iOS 26 Developer Beta 4 Released

Hello everyone,

It has come to our attention that this release causes a device to crash when VoiceOver is running. A member on our team as well as others has run into this issue.
Please be aware of this before trying to update your device.

so far, I have not encountered a crash happening to my device while VoiceOver is running

Is this iOS or iPadOS?

So far the devices we have had this issue with are iPads

Hi all,

Here are the things fixed:

1. You can once again read transcripts when an audio message has been sent or received. This was previously broken in the previous beta builds, but as of beta 4, it has been restored.
2. Contacts that have been saved to your phone and have RCS enabled is now once again read as names instead of phone numbers. In previous beta builds for both iOS and MacOS, only the phone number was red forcing you to see the person as just a phone number. It was very annoying, but I'm glad that they fixed it and it has once again been restored as well.

That's all I have for now.

PS. no crashes from VO on my end.

No crashes on an iPhone 16E.

Hi,
I'm writing this comment on my iPhone 16 pro max, which now has the 4th beta installed & it hasn't crashed.
I'll test my iPad & get back to you.

so far I don't have the issue with my sixth generation iPad mini but I've not used it a lot since it was updated. My fingers are crossed

i am going to report this but i am not still able to get alex. has anyone been able to do this in the latest beta?

after I downloaded the update, I went into settings, and Alex showed that he could be downloaded. Double tapping on the download button did nothing. The download text went away, as well as the size of the Voice. Several hours later, it’s doing the same thing. Weirdly, when I restarted my device earlier, the download button showed up again. what it did before this update, it would just simply state, Alex, 885 MB. Nothing happens when double tapping on the voice when it’s in this state.

I am also experiencing the issue where I cannot download certain voices. For example, I cannot use the Samantha enhanced voice at the moment.

Here are some other changes. The screen unknown callers settings has been updated with the following options. They are: Never , Calls from unsaved numbers will ring, and missed calls will be displayed on the Recents list, Ask Reason for Calling , Calls from unsaved numbers will be asked for more information before iPhone rings, and Silence , Calls from unsaved numbers will be silenced, sent to voicemail, and displayed on the Recents list.

The call recording option has been updated to Audio Call Recording.

WHen you make a phone call with someone, on the main phone call screen you now have a more button which presents the following options: add people, audio call recording, and hold assist.

Hi,
My ipad is fine.
I still can't drag apps to the dock, using edit mode, which I've reported but it's still broken in this new beta.

I am writing to you on my iPad Air m3 running iOS 26 Developer Beta 4. No problems here. Which iPads are you guys seeing the issue on? One person has the iPad Mini sixth gen, I the iPad Air M3.

I chose another voice,, uninstalled alex then reinstalled the voice and double tapped on it and it worked.

This is on an IPhone 12 or 13, I can't remember what moddel it is right now.

I swair it showed up in software update as beta 3 for me but the build number ends in I so I think I am on beta 4, no crashes with voiceover, in the last beta I couldn't open notification sentter when in apps but that's fixed in beta 4, I thot the focus jumping was partly fixt but it's not, oh and now you can swipe to the button to resize windows

This is on my iPad 9 btw

Hi,
Has the way we add apps to the dock on the iPad changed in iPadOS26?
It hasn't worked if using edit mode, since sometime in iPadOS18 & continues to be broken in all 4 betas of iPadOS26 thus far.
Any hints would be greatly appreciated.

Hi all, I hope you are doing well. I'm not sure if anyone is experienceing this issue, but in messages, sometimes VO doesan't ready the messages that come in. whenever I check the messages, it says, for example, One unread message, forcing me to go into messages to read the messages manually. before in previous beta builds, whenever a message came in, it instently read the notifications with no issues. if anyone is experienceing the same issue as me, please report this to apple in feedback. thanks.

At least since beta three, it seems that the long-standing bug that caused VoiceOver to speak extremely loudly when connecting a Bluetooth speaker has been fixed

The public beta is out and I installing it in my iPad 9. Cross fingers.

