Maps, Ads, and Secure Chats: What’s New in iOS 26.5 Beta 2
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Right on track, Apple has just pushed out the second developer betas of iOS 26.5 and the rest of its operating systems, two weeks following the first beta release at the end of March.
While we’re well past the point of seeing major new features — those are undoubtedly being saved for iOS 27, set to be unveiled in less than two months at Apple’s June Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) — it does appear that iOS 26.5 has a few interesting things in store for us.
RCS Encryption Improves
Not the least of these is the possibility that RCS end-to-end encryption (E2EE) might finally be ready for prime time. Apple promised this over a year ago immediately after the GSM Association (GSMA) announced that E2EE support would be officially coming as part of the new Messaging Layer Security (MLS) specification. Unlike the proprietary E2EE that Google had cooked up for RCS, this was an open standard that made it much easier for Apple to embrace.
Still, it’s taken much longer to arrive than we expected. Apple began testing RCS encryption in iOS 26.4, but made it clear at the time that this wouldn’t be part of the final public release, and the feature was gone by the fourth iOS 26.4 beta. It’s now returned in the iOS 26.5 betas, and as of today’s beta 2 release it now seems to be working more reliably with Android devices. Today’s release marks the first time I’ve been able to successfully establish encrypted RCS communications with my Google Pixel 6 test device.
The iOS 26.5 developer release notes are entirely silent on that state of RCS, but this may be a case where no news is good news; there’s no mention RCS in the new betas at all, but at least Apple isn’t saying it’s not shipping in this release.
Apple Maps: Ads and Suggested Places
Beyond RCS, the most significant user-facing changes coming in iOS 26.5 center on Apple Maps. As we observed in the first beta, Apple is laying the groundwork for adding ads to Apple Maps, and today’s second beta adds further confirmation of that with a new splash screen that pops up as soon as you open the Maps app.
Maps may show local ads based on your approximate location, current search terms, or view of the map while you search.
For your privacy, advertising information is not linked to your Apple Account.
Unlike the usual splash screens for new features, this one interestingly carries an “Apple Ads” header (“?Ads”) rather than “Apple Maps.”
Apple is also turning the key on a new “Suggested Places” feature in Apple Maps, which feels like it’s been added partly to give the company one more place to slip in some ads. As the name implies, Suggested Places will display recommendations for what’s trending nearby alongside recent searches and, of course, ads for specific locations that may be of interest to the user.
The ads will be tagged as such to ensure transparency, and hopefully won’t be too invasive, but they’ll be there nonetheless, and it’s a safe bet that the ad-tagged “Suggestions” will be based more on how much the venue has spent for placement and far less on how popular it is. The silver lining here is that these ads will still be local and restricted to a reasonable search radius, so you’re not going to find a place on the other side of town being shoved into a set of search results or suggestions for coffee shops or restaurants in your neighborhood.
We haven’t found anything else specifically new in the second beta, although it appears iOS and iPadOS 26.5 will also be adding auto-pairing for Apple’s Magic Accessories, adding them as Bluetooth devices as soon as they’re plugged into a USB-C port. There are also some improvements for the iPhone to Android Transfer feature that was introduced in IOS 26.3, signs of a new awards feature in Apple Books, and the ability for developers to bill users monthly for annual subscriptions. Check out our iOS 26.5 beta 1 coverage for more details.
