This time, Apple had indicated early on that it would probably be a rather short beta phase. Just one week after the first developer builds, the company released the second round of pre-release versions, which is rather unusual. As expected, the third beta followed this evening, which can now be downloaded and tested – but macOS is still pending at the moment. If Apple continues this pace, general release is quite likely by the end of the month. The next big feature update is probably coming with iOS 26.5 and macOS 26.5, after 26.4 was released without the new Siri generation. The biggest innovation in System 26.4 is HTTP Live Streaming for video podcasts including the integration of advertising platforms. This means the company is likely to expand its position in the market for video offerings and at the same time enter into more direct competition with YouTube. Apple is working on end-to-end encryption for RCS; the function can already be tested in 26.4, but activation will take some time. Apple documents in the developer area that this will only happen “with a later update”. The development departments also made cosmetic adjustments to Liquid Glass, as we summarized in this article. The renaming of the bootloader from iBoot to mBoot on iOS remains a mystery.
The current betas in the developer area
Finally, as always, the well-known list of the currently available beta versions including their build numbers. The first beta was a bit surprising in this regard: a “q”, as in the case of iOS and iPadOS 26.4, is quite rare, and you don’t see “k” for macOS and “m” for watchOS, tvOS and visionOS too often. With the second round of beta, Apple had already jumped to “e” and to “f” for macOS – only to now raise iOS and iPadOS back to “f”.
This is what it currently looks like in the development area – a public beta is not yet available, but it should appear with little delay for participants in the test program:
| system | Build number | Published |
| macOS 26.4 Beta 3 | follows | — |
| iOS 26.4 Beta 3 | 23E5223f | 03/02/2026 |
| iPadOS 26.4 Beta 3 | 23E5223f | 03/02/2026 |
| watchOS 26.4 Beta 3 | 23T5226e | 03/02/2026 |
| tvOS 26.4 Beta 3 | 23L5224d | 03/02/2026 |
| visionOS 26.4 Beta 3 | 23O5225f | 03/02/2026 |
