iOS 26 Developer Beta 4 and Public Beta 1 are out this week, with iterations to the UI and plenty of work going under the hood of the OS. There were two slightly different build numbers that went out, one a day before the public beta and the newer one has a matching build number.

• July 22nd: 23A5297i (Developer Beta 4)
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• July 24th: 23A5297m (Public Beta 1 and slightly newer Developer Beta 4 version)

There doesn’t appear to be any substantive changes between the two builds except matching build numbers, and perhaps other minor iterations.
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“There has been a lot of controversy around Apple’s opinionated Liquid Glass redesign, which spurred Apple to pull back in beta 3. However, developer beta 4 brought back some of the more aggressive design aspects that lead to legibility issues.” as AppleInsider puts it.

The new design language has been divisive among the online community. “..Same as with the Mac OSX Leopard betas that re-introduced menu bar transparency, but Apple heavily toned it down before release..” as TuffLuffJimmy of Macrumors says.
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iOS 26 development timeline

• Up until June 9th WWDC: Internal Testing Only
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• June 9th, 2025: Developer Beta 1, Build 23A5260n, (Build 23A5260u iPhone 15/16)
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• June 13th, 2025: Developer Beta 1, Build 23A5260u (no release notes published)
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• June 23rd, 2025: Developer Beta 2 (Build 23A5276f)
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• July 7th, 2025: Developer Beta 3 (Build 23A5287g)
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• July 22nd, 2025: Developer Beta 4 (Build 23A5297i)
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• July 24th. 2025: Developer Beta 4 & Public Beta 1 (Build 23A5297m)

Some of the bugs present in Beta 1 are persistent into Beta 3. Our website still has issues loading properly in iOS 26 Beta 4 since the first beta, although these issues are not at all reflected on iPadOS or macOS.

I mentioned in a prior article about covering the changes in reduced transparency, but I also don’t think there’s much to engage about, either. The design language is there, all that needs to be done is this:

• Allow reduced transparency as tiered-options (reduce it in levels, not all-or-nothing)
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• Allow more legibility where needed, more transparency where the utility of a design language can be noticed and more appreciated (it seems this way with the approach to Beta 4.)
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Tracking Geekbench 6 Performance

While artificial benchmarks only tell part of the story when it comes to the performance of any device, they still offer some form of insight. I’ve benched this iPhone 14 Pro on and off throughout the years to get a relative idea of how it performs over time.
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What I noticed while running beta 4

• It’s starting to feel more functionally stable.
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• The new theme has taken its shape with mild iterations focusing mostly on transparency effects.
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• There is less stuttering in some areas like Home Screen swiping, but more advanced animations still see stutters. It’s starting to feel more like an OS that can belong on an iPhone 14 Pro.
• I like how when a light object is behind a folder, it shines through the folder.
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• Fixed: When rearranging the apps inside a folder, the “minus” glitches under the app the same way a badge does on the Home Screen when rearranging apps. This persists into Beta 3.
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New in Beta 4

• A new Camera UI that’s much easier to navigate through. The Glass design makes it easier to navigate through. Also a new camera app.
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• In apps such as the App Store and Music, menu bars are back to being more transparent.
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• Background darkens slightly when you scroll through notifications on lock screen, for legibility
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• Apple Intelligence News Summaries (Beta) have returned after being pulled in January.
  • “At the time, Notification Summaries were producing misleading news headlines by picking up and combining the wrong information in articles. Apple says the feature should work better now, and that testing will continue throughout the iOS 26 beta.” as mentioned on MacRumors.
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• New CarPlay wallpapers.
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• You can now “Silence unknown callers”.

Release Notes

Much like the third beta, there is a long list of bug fixes and new additions to the fourth beta as well as the first public beta.

• See: iOS & iPadOS 26 Beta 4 Release Notes

In Conclusion

I think it’s nice they’re listening to feedback on the transparency, I hope it’s not completely rolled back. it’s starting to feel like an overall more solid piece of software, something more usable and reliable.