iOS 18 Public Beta & iPadOS 18 Public Beta Now Available

Apple has started the iOS 18 public beta program for iPhone, and iPadOS 18 public beta for iPad, allowing any interested user to beta test the upcoming system software version on their iPhone or iPad.

iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 includes many new features, including new Apple Intelligence AI features, enhancements to dark mode including dark themed icons, a new color hue customization option for home screen icons, the ability to place icons and widgets just about anywhere on the home screen, enhancements and a redesign to Photos app, customization options for Control Center, new Messages app features including RCS support for improved messaging between iPhone and Android users (this helps remedy situations where low quality or blurry video and images arrive on Android devices when sent from iPhone via text messsage and SMS/MMS protocol), a dedicated Passwords app, Safari improvements and AI features like page summarization, and much more.

The first public beta matches the freshly released revised 3rd developer betas of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia 15.

Anyone interested in running the iOS 18 public beta on their iPhone, or iPadOS 18 public beta on their iPad, can begin the process by enrolling their Apple ID at the public beta website here at beta.apple.com.

We’ll cover the full installation process for users interested in running the public betas on their iPhone or iPad in a series of upcoming walkthroughs.

Beta system software is notoriously buggy and less reliable than stable builds, so even though the public beta is now available to everyone (the developer beta is too, for that matter), it is still only recommended for advanced users to run, preferably on a secondary device.

The final versions of iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 will be released this fall, according to Apple.