Apple released the first public beta of iOS 26.1 on Tuesday, just over a week after it released a major iPhone redesign in iOS 26. While that update introduced Liquid Glass, call screening and more to your device, iOS 26.1 doesn’t bring many noticeable changes to the devices of developers and beta testers.
Since this is a beta, I recommend downloading it only on something other than your primary device. This isn’t the final version of iOS 26.1, so the update might be buggy and battery life may be short, so it’s best to keep those troubles on a secondary device.
Also, given that it’s not the final version, there could be more features to land on your iPhone when 26.1 is released. There’s no word on when Apple will release iOS 26.1 to the general public.
Here’s what features developers and beta testers can try now, and what could land on your iPhone when Apple releases iOS 26.1.
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Changing songs in Apple Music
Apple Music got a handful of new features in iOS 26, but the first iOS 26.1 beta doesn’t change much about the app or service. Instead, the update lets you change songs in a new way.
Instead of tapping the next or backwards buttons to change songs, with the iOS 26.1 beta you can swipe left or right on the song title from the music player within Apple Music. You can do this when the player is taking up your whole screen or when you’re looking through Apple Music and the player is small and near the bottom of your screen. The song title even appears to jump left or right when you change songs now, too.
More Live Translation languages
The iOS 26.1 beta brings more languages to the new Live Translation feature. Apple introduced this feature to iPhones and AirPods with iOS 26, and the beta lets developers and beta testers use this feature with these languages.
- Chinese (Mandarin, simplified)
- Chinese (Mandarin, traditional)
- Italian
- Japanese
- Korean
Apple Intelligence in more languages
If you have an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone, iOS 26.1 beta 1 brings the AI features to these languages.
- Chinese (traditional)
- Danish
- Dutch
- Norwegian
- Portuguese (Portugal)
- Swedish
- Turkish
- Vietnamese
Calendar update
Not a major change, but the first iOS 26 beta updates the Calendar interface. If you view your calendar in List View, any calendar events you have on a specific day will be colored across the whole bottom part of your screen.
New video scrubbing bar
The first iOS 26.1 beta also brings a small change to the video scrubbing bar in Photos. If you go into Photos and watch a video, you’ll notice that the bar across the bottom of your screen is more compact and inline compared to the past scrubbing bar which had the play/pause and volume buttons above the bar.
This is another small change that you might not have even noticed.
Those are a few of the new features developers and public beta testers can try with the first public beta of iOS 26.1. There will likely be more betas before the OS is released to the public, so there’s plenty of time for Apple to change these features.
For more on iOS 26, here’s my review of the OS, how to reduce the Liquid Glass effects in the update and how to enable call screening on your iPhone. You can also check out our iOS 26 cheat sheet.
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