iOS 26 developer beta three has been released. If you notice anything new, you can add a comment. Please note that some voices are still not working for me in development beta three.
By Seamus, 7 July, 2025
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Comments
Messages notifications now work, as well as incoming phone sound
Subject says it all. Messages notifications now work as well as when you receive an incoming call from either the phone app or FaceTime app. Previous beta only your Mac would ring but not the phone. Now it works as normal again. thanks apple for resolving it quickly. lets keep sending feedback.
iOS 26 beta 3 released
Nothing new for VoiceOver users.
Audio Ducking Now Works
So in Beta 2, when you tried adjusting the volume of audio, when Audio Ducking was enabled, the media volume would not work. But now in Beta three, it works now.
New velocity options for VoiceOver
in the ferocity section of VoiceOver, there is now a new section to manage and delete custom labels. You can also finally change the list position announcements.
A long delay for accessibility hints
I have noticed there is now more of a delay for an accessibility hint, if there is one. For example, on a Text field, there is now a lot of a delay before it says Text field double tap to edit.
New velocity options for VoiceOver
Hey Seamus,
Can you please explain what deleting custom labels is?
Thank you
deleting custom labels
in some apps that have not been designed with accessibility, you can double tap, and hold with two fingers to label something that’s not accessible. This has been a feature for years. There is just not been a feature until now where you can actually delete those labels. For example, let’s say that you have an app that has an unlabeled play button. If you double tap and hold with two fingers on that button, you can label it to say play. However, if you want to delete that label. After updating iOS 26, you will be able to do that.
The padding elements have disappeared!
The subject says it all! I'm happy to report that VoiceOver no longer sees the padding elements in beta 3. The keyboard is back to normal.
Are there any new voices for voiceover?
Are there any new voices for voiceover? That’s my favorite part of any of operating system updates.
there are some new Indian voices, but I have not tried them yet
there is one new Indian Voice however I have not tried it out yet
Deleting Labeled Elements
Hey Seamus,
Thank you for explaining it now. It makes sense now. Before you had to double-tap and hold with 2 fingers find the delete option on the keyboard. But now that is not the case. Thank you Apple. This is long overdue.
Agreed
This has been on macOS for sometime now, good to see it finally come to iOS as well. :-)
voices not working
The bug where you can't download some voices is still there.
add the ability to share labels
I would like to see added the ability to share labels. This would be very helpful I think.
Custom voices doesn't work with Speak Screen
The title says it all. I've downloaded, for example, Espeak NG -- it works with VO without any issues, but after swiping with two fingers from status-bar it starts speaking with default voice for current language. I've doubly checked, that Espeak also selected in Speak Screen settings not only in VoiceOver settings. Also I've tried to change it to some other voice and back again, reboot iPhone for several times, disable and reenable Speak Screen itself -- nothing works.
You are all very brave to Beta test
My subject line says it all. :-) I do not have enough technology knowledge or comfort level to be a test. I have one phone and one iPad. I use them too much as their initial use of their devices to test with them. So my iPad is used for all of my Apple Music songs, which is a lot of them now. And my phone is my primary device Everything else so I’m not putting any of mine through beta software. I think there’s plenty of people who are in the same position and that’s why there are not a lot of voiceover beta testers. I’m sure the people that can do it well though. So I don’t think we need to worry about not having enough of us.
@SingerGirl oh no, i'm stupid.
I downloaded the software without backing up my phone and am now stuck on the beta. Luckily it seams to now be working when it comes to phone calls, but never ever download a beta without backing up your software.
Eloquence community Dictionary now works on MacOs beta 3!
Subject says it all! the Eloquence Community Dictionary works normally on MacOS beta 3 as well! now it works normally again. Thanks apple! -:)
The UI has ben changed
For some of us including me that have a bit of vision the transparent UI has been reduced a lot in this beta, it's still there a bit but it's not as bad as it was in betas 1 and 2
I am now able to better see when the control center is opened, I know voiceover tells me but I like to still use the little vision I still have
crazy keyboard issue still exists
i've not been keeping an eye on the forums so not sure if anyone else has said this. Since beta won, frequently I'm finding that the keyboard ends up a complete mess with some letters from the left side of the keyboard moving to the right and vice versa. very strange. I've not yet asked a side person to tell me if visually it does this but I imagine if it was visual there would be a lot being said about it
@Peter Holdstock
Send that as a feedback report if you can, that's very important.
It hasn't been happening to me but that doesn't mean it isn't a thing.
I've sent more feedback.
For me, when I have youtube open; if someone calls me; i don't hear my ringtone at all. This is a huge issue when a phone is meant to do that as a primary function.
it's a known issue which appears to be resolved in beta3.
I was reading the Feedback release notes, and saw that issue in there. It appears to be resolved:
I don't know if this is the issue you're talking about, but it appears to be fixed in beta three. This is the first time I've noticed this in the release notes.
search button missing in the contacts tab Of the phone app.
