Apple (download):
Xcode 26 beta 3 includes SDKs for iOS 26, iPadOS 26, tvOS 26, watchOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, and visionOS 26.
Last time, there was only one new item in the release notes for beta 3. This time, they didn’t even update the release notes to say “beta 4.”
Interestingly, Xcode now ships as a .xip archive inside of a .dmg file.
Nico Reese:
And there I was just blindly clicking that xip file and wondering about it failing to extract. Because of course you have to move that xip file out of the dmg first.
It did actually work for me to double-click it on the mounted disk image. It then extracted into my Downloads folder. But it’s big file, so it takes a while, and at first it looks like nothing is happening.
Previously:
Update (2025-07-23): Xcode Releases:
The download link for #Xcode 26.0 beta 4 has been updated to be a proper .xip file now, and I have confirmed it is identical to the “XcodeXIP.xip” file that was in the DMG previously.
Apple has now updated the release notes for beta 4. The only changes noted:
Removed support for creating new Style Transfer projects.
[…]
Xcode Previews usage will frequently panic on macOS 26.0 Tahoe beta 4.
Tony Arnold:
Absolute LMAO at not being able to do SwiftUI-related development work on the beta release of macOS Tahoe for the next two weeks.
Norbert Doerner:
That is very serious, and doesn’t bode well on the software quality of the “final” version of macOS 26, whenever that will be released.
But macOS 26 so far is the worst version we have seen in the last 20 years, very low product quality with uncounted amounts of questionable, and sometimes user hostile interface choices. Sigh.
Greg Pierce:
Looks like Icon Composer icons are still causing bundle validation issues in Xcode 26b4 builds. 🫤
Andrew Eades:
I’m developing my new app using .NET and MAUI because Apple makes Xcode development unusable for large portions of the year. And I get to use Neovim and/or Rider as well.
Disk Image Icon Composer Mac macOS Tahoe 26 Programming Xcode
Juli Clover:
Apple today provided developers with the fourth beta of macOS Tahoe 26 for testing purposes, with the update coming two weeks after the third beta.
This update did correctly install for me via Software Update.
The only beta 4 item that I see in the releases notes is that it says Xcode Previews will “frequently panic” so you should use beta 3 instead.
Jeff Johnson:
You can barely tell that Continue is a button.
See also his screenshots of Safari private windows, menu backgrounds, and sidebars.
Mario Guzmán:
I love not being able to read the now playing track info.
John Siracusa:
Is there some kind of contest within Apple to see how little contrast can be used while still technically indicating a selection? One of these disks is selected, believe it or not!
Previously:
Update (2025-07-23): John Gruber:
There is no good argument for selection states that are anything but instantly obvious. Whoever designed this doesn’t use the app.
Steve Troughton-Smith:
That playback bar though is wild
Todd Thomas:
Tahoe beta dislike I haven’t others complain about yet: the difference in look between the active window and all the inactive ones is way too subtle. I repeatedly have looked at one of my windows, pressed command-w and end up closing the wrong window. Will file a FB because easy enough and don’t need a sample app. Previous OS versions had a much more pronounced shadow + more obvious titlebar changes between active/inactive.
I think the Big Sur change for active windows was a regression, and Tahoe makes it worse.
Nick Heer:
But, still, who steps back from updating a PDF document viewer in which each page is cut off at the corners and thinks yes, this is an improvement? I repeat: a selfish design choice prioritizing Apple’s goals over that of its users.
Francisco Tolmasky:
I think one reason Liquid Glass is causing such a profoundly negative reaction is that it is making a lot of people realize that the idea that they own their computer was actually an illusion. There was a sense that by choosing the Mac and local native apps you were shielding yourself from the "rent everything own nothing" remote worldview, but the inevitability of this coming disaster reveals just how little agency you really have over "your computer.”
Increasingly, the computer feels less like "your house,” and more like being a a senior in high school living in an increasingly tense environment with your parents. You're 17 but they tell you to keep the door open. You want to tell them why you're frustrated in good faith, but they know they're in the power position and just tell you "my house my rules.” It exhausting because there's nowhere else to go, and you're still expected to be productive in this environment.
Garrett Murray:
On macOS especially, some of the new component designs are just baffling, like how sidebars look, how buttons take up so much more room and float for no purpose, etc. This is just a giant, nearly always ugly mess. Apple desperately needs new software design leadership.
Jonathan Wight:
Hard drives get perspective, time machine volumes dont…
[…]
It feels like the Time Machine icon is bulging out at the top.
Design Liquid Glass Mac macOS Beta macOS Tahoe 26 Music.app Preview.app Safari Software Update Startup Disk
Juli Clover:
Apple today provided developers with the fourth betas of iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 for testing purposes, with the updates coming two weeks after Apple seeded the third betas.
I don’t see any beta 4 release notes yet.
Juli Clover:
Apple has re-enabled Apple Intelligence Notification Summaries for apps in the News and Entertainment categories.
