Weeks away from a probable launch, Apple has outed its sixth developer betas for iOS 27, iPadOS 27, tvOS 27, watchOS 27, visionOS 27, and macOS 27.
The Apple Developer Beta program has now reached the sixth round for iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27 Golden Gate, tvOS 27, watchOS 27, and visionOS 27.
The sixth appears after the fifth, which Apple brought out on August 10.
The fourth was distributed on July 20, the third developer builds arrived on July 6, while the second occurred on June 22 for most of the operating systems. The watchOS 27 counterparts landed later, on June 23 and June 25.
The sixth builds are:
- iOS 27 beta 6 is 24A5418b, replacing 24A5408d
- iPadOS 27 beta 6 is 24A5418b, replacing 24A5408d
- macOS 27 beta 6 is 26A5416b, replacing 26A5406e
- tvOS 27 beta 6 is 24J5353b, replacing 24J5346a
- watchOS 27 beta 6 is 24R5353a, replacing 24R5347a
- visionOS 27 beta 6 is 24M5355a, replacing 24M5348b
- HomePod Software 27 beta 6 is 24J5353b.
At the same time, Apple has also issued release candidates:
- macOS 26.7 RC is 25G220
- macOS 15.8 RC is 24H16
The first developer builds of iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27, tvOS 27, visionOS 27, and watchOS 27 were made available on June 8, right after the WWDC keynote.
The first round of changes included updates to Liquid Glass, the long-awaited overhaul of Siri, child-protective features, and many other smaller changes.
The second iOS 27 developer beta included an update to Apple TV in the Home app, showing it like a connected HomePod or HomePod mini. The Apple Wallet also added a new insights option, albeit in a non-functional fashion.
The third included some visual tweaks, with more customization options added for Siri AI on newer iPhone models.
Round 5 expanded the Siri AI customization options to British English, some visual tweaks to various apps, and a new, more prominent Liquid Glass look for the Siri icon.
Settings added a new Before Searching option to choose which apps appear as suggestions. Meanwhile the Control Center got tweaked to remove cellular network types when you're on Wi-Fi.
At your own risk
While AppleInsider regularly warns readers that people trying out beta software should do so on secondary, spare hardware instead of their mission-critical or daily driver devices, it's something that actually matters more this time around.
It's because Apple's early developer betas are for an operating system that is still under active development. There's a higher chance of buggy, broken, and potentially harmful elements being distributed.
The initial builds are also intended to help developers learn about the operating system changes before the final public release later in 2026. It's not meant to be used by consumers.
Unless you have a vested interest in using them, such as app development, don't install the early developer betas.
Instead, members of the public should seek out the public betas. They are much safer alternatives if you want to try out iOS 27 now.
Even so, while the public betas reduce risk to your data compared to the developer betas, there is still some risk.
Find any changes in the new builds? Reach out to us on X at @AppleInsider or @Andrew_OSU, or send Andrew an email at [email protected].
