Apple Releases iOS 18 Beta 6 and iOS 18.1 Beta 2 | Here’s What’s New

As the march toward September’s inevitable Apple event continues, Apple has released another new set of developer and public betas. However, we’re in a somewhat unusual situation this year with two parallel beta cycles running.

Apple kicked off the usual iOS 18.0 beta cycle following its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June but then surprised us in late July with an iOS 18.1 developer beta that introduced the first of its promised Apple Intelligence features.

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Apple has promised that Apple Intelligence would be available to beta testers over the summer. Until the iOS 18.1 beta came along, many assumed it would be added to a later iOS 18.0 beta. The subsequent “point-one” release revealed that Apple plans to hold off on introducing these features until at least October, which makes them unlikely to be ready when the new iPhone 16 lineup launches.

Still, those with devices that support Apple Intelligence — an iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 15 Pro Max — can jump into the iOS 18.1 betas right now. You’ll need an Apple Developer account to do so, as Apple hasn’t yet released a public beta of iOS 18.1. Still, developer betas are now free to download, so you merely need to sign in with your Apple ID at developer.apple.com and agree to the terms and conditions. The same applies to the iPadOS 18.1 and macOS Sequoia 15.1 betas, which are available for any iPad or Mac using an M-series chip.

For everyone else, the sixth iOS 18.0 beta and its accompanying iPadOS 18.0 and macOS Sequoia 15.0 betas are now available to both developers and public beta testers.

What Are the Differences Between iOS 18.0 Beta 6 and iOS 18.1 Beta 2?

The key difference between the two versions is the Apple Intelligence features. iOS 18.1 adds Writing Tools, email and notification summarization, and priority messages in Apple Mail.

Beyond that, iOS 18.0 offers everything that iOS 18.1 does, and it may occasionally provide a bit more if the updates leapfrog each other. For instance, a week after the first iOS 18.1 beta came out, Apple released iOS 18.0 beta 5, adding some tweaks to the Photos app and a new Distraction Control in Safari. Folks running the iOS 18.1 beta were left out of those until this week when Apple added them to iOS 18.1 beta 2.

With iOS 18.0 beta 6 also released at the same time, the versions may remain in lockstep, but it’s still possible that another iOS 18.0 beta could land earlier than its iOS 18.1 counterpart. After all, iOS 18.0 is Apple’s priority right now, as it’s slated for a September release. This gives you a good reason to stick with the iOS 18.0 betas, especially if you don’t care about Apple Intelligence or you live outside of the United States and don’t feel like changing your language and region just to try it out.

What’s New in iOS 18.0 Beta 6 (and iOS 18.1 Beta 2)

As noted earlier, iOS 18.1 beta 2 catches up with last week’s changes from iOS 18.0 beta 5 by incorporating those changes. Both versions now move forward from there, with refinements that suggest Apple is now putting the finishing touches on iOS 18.0. Here are a few things we’ve found so far:

1. Following the elimination of the new carousel design in the Photos app last week, Apple has redesigned the Albums collection to expand it into individual cards for each album while also shrinking other smart collections like Recent Days into square single thumbnails rather than rectangular multi-image blocks.
2. When customizing your Home Screen with an icon tint, you can now link that to your background wallpaper so the color of your icons will change when you switch between wallpapers (or your iPhone does so automatically for different Focus modes).
3. App icons that appear in notifications now reflect Dark and Light modes properly.
4. Recents in the Phone app has reverted to the design from iOS 17 and earlier versions, with an “info” button on the left to view details of a recent call, while the main tappable area returns the call. This switched in the first iOS 18 beta, where tapping on the name opened the contact card, and a phone icon replaced the “info” button to let you return the call.
5. Apple Music has renamed the “Browse” button to “New,” continuing a trend that began in iOS 17.4 when “Listen Now” switched to “Home.” As with that previous change, the section’s content remains the same.
6. The new customizable Control Center gets an independent Bluetooth toggle. While prior iOS 18 betas added separate buttons for Airplane Mode, Cellular Data, and Personal Hotspot, others like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi were only available in the Connectivity control cluster.
   

Apple has also added new introductory splash screens to many of its apps to highlight these changes. While some of these appeared in earlier iOS 18 betas, they’ve expanded to nearly every first-party app with noteworthy changes, suggesting that Apple is finalizing things for the iOS 18.0 release.