Apple Releases First iOS 16, iPadOS 16, and macOS Ventura Public Betas
- Laurent Giret
- Jul 11, 2022
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Apple has released the first public betas for iOS 16, iPadOS 16, and macOS Ventura today. These first public betas follow a series of private betas for developers released after Apple’s WWDC developer conference last month.
It’s usually not recommended to install betas on your daily driver, but there are a good amount of new features coming with iOS 16, including lock screen upgrades. Apple is adding the ability to customize your lock screen with widgets, Live Activities, and custom colors and fonts. Other highlights include the new iCloud Shared Photo Library, the ability to edit or recall recently sent messages, email scheduling, and the Apple Watch Fitness app also coming to the iPhone.
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iPadOS 16 is gaining most of the new features coming to iOS 16 (including the iOS Weather app), but there’s also a big update for multitasking with Stage Manager, a new feature that automatically organizes apps and windows. Stage Manager is only available on iPad Pro and iPad Air with the M1 chip, and the feature also brings full external display support to iPadOS 16.
Stage Manager is also coming to macOS Ventura, and the feature will work with existing macOS windowing tools including Mission Control and Spaces. Continuity Camera is the second main update coming with macOS Ventura, and it will give Mac users the ability to use their iPhone as a webcam.
To download the first public betas for iOS 16 and iPadOS 16, you’ll need to visit Apple’s beta software portal via Safari and sign up with your Apple ID to enroll your device. The first macOS Ventura public beta is also available on Apple’s beta software portal via Safari, though you may want to install it on a separate partition. To do so, you can use Apple’s built-in Disk Utility app to create a partition with a recommended minimum of 30GB of storage.