Apple might delay iOS 16 public beta to July due to bugs

On Monday, Apple finally rolled out iOS 15.5. We expect this to be the final version of iOS 15 prior to the arrival of iOS 16. If you were hoping to get your hands on the iOS 16 public beta next month, though, you might be out of luck.

Apple’s Worldwide Developer Conference is where the company traditionally announces its major software updates for all of its devices. And the latest edition of the event is just a few weeks away. Apple will host the keynote address on June 6th, and the first developer betas should debut after it wraps up. With that said, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said on Monday that “the public beta [of iOS 16] may be running behind.”

Apple might delay the iOS 16 public beta

If you keep up with iOS beta releases, you know that public betas often drop within hours or days of the developer betas. That isn’t usually the case with major updates.

In the past, Apple has waited until the launch of the second developer beta to invite public testers. According to Gurman, “internal seeds are a bit buggy,” which could convince Apple to wait until the third developer beta is available to begin the public beta. As a result, unless you have a developer account, you likely will not be able to download the iOS 16 public beta until July. Here’s the tweet Gurman posted on Monday:

Gurman didn’t share any details about the bugs Apple is encountering in internal testing. They must be relatively concerning, though, because the company always makes users well aware of the risks before they install beta software on any of their devices. There’s a reason why iOS 16 won’t be available to the general public before September.

What are the new features in iOS 16?

Apple leaks are abundant nowadays, but we still don’t know much about iOS 16. In fact, one of the few hints we’ve gotten also came from Mark Gurman last weekend:

While I don’t expect Apple to present a full redesign of the software, there should be major changes across the system, new ways of interacting and some fresh Apple apps. The news about watchOS 9 will be significant as well.

As we noted yesterday, there’s a chance that Gurman is referring to the long-awaited addition of truly interactive widgets. The widgets Apple introduced in iOS 14 are relatively uninspired compared to what we see on Windows and Android. If a full redesign isn’t in the cards, a widget redesign would be a welcome upgrade in iOS 16.

Apple hasn’t confirmed a time for its WWDC 2022 keynote, but the address began at 10 AM PT / 1 PM ET last year. In all likelihood, Apple will stick to that same schedule this year, which means we can expect the keynote to begin streaming at 1 PM ET on Monday, June 6th.

More iPhone coverage: For more iPhone news, visit our iPhone 14 guide.