Now that the public iOS 26 beta is out, we encourage you to share any bugs you find using our Community Bug Report Form. By reporting issues together, we can raise awareness with Apple more effectively and increase the chances of getting those bugs fixed.

Interestingly, some of the most vocal critics of Apple's handling of bugs—especially those highlighted in our past Apple Report Cards on AppleVis—haven't submitted any bug reports or shared them with the community. If you’ve encountered issues, this is your opportunity to speak up and make a difference.

Help us help the community by submitting your findings. The more reports we gather, the stronger our voice becomes.

Happy bug hunting!

lots for me. I intend on reporting them, and then figuring out how this community bug report form works.

Well installed it on my iPad 9. Voiceover is not working, lock screen continues to ask for 6 code. It takes it and locks again. Oh well. Friend is going to visit me tomorrow. She is sighted. I will ask what she see in the screen. Now VO is not doing anything. Long live the apple.

Hi all, for some reason voice vista was repeaatedly crashing on my beta 3 but appears stable in beta 4. I'm also curious if the functionality to quickly open an app from the home screen with a braille display is here, I can't seem to do it but perhaps I'm doing something wrong? I'm on an SE3 BTW, haven't noticed any obvious bugs so far but the day is young haha.

Hi guys so with this beta in messages the back button seems to be announced as back dimmed however double tapping on it lets you go back so I'm not sure whether to report this or not. Doesn't seem like a big deal to me.

Hey guys.
Have reported the feedback about the back button in messages being announced as dimmed
Feedback number is:
FB19070035

I guess, like me, most people use the feedback app to report the bugs directly to apple. I like the idea of the centralised bug reporting on here.

I don't have time to do both.

Just curious, for those of you testing the current beta. There is a long-standing VoiceOver issue in which you open an app and VoiceOver focus lands in the status bar. Is this issue still present?

Hi all,
I updated to the iOS 26 public beta and it made the AirPods Beta option appear for my AirPods Pro 2. I have the USB C version so I figured I'd have no issues. I left the devices sitting next to each other charging for an hour yesterday twice and the firmware did not update. I left them charging together overnight last night and still nothing. I tried leaving them together for an hour this morning on the charge with my iPhone unlocked and still nothing. I've never had issues updating AirPods firmware before so I don't know what to do. I know I need to leave the AirPods case closed and have them plugged in next to my iPhone, but it just doesn't seem to be doing anything. Anyone have any advice on how to get this firmware to update?

Some suggest that you listen to music for more than 10 seconds and them set it up to update, Make sure they are close to each other phone and airpods. Both connected. Good luck.

if my AirPods don’t update, I will sometimes plug them into my Mac, make sure they’re connected, do something on my Mac, doesn’t matter what it is, and then they will usually update. Try that if all else fails.

Can't try the Mac method. I had an old intel mac and I decided to get some store credit out of it while I still could. I'll try listening to some tunes and immediately popping them on my charging pad with my phone for a while. How can I make sure they're connected though? If both pods are in the case and I close it Bluetooth usually shows disconnected.

Still not working. It's doubly frustrating because the devices are clearly talking to each other. I checked after the half hour it's supposed to take and my iPhone showed a notification that the AirPods are fully charged. So I don't know why it's still not updating. I have both items in the AirPods Beta menu set to On so far as I can tell it should be updating.

Yes that's been around for years

Just having a quick google, it's suggested to make sure there is nothing else magic switching the airpods pro 2 or airpods 4 like an iPad or apple watch.

Did I dream it, or was there going to be a way of finally manually updating airpods?

Get getting the fully charged notification means that your updates have been applied, at least in theory, since to my knowledge this is a new feature.

When VO is on the software crashes and need to do a restart. Needed the help of a sighted friend. Also some apps closes the OS such as youtube. Will wait for the next release and hope VO is fix. Sent report to accessibility at apple. My sighted friend was not impressed with the OS.