Apple iOS 18 public beta released: How to install

apple The company released a preview of a major iPhone update on Monday.

The iOS 18 public preview is a beta version of the software that will be released alongside new iPhones this fall, allowing Apple fans and developers to test the latest features before the official launch and identify any bugs before all iPhone users install the new software.

But the most important new service this year isn’t a public beta: Apple Intelligence. In June, Apple announced that some of its new devices would have access to Apple’s AI services that can intelligently answer questions, control your iPhone, and even generate images.

Apple said a beta version of Apple Intelligence will be released this fall, with users able to try it out this summer. Some promised Apple Intelligence features, like ChatGPT integration and Siri improvements, aren’t expected to be released until later this year.

But this version of iOS still has a number of changes that change the look and feel of the iPhone and may surprise users installing the software for the first time. Apple has updated some of the device’s core user interface elements, including the Lock screen, Home screen and Control Center, to support a wider range of colors and customizations.

Popular apps like Photos have been redesigned, Messages is more colorful and supports emoji reactions, and users can also change all app icons to the same color.

Many of these look-and-feel features have been available to Android users for years but are new to longtime iPhone users, and are part of a years-long process by Apple opening up the iPhone’s previously rigid software design to greater visual customizability following a redesign of the device’s lock screen in last year’s release.

• Users can now place icons anywhere on the home screen, for example placing all apps around the border of the screen to make the wallpaper easier to see.
• You can change app icons to dark mode or change all app icons to the same color on iOS.
• Apple’s Control Center menu (accessed by swiping down from the top-right corner) will now feature multiple screen pages, be more customizable, and offer new types of controls.
• Users can replace the camera and flashlight shortcuts on the lock screen with other apps.
• Apple’s Photos app has been significantly updated with a redesign. The app now uses AI to organize your photos into trips and albums, which are displayed on the first page when you open the app.
• Apple’s Messages app now lets you add bold or italics to text. Users can also react to messages with emojis of their choice. These so-called “tapbacks” now appear in color in the Messages app.

• iOS 18 users with recent devices can send texts via satellite even when they don’t have Wi-Fi or cellular service.
• Safari can summarize news and other web articles and generate a table of contents for you, a feature you access using buttons to the left of Safari’s URL bar.
• Apple has consolidated all its password management features into a new app called Passwords.
• Users can quickly transfer digital money by simply tapping one iPhone to another.
• On your iPhone, you can now generate transcripts from calls and recordings.
• Siri animations now take up the entire iPhone screen.

• Make sure your phone can run the latest software, it should have been released in 2018 or later.
• Update to the latest public version of iOS.
• Go to Settings > General > Software Update. Select iOS 18 Public Beta from the drop-down menu.