iOS 18: Public Beta Coming Soon: How to Prepare Your iPhone

Last month, Apple announced that the first public beta of iOS 18 would be released in July, so it should be available for testing soon.

Below, we outline everything you need to know about the upcoming iOS 18 public beta.

Hourly

The first public betas of iOS 17 and iOS 16 were released in the first half of July for the past two years.

• iOS 16: Monday July 11, 2022
• iOS 17: Wednesday July 12, 2023

How to prepare

Signing up for Apple’s free public beta testing program is easy: visit beta.apple.com, sign in to your Apple ID account, and agree to the terms and conditions.

After signing up, open the Settings app on your iPhone and tap General → Software Update → Beta Updates. This is where the iOS 18 public beta will be listed once it’s available, and you can tap on it to begin the installation process. Note that the iPhone must be signed in to the same Apple ID that enrolled in the public beta program.

Due to software bugs and other potential issues, we recommend installing the iOS 18 public beta on a secondary iPhone, rather than the device you use daily. We also strongly recommend backing up your iPhone to your Mac before installing the beta software on the device, to avoid data loss in the event of a problem.

We’ll share a more detailed step-by-step guide on how to install the iOS 18 public beta after it’s released later this month.

Compatible iPhones

iOS 18 is compatible with the same iPhone models as iOS 17:

• iPhone 15
• iPhone 15 Plus
• iPhone 15 Pro
• iPhone 15 Pro Max
• iPhone 14
• iPhone 14 Plus
• iPhone 14 Pro
• iPhone 14 Pro Max
• iPhone 13 mini
• iPhone 13
• iPhone 13 Pro
• iPhone 13 Pro Max

New features

iOS 18 introduces new customization options for the Home Screen and Control Center, a redesigned Photos app, the ability to use any emoji as Tapback in the Messages app, an option to lock apps behind Face ID or Touch ID, and much more.

The headline feature of iOS 18 is the Apple Intelligence suite of AI features. These features will help you improve your writing, summarize your notifications, generate personalized emojis and images, and more. Apple Intelligence will also power a smarter version of Siri with on-screen recognition, deeper per-app controls, and more.

Apple Intelligence features have not yet been added to the developer betas of iOS 18, so they may not be available in the first public beta of iOS 18.

Read our in-depth iOS 18 article to learn more about the update.

Are you skipping the beta?

iOS 18 is expected to be widely released to all users with a compatible iPhone in September.