Recently, Apple released the second public beta for iOS 27. This is how to install the beta on your iPhone or iPad for free, and what to expect from it.
If you currently have the developer beta installed on your main device, you might want to consider switching over to the public beta, and I’ll explain why and how to do that.
Installing iOS 27 public beta on iPhone
To install iOS 27 public beta on your iPhone, first go into Safari and navigate to beta.apple.com. Once you get to that page, the iOS 27 public beta shows up. If you go down, there’s a sign up or a sign in button. You most likely already have an Apple account. You want to go to where it says Already a member, tap Sign In, and sign in to your Apple ID.
Then you’re going to see the Beta Software Program Agreement. Scroll down and tap Agree. It’s going to give you a guide for beta software. This is where you’re going to choose iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and so on.
iOS 27 appears along with some of the changes that are coming with it. Look underneath the Get Started section, where there’s a blue link that says Please enroll your iOS device. You want to tap that link. After you’ve done that, it will give you some advice on doing a backup.
Then there’s a spot where it says Turn On Beta Updates. If you tap that blue button, it will open up in Settings where it shows your iOS 27 beta. It will say iOS 27 public beta.
You can also access this by going into Settings, General, Software Updates, and then tapping where it says Beta Updates. That is also where the iOS 27 public beta populates. You want to make sure to tap and select the iOS 27 public beta. Then when you go back, the iOS 27 public beta populates where you can download and install it.
These days, getting the public beta on your device is very simple. There are no profiles. There’s no money exchange. There’s nothing like that. It shows up automatically inside of your Settings.
Back up before you install
Before you download and install iOS 27 beta, you do want to go into your Settings and go up to your accounts, go down to iCloud, and you want to make sure to go into iCloud Backup and make sure you have a backup from right before you install the public beta. Just in case something goes wrong, you want to make sure all your data is up to date in your backups. Make sure you do that, and make sure it says the last successful backup was just now.
What to expect from iOS 27 public beta
There are a lot of things that you need to be aware of with the iOS 27 public beta. The first thing that I have to mention is that this is the most stable beta in recent memory. I’ve covered that quite a few times, but with that being said, there will still be bugs.
This is beta software. This is not a final release. It’s not going to be ready until September for the public. This is just a public beta. You are being a beta tester for Apple.
Keep in mind that with these betas, especially iOS 27, things can and will change. You will expect changes to the icons, the way settings are. Don’t get used to anything at this point in the beta, because it will change at some point in the future.
With that comes the responsibility of reporting the bugs in the Feedback application. You’re agreeing to test the software for Apple in exchange for giving feedback on things that may not be working as they should.
Reporting bugs in the Feedback application
Once you have the iOS 27 public beta on your device, you get the Feedback application. If you don’t see it on your Home Screen, search for Feedback. This is where you will be submitting any of the bugs that you come across. Anytime you run into an issue, you could always take a screenshot of it, and you will attach that to your feedback.
Open the Feedback app, go to New Feedback, go to iOS and iPadOS, and then you will fill out the information and you can attach it there. It will pull up the system diagnosis automatically for you and you will add your attachments for the issue, and you can describe what was going wrong. Sometimes Apple will respond to you as well and tell you thank you, and that they’ve fixed that bug in the next version.
If you go into Recent Activity, this is also where you could see the release notes for the upcoming betas as well. If you’re curious about the specific things that have been fixed, this will cover that information there as well. The release notes are focused on code changes for the most part. Your duty as a beta tester is to report those bugs in the Feedback application.
Issues you might run into on iOS 27 public beta
Once you install iOS 27 beta on your device, you will have different issues like frame rate issues. You might have some crashes. You might notice the performance and stability is not as good as it is on the stable build of iOS 26, for example. Your battery life might not be great. I’ve personally had a great experience with battery life so far on the betas, but again, it is still a beta.
Banking and other applications
One question I get asked all the time — a lot of people don’t install the betas because they’re worried about their applications not working, like their banking applications, their investment applications, things like that. But those seem to be issues of the past. These days, I wouldn’t worry about that too much.
I’ve not run into any application that does not work at this point on the iOS 27 public beta. If you’re worried about that, I would say do not worry about it. Pretty much every banking application that I’ve tried and other people have tried has worked just fine on the iOS 27 betas.
Liquid Glass slider
If you go into the Settings app, you go into Appearance, you go into Liquid Glass, we do have a Liquid Glass slider now where you can adjust and tweak the intensity of Liquid Glass system wide. You now have full control over that.
Whereas before, you just had two options. You could choose less opaque or more opaque. But now you have a slider, which is nice.
Lock screen changes
If you go into an application and you swipe down and you have a subject on your lock screen, there’s a cool, funny effect where the subject populates over top of your content.
When you pull down the lock screen, you’ll also notice the compact time up at the top. That is something you could also change in iOS 27. If you tap on that, you have a new button that says Customize. That allows you to have a compact, clean little clock up there at the top of your lock screen. I really liked that personally.
Siri AI
The headlining feature in iOS 27 is going to be Siri AI, the completely revamped version of Siri that has personal context and on-screen awareness. It can perform in-app actions across multiple applications, and has broad world knowledge. There’s even a standalone application now for Siri. If you go into the Siri application, we have our previous chats. It’s like ChatGPT now in pretty much every way, which is awesome.
