iOS 26.1 beta has released

17.48 GB!

That’s bigger than some macOS installers! The macOS Sequoia installer was around 15 GB.

Will see on my 14.
Yes, definitely bigger than macos at this point.

On my 15PM it came at 14Gig.

It was 13 gb here on my iPhone 16 Pro. Pretty darn good size.

so after an 8 gb download personal voice still not working? what else is supposed to have changed?

The only observable changes relate to new additional languages for live translation of messages. Also, for sighted users there is a liquid glass redisign for the phone keypad.

apple has really gone insane with there update sizes this year, not sure if the redisine has something to do with it but wow

When unlocking any app using face-ID, voice over says "use lock button, double-click to continue" Experienced this on both the messages app, as well as whatsapp. Using IOS 26.1 beta.

Not sure if its a bug or not but when watching in the tv app and going say, home and picture in picture gets displayed; you cannot swipe through the buttons, i.e, close picture in picture, restore full screen skip 15 seconds back, play etc, by swiping, you have to locate each button by direct touch. Is this still around in 26.1?

So maybe related to this big voiceover bug, but I noticed that after updating, on first boot, VO reverted back to Samantha compact. I had to redownload Allison, and it just worked.
I haven't really observed anything changed for my usecase but for safari seemingly more stable, hasn't crashed yet.
8gb for me.

Isn't the file size bigger than usual releases because the beta builds are debug builds?

You are downloading the iOS and not just bugs fixes.

Hi
It seems I am unable to find the mini player in the Music app with VoiceOver now. Anyone else experiencing this?

On the original Apple Macintosh in 1984, the entire operating system fit comfortably on a single 400kb 3.5" floppy disk.

On the original Apple Macintosh in 1984, the entire operating system fit comfortably on a single 400kb 3.5" floppy disk.

Whoa there, Paul!
Not everybody knows what a floppy disk is. 😄

I've not upgraded to the beta, but I understand they are testing new gestures to skip back and forth through tracks. More information can be found here.

Are they similar to floppy ears of a nice dog? Remember those. I had an apple C computer and a hard drive that took floppy disk.

Thanks Oliver! It could very well be that they're fiddling with how the mini player works that's causing the issue.
One is still able to access it with screen recognition, so I suspect they accidentally hid the element to VoiceOver. I've filed a bug report.

Best
M

I didn't own a Mac back in the day, but I used them frequently, as they were available at my university.

I owned an IBM PC clone. I donated my old 5 1/4 inch floppies to a computer museum in Dayton, Ohio. The collection included DOS 3.1 (fit on a single 360kb floppy), MS Windows version 2 (shipped on five floppies, but I don't recall how much was core and what was extras), and MS Flight Simulator (don't recall the version). Maybe Borland Turbo C as well.

I bought an Apple 2E around 1979 and used Echo speech synthesis. DOS was extremely responsive, even instantaneous, provided no floppy disk access was required. The old DOS WordPerfect was far superior to WordPerfect or pages or ay other word processor of this so-called modern day and age. Smile. On the other hand, Apple really made my life easier since around 2010, when I finally abandoned Windows.

Glad to see that the issue of the App Library always coming up when closing the app switcher seems to be fixed in the first public beta of iOS 26.1.

--Pete

Has anyone noticed any new bugs in 26.1? I'm considering installing the public beta.

The only new bug I’ve noticed is that the Safari bookmarks under favorites can no longer be read by VoiceOver. VoiceOver only reads each bookmark here as “button.” If you remember the order you’ve put them in, it’s not a big deal to deal with until Apple fixes it. I’ve reported it, but I haven’t seen anyone else mention this, so I’m not sure if this is a bug that everyone’s seeing or if it’s just me.

this is a bug. i reported it hoping it is fixed soon.

Does this happen when you choose to open a new tab and our presented with a list of all of your favorites? Or only when you open bookmarks Tabitha top or bottom of your browser?

When authenticating via face-ID, there is an announcement by VO which says: "Use the lock button... double click to continue."

Ok so updated to 26.1 PB. Good news for me when entering passcode I now have sounds indicating things are being entered again. Issue half the haptics have disappeared. When swiping I no longer get any haptic feedback. Some haptics still exist but a lot of them have vanished. All settings seem to be correct still so am investigating further to try and get them back. It's weird as I didn't realise how much I like them until they have gone!

What about typing, When sending message and tap the letter VO sometimes does not read the letter. Not using the beta. Also did the issue with VO and notification is fix? Probably not.

This happens when I open the bookmarks at the bottom of the screen.

