Apple launched iOS 26.1 release candidate (RC) on Tuesday, more than a month after the company released iOS 26, which introduced Liquid Glass, call screening and more. iPhone. iOS 26.1 RC brings a few new settings and features to developers’ and beta testers’ devices, including a new way to adjust Liquid Glass and a useful security feature.
Since this is the RC, I recommend only downloading it on anything other than your primary device. The update may be buggy and battery life may be short.
It’s unclear when Apple will release iOS 26.1 to the general public. However, Apple usually releases a RC a week or two before making an update available to everyone, so I expect the company to release iOS 26.1 soon.
Here are the features developers and beta testers can try right now, and what could be on your iPhone when Apple officially releases iOS 26.1.
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Another way to adjust liquid glass
With iOS 26.1 RC, Apple lets you tweak your iPhone’s new Liquid Glass design even further. If you enter Settings > Display & Brightness > Liquid Glassyou can choose whether the new design is transparent or tinted.
“Clear is more transparent, revealing the content underneath,” Apple writes for the setting. “Tinting increases opacity and adds more contrast.”
Changing Clear or Tinted appears to only adjust certain elements of Liquid Glass at the moment, like your Notification Center and some search bars on your iPhone. However, this doesn’t seem to change the Liquid Glass items on your home screen. But you don’t need to run the RC to fit Liquid Glass on your home screen.
To adjust Liquid glass on your home screenlong press on your screen, tap To modify in the upper left corner of your screen, then tap Personalize. From there, make your app icons light or tinted, then you can tap Light, Dark, or Auto at the bottom of the Customize menu to adjust the Liquid Glass elements on your Home screen.
If you don’t use RC and don’t like Liquid Glass, you can also go to Settings > Accessibility > Display and text size then press the button to Reduce transparency to adjust the new design.
Automatically install security enhancements
Apple introduces a useful new security setting in iOS 26.1 RC that lets your iPhone download and install security enhancements itself. You can find it by going to Settings > Privacy & Security > Background Security Improvements.
“Background security enhancements provide additional protection for your iPhone between software updates,” according to Apple. “In rare cases of compatibility issues, these security enhancements may be temporarily removed and then improved in a future software update.”
This menu also allows you to uninstall a security enhancement. To do this, press the three dots (…) next to the installed update. A new menu will appear with the possibility of Delete and restart. This can be useful if you think that improving security causes more problems for you than it solves.
This feature reminds me of Apple’s Quick Security Responses. The company introduced RSRs in 2023 as a way to quickly deploy security patches to devices. While it’s a good idea in theory, Apple hasn’t used iOS RSRs since releasing iOS 16.5.1(c) in July 2023.
It’s not a flashy setting, but it’s useful and lets you stay on top of small security updates without doing any extra work. Once enabled, this setting takes care of the rest, so you don’t need to check your iPhone daily for new updates regarding potential security issues.
Stop accidentally opening your camera with this new toggle
iOS 26.1 RC also introduces a new toggle that could prevent you from accidentally opening your camera from your lock screen. To find this toggle, go to Settings > Camera and scroll to the bottom of the menu. There you will see a toggle for Swipe the lock screen to open the camera.
“Swipe left on the lock screen to quickly access the camera,” Apple writes for the setting.
Haptic control of phone calls
In iOS 26 RC, there is a new option to turn off haptics when your iPhone connects or drops a call. This way, your iPhone doesn’t vibrate and make you think you’re receiving another message or notification every time you receive or hang up a call.
To access this setting, go to Settings > Applications > Phone and press the Haptics to fall over.
Local capture options
Local Capture is an easy way to record high-quality video and audio recordings of video calls on your iPhone, and iOS 26.1 RC introduces a new Settings menu for this feature. The menu gives you the option to select a save location for your recordings, as well as a toggle that lets you record audio only when using Local Capture.
“Add Local Capture to the Control Center to record your own audio and video during a call for saving and editing later,” Apple writes in the Local Capture settings page.
New accessibility option
iOS 26.1 RC introduces a new option to prefer single-tap actions over sliding actions on your iPhone screen. You can find this new option by going to Settings > Accessibility > Touch and scrolling to the bottom of the page.
Alarm gets another update
One of my favorite little upgrades in iOS 26 was the ability to change the snooze duration of your alarm. In iOS 26.1 RC, Apple is making it harder to accidentally dismiss your alarm. When your alarm goes off in RC, you now have to swipe to stop it rather than pressing a button. This can be annoying if you’re trying to turn off your alarm quickly, or it can help you make sure you’re actually awake before turning off your alarm.
Change songs in Apple Music
Apple Music has a handful of new features in iOS 26, but iOS 26.1 RC doesn’t change much to the app or service. Instead, the update lets you edit songs in a new way.
With iOS 26.1 RC, instead of pressing the next or back buttons to change songs, you can swipe left or right on the song title from the music player in Apple Music. You can do this when the player takes up your entire screen or when you’re browsing Apple Music and the player is small and near the bottom of your screen. The song title even seems to jump left or right when you change songs now.
More Live Translation Languages
iOS 26.1 RC adds more languages to the new Live Translation feature. Apple introduced this feature to iPhones and AirPods with iOS 26, and RC allows developers and beta testers to use it 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 RC brings AI features to these languages.
- Chinese (traditional)
- Danish
- Dutch
- Norwegian
- Portuguese (Portugal)
- Swedish
- Turkish
- Vietnamese
Calendar update
It’s not a major change, but iOS 26 RC updates the Calendar interface. If you view your calendar in List view, all calendar events you have on a specific day will be colored across the entire bottom portion of your screen.
New video cleaning bar
iOS 26.1 RC also brings a small change to the video scrollbar in Photos. If you go to Photos and watch a video, you’ll notice that the bar at the bottom of your screen is more compact and more aligned than the old scrollbar, which had the play/pause and volume buttons above the bar.
This is another small change that you may not even have noticed.
These are just some of the new features that developers and public beta testers can try with iOS 26.1 RC. Apple could release another RC before releasing iOS 26.1 to the public, but I would expect these new features and changes to arrive on your iPhone in a week or two.
For more iOS news, here my opinion on iOS 26how to reduce the effects of Liquid Glass in the update and how text filtering works in the update. You can also view our iOS 26 Cheat Sheet.
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