The search button in the contacts of the phone app seems to be missing.
atleast I can't see it with voiceover in this beta.
the search button is located before the section index but in this beta it seems to have disappeared.
search is at the bottom
search is at the bottom I believe.
phone calls are working fine
phone calls when YouTube is open works fine. In beta two after updating, I did have an issue with my phone just didn’t ring and I didn’t know that someone was calling me. However, this seems to be an intermittent bug because when I use my Amazon echo dot to call my phone while playing a YouTube video, the YouTube video will stop and then the phone will ring.
New sound
There is a new sound with voiceover when going in to the main content of an app or website
New sound?
I have not noticed a new sound when going into the main content of any application. Are you talking about the sound when you move into a container?
Re new sound
Try this, in safari go to the address bar and swipe or drag your finger to the main part of the webpage and listen very cairfully, i can hear a new sOund that voiceover didn’t make before
I have noticed it now
it’s very subtle. It sounds the same sound as when you navigate inside of a touch container.
clear all button gone from phone app
I wonder if anybody even cares that the clear all button is gone from the Phone app. Similarly in the new Safari compact mode layout, there’s no way to clear all tabs. Why don’t people have a problem with this?
clear button gone from phone app
Are you sure it’s gone? I haven't beta tested but in prier versions of ios the clear button at least on the phone app doesn't show up until you press edit in recent calls and that'll make the clear button show. Odd bug, though. I'm guessing it affects sighted users as well? Could it have been moved to settings maybe?
Inability to react on Whatsapp
I'm not sure if the problem is with the whatsapp app, or this beta, but I can no longer react on whatsapp. If I swipe down to react and double-tap, The thumbs up reaction pops up and disappears immediately, without giving you to swipe to the right in order to explore other emojis. It probably could be a whatsapp problem.
Well, I restarted my device and the problem is now gone. I can react normally again on Whatsapp.
VoiceOver does not announce who is typing in a group chat
I have already reported this to feedback, but I just thought I will share this here. When you were in a group conversation and someone starts typing, the typing indicator just says buddy is typing and it does not actually say the person who is typing.
in line replies
The RCS 3.0 standards haven't been added see this Macrumors article.
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/07/09/ios-26-beta-still-lacks-rcs-3/
New Braille Access Option: Calculator
Hi.
In Settings, > Accessibility, > VoiceOver, > Braille, > Braille access, there's now a new option that lets you chose the braille code for the nemeth calculator. The options are Nemeth and UEB Math.
For @Seamus: "Buddy is Typing..."
I remember this behavior being present in iOS 10 in 2016. It is something that has occasionally crossed my mind to report, as I would think VoiceOver could be programmed to say the contact's name. Awesome that you reported this!
for @michael, buddy is typing...
The only trouble I see with this is, if you do not have the contact in your contacts; do you really want to hear +123456 is typing, every time? I.e like in other platforms, i.e, whats app etc? It doesn't really sound like bug to me tbh.
@ash rein I've reported this.
i'll probably do it again for this version but yeah, it is annoying, either they decided to get rid of it for some reason, or this just won't be a thing anymore in the stable version.
can't play artists in apple music with siri
When I ask Siri to play for example ImagineDragons, which are not in my library, it says, there is a problem with Apple Music.
Listening to Voice Mail
I noticed that in the last two betas of iOS 18.6, when listening to Voice Mail messages, although the audio routing button says "Speaker", there is no way to get the voice mail to play through the speaker. I always have to hold the phone up to my ear when listening to Voice Mail.
I'm just wondering if this is still a problem in the iOS 26 betas or not. Basically I can't toggle from Speaker to Ear Piece listening when listening to Voice Mails.
If one of you testing the iOS 26 beta could take a look at that, it would be appreciated.
Another suggestion I've made to Apple is that there should be an audio routing button on the main dialog of the Voice Mail tab. Currently, if one taps a new voice mail item in the main dialog, the voice mail opens up to automatically start playing in a new window. Unfortunately, you can't change the audio destination until after the voice mail starts playing. Thus, if you're holding the phone up to your ear to hear the message, you have to swipe around to find the audio destination button with Voiceover and toggle it (which doesn't work in iOS 18.6 betas). By the time you find the button to toggle to speaker, you've missed a lot of the message. Thus my suggestion to Apple was to put the audio destination button in the main dialog of the Voice Mail tab so that one could choose the audio destination prior to listening to the message.
Interestingly, for a voice mail that one has already listened to, I don't think that it automatically starts playing when you tap on the item in the list of voice mails. The automatic playing only seems to happen the first time you listen to the message.
--Pete
Locked screen notifications.
Has the issue whereby VO cuts off notifications on the locked screen been resolved? Have a feeling this maybe one of those 18 iOS issues that drags on into 26.