With the new Siri, I can do a lot more than I could before. For example, I can ask Siri, “Take a look at my screen and tell me where this Apple Store is located.”
What it’s going to do is take a look at my screen with the new on-screen awareness feature. It shows me that that is the Apple Store in Aventura, Miami, which is accurate. So I was able to look at that screen with no context, no details of where I was, and it was able to pinpoint where that was. It shows me the map, I can call directions, all of that, which is cool.
You can also swipe down once you get something in Siri and you can continue in that conversation and go back and forth with Siri in terms of having a conversation. Like I mentioned, Siri also has access to your messages, your contacts, your emails, everything. You could ask questions and it will go into those applications and pull that information for you.
Creating shortcuts with natural language
You can also now create shortcuts using natural language. If you open the Shortcuts app and go to create a new shortcut, you can type in exactly what you want and it will create that shortcut for you. You can say, “make a GIF from a video,” and it will do what’s necessary to create that shortcut. This is a very simple one, but you can get a lot more advanced as well.
It could also build onto that shortcut. It will do that, and you can press play and it will run to see if it’s what you like. You could also tap Edit and you can tweak exactly what’s going on with that shortcut in the builder, or you could go back and continue to talk in natural language to describe the changes and it will go ahead and keep changing that shortcut for you without you having to build the shortcut yourself. You can do it with your words.
Create a Pass in Wallet
Easily one of my favorite iOS 27 features that has become very useful already is the fact that you can now create passes inside the Wallet application. If you open the Wallet app and then go to the plus, at the bottom we have Create a Pass. This allows you to make a custom pass for tickets, memberships, and more. When you do that, you would scan the QR code. If you have it on your phone or take a screenshot, you could pull a screenshot from your Photos and you could do things like add your gym membership to your Apple Wallet.
Every time I go into Planet Fitness, now my gym, I’m able to double click my side button to pull up my Wallet and I scan my membership without having to go all the way into the application and log in, pull up my card. There’s something like five buttons, and about 20 seconds at least that I save every single time I go, because this is now saved into my Wallet. You could do that for anything that’s not previously supported with Apple Wallet, which is convenient.
Extend and Reframe in Photos
In Photos, if you go to Tools, we have Clean Up along with Extend and Reframe. Extend and Reframe are cool because this will allow you to extend the image and make it larger.
You could also reframe. If you want to change the direction or the angle of the photo, you can manipulate it well. You can move it and change the angle at which that photo is taken. It’s neat. It works well.
Clean Up
The Clean Up feature is much better now, because it works using generative AI. For example, if I take a photo and want to hide my hand, it will recreate the shirt behind it. Whereas before it would just leave a black mark. It wouldn’t recreate what was behind where you’re trying to clean up. Now it will do that since it’s using generative AI and not just filling in.
You also have different options. You could choose either Fast or High Quality. High Quality is going to look the best.
Developer beta versus public beta
I do also want to answer a few questions that I get all the time when it comes to iOS beta. The first one is what is the difference in the developer beta and the public beta, and which one should I install? First off, the public beta and the developer beta are typically the exact same. Just one comes after the other.
The developer beta typically comes first and the public beta is released hours or days after the release of the developer beta, but they are typically the exact same. They will have the same build number. It’s just the public beta comes out later. You might be wondering: why does it come out later? It’s because that way you will avoid any potential major issues that might break the software that the developers might’ve had to experience.
The developer beta is a lot more risky because Apple, they’re going to have time to fix it by the time the public beta gets released. But if you install the developer beta and it breaks, you were the guinea pig for that. That’s why I always recommend for most people on their main device to install the public beta instead of the developer beta, especially after the public beta comes out, because a lot of the main features have already been released.
Should you switch from the developer beta?
If it’s your main device, if you only have one device, I would personally switch over from the developer beta to the public beta, because you’re going to avoid some of those more major bugs that could be introduced in the developer beta. Plus, most of the big new features were already added. You’re not going to get as much FOMO as maybe you had for the first couple of betas.
But with that being said, if you are a seasoned beta tester, if you’ve beta tested for years before, you already know what to expect. You know the issues to expect, you know how to navigate those issues. Then sure, stay on the developer beta. There’s no reason to switch over to the public beta, especially if you are a tech nerd like me and you really like having everything as soon as it comes out.
Just know that public betas are well known and well documented for being less risky since they get released afterwards. It gives Apple time to fix the things that might’ve gone wrong in the developer beta.
How to switch
If you do ever want to switch from the developer beta to the public beta, it’s very simple. You go into your Software Updates screen and go into Beta Updates. Then from there, the iOS 27 developer beta and the iOS 27 public beta populate. All you want to do is switch from one to the other. You will select iOS 27 public beta instead of developer beta. Then when you go back, it will start populating the public betas from here on out.
You could always switch back and forth as well. It’s not like something you change one time and you can’t change it again. You could always change back and forth if you would like to.
That is everything you need to know about the iOS 27 public beta. It’s pretty straightforward. It’s pretty simple, but I do want to explain it because there are always new people joining the iOS beta scene. I need to let you know what to expect from it, and the fundamentals of beta testing on iOS.
