iOS 26.5 RC Arrives with Encrypted RCS and a Splash of Pride

While it’s not a big surprise following Apple’s announcement of its 2026 Pride Collection this morning, Apple has just pushed out the Release Candidates of iOS 26.5 and the gang, making them officially less than a week away.

Release Candidates, or “RC” builds, mark the end of the beta cycle for Apple’s operating systems. In many cases, these are the “final” builds and have often been identical to what’s ultimately released to the public (hence the name “candidate”). While Apple sometimes pushed out a slightly updated public build, there are rarely any meaningful changes between the RC build and the very final one.

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However, what’s also special about RC builds is that they usually also provide our first look at the official release notes for the next update. Although Apple provides some developer notes during the beta cycle, these don’t always reveal everything that’s coming, leaving us to collectively find out what to expect by poking around ourselves.

In fact, sometimes the developer release notes can be downright strange, as recent beta cycles have shown us. One of the most significant improvements coming in iOS 26.5 — end-to-end encryption for RCS messaging — was listed in the developer release notes for the iOS 26.4 betas with a clear note that it wouldn’t be in the final release. The feature was quietly turned back on in the early iOS 26.5 betas without a single mention of it in the developer notes.

That left folks guessing on whether this was just a second “beta cycle” or if it would actually be making an appearance in the final iOS 26.5 release. Thankfully, we have some good news: not only is RCS encryption still working in the RC build, but Apple has spelled it out in the release notes. Here’s that and everything else to expect in iOS 26.5 when it goes public in the next few days.

RCS Encryption

While today’s iOS 26.5 release notes do indicate that the end-to-end encrypted (E2EE) RCS messaging is still in “beta,” this is more Apple’s way of hedging, similarly to how it first rolled out Apple Intelligence in iOS 18.1.

For one thing, it’s limited to “supported carriers,” with a link to Apple’s carrier support page. This has yet to be updated to let us know where RCS E2EE will be available, but it’s not uncommon for Apple to wait until the public release before updating its site, so be sure to check back next week if you’re curious.

It’s also worth mentioning that even though Google’s RCS implementation has supported E2EE for a few years now, that’s due to Google’s own proprietary implementation, which Apple doesn’t — and won’t be — supporting. Instead, Apple’s RCS E2EE is based on the Messaging Layer Security (MLS) that’s part of the official RCS specification. Google is naturally also embracing MLS, but in practical terms this means you may still encounter chats with folks on older Android devices that won’t be encrypted simply because they haven’t updated to the latest versions of Android or Google Messages.

To help ensure that you know the difference, the Messages app in iOS 26.5 will provide an “Encrypted” tag when switching to an E2EE session, along with a padlock icon at the top of the chat, beside the name of the person you’re chatting with. Sadly, Apple hasn’t done anything at all about the green bubbles; while nobody realistically expected them to switch to “iMessage blue,” even a different shade of green would have been a nice touch here to differentiate between encrypted and unencrypted chats — not to mention older-school SMS messages.

Pride Luminance Wallpaper

As expected, iOS 26.5 (and iPadOS 26.5) add the Pride Luminance wallpapers that Apple promised this morning, along with the Pride Luminance watch face in watchOS 26.5.

Suggested Places in Maps

The final “tentpole” item in the iOS 26.5 release notes is a new feature in Apple Maps that will offer up recommendations for place you may want to visit, based both on what you’ve searched for in the past and what might be trending with other Apple Maps users.

These will appear in a new “Suggested Places” section near the top when tapping in the search field. However, while this sounds useful on the surface, Apple hasn’t said much about how the algorithm for this will work, and there’s another aspect to this that isn’t mentioned in the release notes: advertising in Apple Maps.

The timing of this new feature, which was first announced by Apple in March as part of a Business Services announcement that included the new ads initiative, kind of makes it feel like Suggested Places is primarily about giving Apple one more place to slip in some ads.

While Apple has yet to switch on ads in Apple Maps, we know it’s coming, and the company has told businesses outright that ads will appear at the top of Suggested Places.

The silver lining here is that these ads will be clearly tagged, similar to how sponsored apps are already listed in App Store search results. They’ll also be strictly local, so you shouldn’t see a venue from another city or even the other side of town showing up at the top of the search results for your neighborhood. Still, 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, so here’s hoping they don’t drown out the legitimate suggestions.

What Else to Expect in iOS 26.5

Like ads in Apple Maps, there are a few other things coming in iOS 26.5 that aren’t listed in today’s release notes as they’re smaller features or (like ads) not fully rolled out yet.

1. A New “Installment” Plan for App Subscriptions will allow developers to offer discounted monthly subscriptions for users willing to make an annual commitment. Essentially, it’s like paying for a full year of access to an app or service broken down into 12 equal payments, but with no ability to cancel early. Developers will also still be able to offer annual subscriptions at deeper discounts for those willing to pay up-front, as well as the usual month-to-month subscriptions. While developers will need to build their apps with the iOS 26.5 SDK to support this new subscription method, they’ll also be available to users on iOS 26.4, so it’s arguably not a “new” feature in iOS 26.5, which might be why Apple omitted it from the release notes.
2. Automatic Pairing of Apple’s Magic Accessories brings a long-standing Mac feature to the iPhone and iPad. When connecting an Apple Magic Keyboard, Magic Trackpad, or Magic Mouse using a USB-C cable, it will automatically be paired via Bluetooth, saving you the trouble of doing so manually in the Settings app.
3. iPhone-Android Transfer gains a new option for determining how far back you want to transfer message attachments, including None, 30 days, 1 year, or all.
4. Apple Books Awards may be coming based on code found in iOS 26.5 to reward your reading accomplishments. Think of it as Apple Fitness but for Books. There’s no evidence of it in the RC, but that might simply be waiting for Apple to turn the key on the server side.
5. Lastly, there’s a new Inuktitut keyboard layout.
   

Additional code in iOS 26.5 shows Apple preparing to open up more capabilities in the European Union to comply with regulations there, such as allowing third-party earbuds and smartwatches to access the same iPhone features as AirPods and the Apple Watch. There’s no word on whether these are live yet, but they’ll be limited to users in the EU either way.

With today’s RC builds available, we can expect the public release of iOS 26.5 to arrive by early next week at the latest. However, with the Apple Watch Pride Sport Band expected to show up in Apple Stores later this week, it’s possible Apple could push it out even sooner.