Not long ago, Apple rolled out the public version of iOS 26 so that every user with a compatible iPhone can install it, well, almost every user (some people still wait for others to test the waters first). And today, Apple has already pushed the first developer beta of iOS 26.1. We decided not to stop at the release note, as reading bullet points on Apple’s site never gives the same feeling as trying the update yourself. So we installed iOS 26.1 on one of our team’s iPhones and checked what actually changed.
Apple Intelligence and Live Translation Expand Language Reach
Apple is finally scaling Apple Intelligence beyond its first wave of early adopters. In iOS 26.1, it supports eight more languages:
- 🇩🇰 Danish
- 🇳🇱 Dutch
- 🇳🇴 Norwegian
- 🇵🇹 Portuguese (Portugal)
- 🇸🇪 Swedish
- 🇹🇷 Turkish
- 🇹🇼 Chinese (Traditional)
- 🇻🇳 Vietnamese
Why should you care? Because Apple Intelligence is not just another buzzword. It powers Rewrite in Mail and Notes, Summaries in Safari, and Live Translate in Messages. Until now, only a few languages had access. If you spoke Danish or Turkish, those AI features were basically locked. With this update, you can draft emails in your own language, ask Siri for smarter answers without switching to English, and read web pages summarized directly in your mother tongue. In short, iPhones just got a lot smarter for millions of users who had to live on the sidelines.
The update also upgrades Live Translation with AirPods, one of the headline features Apple bragged about at the event.
It now supports:
- 🇨🇳 Mandarin (Simplified)
- 🇹🇼 Mandarin (Traditional)
- 🇮🇹 Italian
- 🇯🇵 Japanese
- 🇰🇷 Korean
Now, you can slip AirPods in and enjoy real-time conversation translation in more languages. Picture yourself at a café in Rome – you order an espresso, and your AirPods whisper the translation back instantly. Or on a call with a colleague in Tokyo, FaceTime handles the language gap for you. This is where AirPods start acting like your pocket interpreter.
Apple is finally opening its flagship AI features to millions of users who can use their iPhones to the fullest, without having to pretend English is their second language.
Other Notable Changes in iOS 26.1 Beta
Expanding Apple Intelligence to new languages is a big step. We still hope Apple eventually supports every language on the planet so no user feels left out, but for now, we’ll gladly take what we have. As for the rest of the update, it does not shake the world. Apple focused on polishing the interface of its own apps. In our view, even the first release of iOS 26 looked and worked great, but clearly Apple saw details worth improving:
- We like to work not in silence but to the beat of our playlists, so the first changes we noticed appeared in Apple Music. The mini-player now reacts to a quick swipe (left for the next track, right for the previous one). Apple also refreshed the animation when you expand the player – the album art glides into view more smoothly, and the background color shift feels better paced than before. Small? Yes. Noticeable when you listen to music all day? Definitely.
- The Phone app keyboard also got a makeover and the dial pad now adopts Apple’s Liquid Glass style. Buttons look translucent and blend with the wallpaper.
- In Photos, Apple refined the way you interact with videos. The scrubber changed into a compact pill that makes navigating clips easier. At the same time, the date label at the top of the screen received a more frosted background. The information was always there, but now it stands out more clearly against bright photos and videos.
- The Calendar app became more colorful. Events now stretch with a full-width highlight in their respective calendar colors instead of showing only a small dot (work obligations in red now truly scream at you in red).
- When customizing the clock on the Lock Screen, the Glass and Solid buttons now use the Liquid Glass effect. It looks consistent with the rest of iOS 26, although on very bright wallpapers the buttons can be hard to read. iOS 26.1 Beta 1 also fixes clock alignment: the clock styles no longer stick awkwardly to the left side, and now appear precisely centered.
- In Settings, Apple brought some consistency. The Hold Assist Detection field no longer stands out with odd spacing and it now matches the standard row size. Meanwhile, the Reduce Loud Sound option has a rewritten description. The function remains the same, it lowers very loud audio to protect your hearing, but the explanation is clearer, so users finally know what the toggle does.
Final Thoughts
Those are all the changes we noticed so far in iOS 26.1 Developer Beta 1. We have not tested it for long, so there may be other tweaks hidden deeper in the system, but nothing that jumps out immediately after installation. Apple often sneaks in small adjustments that you only notice weeks later, so this story is not finished yet.
We also want to warn all Apple fans who install updates the second they appear – do not rush. This release is for developer members only, not even a public beta. If you are not part of that program, wait for the public beta, or better yet, the general release. You will save yourself from surprise bugs that turn your iPhone into a very expensive paperweight. If you are a developer member and want to try it anyway, make sure you clear some space. The update weighs almost 14 GB, so if your iPhone storage is running low, do not sacrifice your last gigabytes for the sake of a beta. You will regret it the moment your iPhone refuses to take another photo.
For now, that’s all. We will keep an eye on what Apple pushes next. Beta 2 will likely appear in a week or two, and it will be interesting to see if it brings anything new besides bug fixes.