Thank you for clarifying. You might want to consider having new tabs open up to your favorites. That way, they're just presented right there on screen, and you could just swipe through to the bookmark you want, then double tap to open up that webpage.
Just an idea. 🙂

I wonder if it will fix it.

I don't know if it will make VoiceOver read the labels for your bookmarks, from the bookmarks tab within the Safari browser toolbar. However, they should read when you choose new tab, because they're presented a lot like a link on a webpage that way. I hope that makes sense to you.

When you open Safari, double tap bookmarks, then swipe right until you hear things like bookmarks, reading list, etc. If you keep swiping right you will eventually hear the word favorites, followed by a number. When I double tap on that number, I get access to all of my bookmarks. Voiceover reads their labels just fine, and I can double tap on any of them to open that webpage.
Have any of you guys tried this? i'm thinking it's just the way iOS 26 displays the bookmarks now, because it looks like we can now have multiple folders of bookmarks. I don't know, maybe we always could, I just never really messed around with having multiple folders for bookmarks on my iPhone before.

Edit: this is on iOS 26.0, just FYI.

HTH.

tapping on that number does the trick. The only thing is how do I get it back to where it is in the favorites like it used to be now I don't see how to do that.

That, is a very good question. I will have to play around with my backup device that has iOS 26 on it, and see if I can't figure that one out for you. 😅

I would appreciate I tried 3 or 4 times I can't figure it out. Maybe I need more coffee I have it set to the top the address bar if that matters.

OK, this is what I found out through trial and error. Once you have double tapped on the number after the word favorites, like I described in one of my posts above, if you close Safari, or if you swipe over to the cancel button and then close Safari, the next time you open Safari and then double tap on the bookmarks tab, it will be as close to how it wasn't iOS 18 as we can get it right now.
Hope that makes sense to you.

Nice job! Very good!

Instructions for navigating bookmarks within Safari on iOS 26:
1. Open Safari, then double tap on bookmarks at the top or bottom of your toolbar. I do not think location really matters here. It's all just personal preference.
2. On the bookmarks screen, you will be presented with some buttons, with the word bookmarks being selected preferably. If you swipe all the way to the right you will hear the word favorites, followed by a number. This number represents how many bookmarks you have saved currently.
3. Double tap this number and you will be presented with your bookmarks, very similar to how they are displayed on iOS 18.
4. If you swipe all the way to the left, there will be a 'Back' button, which you will only really need if you want to access your history, or reading list.
5. On the other hand, if you do not press the 'Back' button, and instead either double tap on one of your favorites, or double tap on the 'Cancel' button, then the next time you open Safari and double tap on the bookmarks tab, your list of bookmarks will be displayed, like in step 3.

HTH.

Edited for typos.

In iOS 26, I'm experiencing a couple issues with the phone app in classic layout:
1. When reading the tabs at the bottom, VO indicates there are a total of 6 tabs, however there are only 5.
2. VO does not read the badge counts on the recents or voicemail tabs when there are new items.
Are these bugs still present in 26.1?

Yep still there 6 tabs but only 5 actual tabs. Sorted my haptic issue out did a hard reset 3 times then suddenly it fixed itself yawn.

Yes, it's the same in iOS 26.1. This is not only true for the Phone app but also for all applications that have footer tabs, such as Speech Central. Unfortunately, the VoiceOver situation worsens with every update.

Yes, I have noticed this also in the first iOS 26.1 public beta. Fortunately it is easy to ignore, but it is a bug!

--Pete

In the Apple News app, the titles of any Favorites is not being read properly. Instead of Voiceover saying things like "Science", "Artificial Intelligence", etc. when navigating through the Favorites list in News, Voiceover now seems to be reading icons and says things like "clouds", "sky", etc.

I've reported this through the beta Feedback system. This is a regression from previous versions.

--pete

A new problem I've seen since the first beta of iOS 26 is that, when wearing my Airpods Pro 2, after I ask Siri to dismiss a timer, Siri will not respond to any voice commands again for 1-2 minutes. After that long wait, I can then give voice commands to Siri and have them work.

I've only tried this sequence when wearing the Airpods. Once, when Siri was still not responding while wearing my Airpods, I took out the Airpods and gave my command through the phone's microphone. That worked. So somehow it seems like dismissing a timer changes iOS from listening through my Airpods to listening through the phone.

I wonder if anyone else has noticed this strange issue.

--Pete

For the little my opinion matters, I feel your instructions should be turned into a blog post and you should be given credit. They are spot on, and this
is what the AppleVis community was designed to do—to help each other! Awesome job!

Thanks. I'm not really sure if it is blog worthy or not, but thanks for the compliment all the same.