial beta release that dropped hours after the WWDC opening keynote on June 9.
That isn't to say that I always follow my own advice. In fact, I rarely do, although I do hide behind the fact that I need the betas for work.
At least, that's how I justify it to myself.
But iOS 26 beta 1 was so bad, so unusable, that even I couldn't stick with it. I'd rolled back to iOS 18.5 long before WWDC week came to an end, vowing to wait until much later in the cycle to try again.
That being said, as bad as iOS 26 beta 1 was, it's important to remember what we're dealing with here. That is, an early beta of the biggest graphical redesign the iPhone has undergone since iOS 7. And that one didn't go too smoothly, either.
For that reason, I think it's important that people not lose their heads. That they're more measured in their response than the "Apple's doomed" and "Apple designers have lost the plot" posts that I saw on social media.
I know. I might as well wish for world peace and the numbers for this week's lotto, too.
iOS 26: The bad, and the ugly
Two weeks after Apple's iOS 26 beta launched, I probably don't need to tell you how bad it was -- everyone has been very quick to share their experiences with it. The new Liquid Glass design language is cool and all, but it's unworkable and makes it impossible to see the icons in Notification Center, let alone read notifications.
It's an accessibility nightmare, to be sure. But thankfully, if there's one thing that Apple very rarely misses on, it's accessibility. The translucent glass-like interface can be toned down via a toggle in the Accessibility section of the Settings app. But it doesn't go away.
In its attempt to make everything look fresh and new, Apple had given everyone a very un-iOS-like interface that they couldn't really use. And that was before we got to the other problems.
Those problems included molasses-like performance on my iPhone 15 Pro Max. Then there was the battery life that was so poor I could almost see the energy falling from my iPhone's USB-C port.
Oh, and the heat. So much heat. And my iPhone wouldn't reliably receive phone calls.
But while everyone took to social media to share their screenshots and suggest that "Steve Jobs would never have let this happen," I simply rolled back to iOS 18.5 like a gentleman. Because it's a beta, and betas come with certain expectations.
But . Apple *didn't* ship it to users.
Yes it's bad, but come on now, let's not be silly. https://t.co/FEu2DEX6hG-- Oliver Haslam (@OliverJHaslam)
Betas are, of course, pre-release software that isn't yet ready. It's so beta that Apple doesn't even want its public beta testers to try it. They'll get to play with iOS 26 next month.
That'll come around the time the developer beta reaches its third or fourth release. When all the biggest bugs are fixed, and iPhones don't burn hands.
As the new iOS 26 beta 2 release shows, bugs won't be the only improvements public beta testers can look forward to, either.
iOS 7 walked so iOS 26 could run
The last major iPhone interface revamp came back in 2013 with the release of iOS 7. To say the least, iOS 7 had its own rocky beta program.
Apple's still tweaking the Liquid Glass material, which is much better on the Lock Screen in beta 2
With iOS 7, Apple flattened out the whole iPhone software experience, ditching the skeuomorphic aesthetic that everyone was so used to. And people hated it.
Apple's case wasn't helped by some odd Control Center choices, and there were similar transparency/translucency issues to the ones we're seeing today. But by the time iOS 7 shipped later that year, things had changed. The most severe design changes had been rolled back, at least to some degree, and the whole experience was better for it.
Fast-forward to today, June 23, 2025, and we're already seeing this pattern repeat itself. Two weeks after iOS 26 beta 1, beta 2 is now available for download -- and things are looking better already.
Apple has already toned down the new Control Center situation, so the background is darker with a heavier blur. The result? You can actually see the buttons again, just as Steve intended.
Similar improvements have been made to Notification Center. So you can actually read your notifications again.
It's as if, and bear with me, Apple is making changes from one beta to the next. It's as if the whole thing were a process that allows it to take feedback and then implement changes based on that feedback.
In the same way we're often told not to judge a book by its cover, the same can be said for software. You cannot, should not, judge an update by its early betas.
I expect that things will change yet further. The iOS 26 that we see in beta 2 will not be the iOS 26 that comes preinstalled on iPhone 17 models this September. And that's good, it shows the beta program works.
Apple's iOS 26 will never be as rough as it was in that early beta release. We saw it at its worst. And if you can't accept that, you don't deserve it at its best.
Now, roll on beta 3 and beyond.
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Comments
You actually installed it? Because it seemed to me that 2/3's of the folks who were complaining were simply posting and reposting the same internet images over and over again.
I’m generally not a fan of motion effects in the UI, because they always bring some heating and performance side effects. I’ll favor a fast M5 and larger battery, with a well-designed flat UI. 👍
there have been much worse beta 1 releases. A beta without data loss is a good beta.
I never thought I have to go bsck. Battery life has always been worse in Beta versions, so I carry a Magsafe battery. Big deal. Home works, my Banking security works, my VPN works, my RSA and authenticator apps work, everything IOT works and my Schlage locks using HomeKey work.
Ive always been impressed by Apples stability in early Betas; I’ve reported a few bugs or wrongdoings or functionality losses through Feedback; they were addressed in later releases.
Florian (Germany, iPhone 16 Pro, now on B2)
I started using the developer beta on my iPad mini a few days ago, and didn't run into any significant issue. Yes, the text in the (new) menus could be hard to read depending on the background image, but it was still functional. If anything, I was disappointed that it didn't feel radically different than prior version.
To be blunt, installing a developer beta should be guided by knowledge that you have a need to install a developer beta. If your only “need” is curiosity, you may want to wait a little longer for the public beta to come squirting out of the pipe. Even then, you’re still taking on a risk. I’m not in the business of instructing people about things they can or cannot do. It’s their own decision to make. As long as there are no consequences of their choices that affect me, I really don’t care one way or another.
I’ve installed beta versions, even a developer beta 1version, that totally borked one of my systems. I spent several hours putting all the pieces back together again. It was a learning experience, largely performed inside the terminal app and recovery mode. I didn’t lose anything, other than the time involved getting everything working again on the last known good version. Would I put my self through that again? No, now I’ll wait until beta 2 at the very least. If it’s driven by curiosity rather than need I will wait for the public beta. Of course I always host the beta on a secondary system, one I don’t rely on for personal or professional needs. But if you want to put betas on your primary money-maker system, go ahead, but please make a YouTube video of it. There are already tons of car crash, train crash, car-vs-train crash, total fail, etc., videos on YouTube. Why not create a new category for beta software disasters? I’d watch it.
That said, UX design is not the same as coding. There may be some graphical glitches, words that are truncated, images that get clipped, or some icon that isn't showing the proper state. But when the designer intentionally produces a UI scheme with poor legibility of key design elements, that's just incompetent. When it isn't caught by QA and remedied well before the first beta, that's doubly incompetent.
Design used to be the soul of Apple's brand. Every single industrial designer in the world used to be inspired by Apple's very obvious leadership - in both hardware and software. The first iMac was followed by a tsunami of products - all copying the Apple design revolution. Similarly with the sleek aluminum MacBooks, and of course the groundbreaking iPhone.
Then Jobs passed away. And that was it. Since then Apple has been more of a follower than a leader. The flat and dull iOS 7 was mostly a reaction to Android's Material Design. On the hardware side, every new generation of iPhones, iPads, and Macs have been some version of designs we've seen before. Nothing new, nothing exciting.
I haven't tried the new versions of the OSes, but they seem like uninspired regurgitations of previous uses of translucency - as seen on both Macs and PCs. And to add insult to injury, apparently with poor usability as well.
There is a reason I never watch the Apple events anymore. Steve Jobs is dead and so is Apple's design leadership.