PSA: Avoid the iOS 26.3 Beta if You Rely on These Features

Apple’s point-release betas are usually pretty pedestrian affairs when it comes to bugs and other glitches. While nobody should ever expect a beta to be perfect, they’ve at least been surprisingly stable for the last few years. However, this week’s third iOS 26.3 beta may be the exception that proves the rule.

While the good news is that it still won’t blow up your iPhone, it has rendered the core suite of Apple’s Continuity features inert — and Apple has confirmed it’s a known issue.

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According to the developer release notes for iOS 26.3 beta 3, you can safely expect most mirroring and camera features to be non-starters if you’re running it on one of this year’s latest iPhone or iPad models: the iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, iPhone Air and iPad Pro (M5).

The issue was first noticed by MacRumors, but I’ve also confirmed it from my own iPhone 17 Pro Max running the third beta, albeit with some mixed results.

For instance, AirPlay mirroring to an Apple TV 4K only fails if it’s running tvOS 26.3 beta 3. It works fine on prior betas, and with the tvOS 26.2 release.

On the other hand iPhone Mirroring appears to fail universally from any Mac that supports the feature, regardless of the version of macOS (Sequoia 15.7.3, Tahoe 26.2, or the Tahoe 26.3 betas).

What’s Going On Here?

While Apple hasn’t offered a reason for why these features are currently broken, the one thing all the listed devices have in common is Apple’s new in-house N1 wireless chip. Since this chip is designed to improve the performance of core Apple features over Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, it’s a safe bet the bug is somehow related, especially since it’s only wireless Continuity Camera that’s impacted — it still works just fine in beta 3 over USB-C.

The N1 chip has proven itself to be nice hidden upgrade in this year’s iPhone models. It quietly fixed many of the lags in Bluetooth and CarPlay connectivity that I’d just accepted for years, and features like iPhone and AirPlay mirroring have also been noticeably faster and smoother.

If this current glitch has something to do with the N1 chip, the more interesting question is what Apple might be tweaking in the iOS 26.3 code that’s temporarily broken these features. Earlier this week, we saw new carrier tracking prevention features directly tied to the C1 chip — the N1’s counterpart for cellular connectivity — but it’s not clear if those two share the same code base, or if Apple is up to something else on the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth side that it has yet to unveil.

Apple will undoubtedly fix this before the final release of iOS 26.3, which should be just around the corner. In fact, we’ll probably see it addressed in the next beta, which could arrive as soon as next week, since the company usually increases the frequency of beta releases as it gets closer to a final Release Candidate.

With reports suggesting the first iOS 26.4 betas could land with the new Gemini-powered Siri improvements by the end of February, the public release of iOS 26.3 shouldn’t be too much further away. However, you may want to skip the third beta for now unless you’re willing to live without Mirroring, Continuity Camera, and Sidecar.