[…]
Apple says that it has improved notification summaries in iOS 26 , addressing issues that could cause confusion with news headlines.
Juli Clover:
With the fourth beta of iOS 26, Apple has again made changes to the Liquid Glass design that’s available across the operating system, tweaking how the menus and buttons appear in apps.
Niléane Dorffer:
The glassy scrubber in the Weather app is a disaster of a UI element
Federico Viticci:
legibility is so back 🙃
Adam Bell:
🙃
Federico Viticci:
Pocket Casts for iOS 18 on the left, Apple Podcasts for iOS 26 on the right.
Between the illegible glass and the tab bar that disappears on scroll, I honestly have no idea who can take a look at this and say “Yes, that’ll do it. That’s good.”
Liquid Glass is a mess so far, especially on iOS. Actually pushing me to use apps without Liquid Glass.
Steve Troughton-Smith:
Thing is, there is no point along the slider between 0 and 100% opacity where Liquid Glass is ‘fixed’. If you’re a developer, you can try this in code. You either have Liquid Glass, with all its issues, or you have an opaque bar — there’s just no leeway for this lensing/blur effect
Previously:
Update (2025-07-23): Marco Arment:
I just don’t see how they could’ve lived with the beta-3 design tweaks, which radically improved legibility from b1–2 and made the design far more usable, and thought, “Nah, let’s undo that.”
Guy English:
Nobody is talking about their A.I. anymore.
Nick Heer:
Apparently there are architectural changes to help with reliability, but the only way to know for certain if a generated summary is accurate is to read the original.
John Siracusa:
“Verify information” indeed, Apple…
Juli Clover:
There are also new features, including the return of Apple Intelligence Notification Summaries for news. This beta is of particular interest because it’s likely the beta that public beta testers will get in the not too distant future.
Marco Arment:
The absolute best thing they could do in their situation is to decide, right now, to ship the iPhones 17 with iOS 18.
iOS 26 is still so rough, and so buggy, that it’s not going to make its ship date without massive quality and design sacrifices.
If the iPhones only support 26, either they’re getting delayed (tanking the financials) or they’re shipping with buggy software and a controversial, half-baked design (a PR nightmare).
Louie Mantia:
I’ve never seen Apple struggle so much during a beta release cycle. They have no idea what they’re doing, and they’re letting everyone in on that. It’s not a very reassuring look.
I previously thought Apple couldn’t possibly ship without Liquid Glass for ego reasons alone, but I’m starting to wonder if they just might revert, because it—quite predictably—shows no signs of improvement.
Kuba Suder:
Thread of how websites look in Safari on iOS 26 😐
Paul Hudson:
I know there’s still a month or so of work to go, but right now I’m really struggling. These text labels matter; why are they so hard to read?
Jeff Johnson:
OMG iPadOS 26 beta 4 wrecked the StopTheMadness Pro extension popup window!
Khaos Tian:
Also the new camera mode picker is a disaster… Did anyone in HI even care at this point???
Dave Mark:
Look at the 3 Liquid Glass buttons at the bottom of the image.
Can’t see them? Can’t read them? Yeah, that’s a problem. 😑
Jeff:
The same thing happens for me in the Mail app. While in Dark Mode, the new Search bar at the bottom switches to REALLY bright mode and turns the Delete/Move icons into mysterious white orbs.
Sean Heber:
Been using it for a few minutes in the simulator and the glass in iOS 26 beta 4 already seems like a bit of a disaster which is saying a lot because it wasn’t without problems in beta 3.
Ged Maheux:
Let’s be clear (LOL): At no point since the announcement of iOS 26’s Liquid Glass did it ever “look good”. It’s certainly a marvel of engineering and technically impressive but just because something has cool refractions, reflections etc doesn’t make it desirable or useable.
René Fouquet:
So Apple is actually dialing forward the level on insanity on liquid glass rather than back, and things are less readable again.
There’s a Google event in a month, so…
Steve Troughton-Smith:
We have about six weeks to go until new iPhones have traditionally been revealed in September, and honestly right now I don’t see how they can land this plane.
Federico Viticci:
To be completely honest with y’all, I’m feeling the same sense of dread about iOS 26 as I did with Stage Manager in iPadOS 16. And it’s actually even worse, because design touches everything across platforms.
The more time passes, the more I feel like the entire idea of Liquid Glass needs to be scrapped. The material is bad; the few structural ideas they had are functionally worse than before.
Ryan Jones:
As always, everyone says “it’s a beta it won’t ship like this”… and it does.
Apple Intelligence Apple News Apple Podcasts Design iOS iOS 26 iOS Beta Liquid Glass Music.app Notification Center Pocket Casts Weather.app
John Gruber (2024, Mastodon):
This made me think there has to be a better way to toggle captions than manually swiping and clicking on the Apple TV remote touchpad.
Turns out there are two better ways:
If you use the Control Center Apple TV remote control on your iPhone, there’s a dedicated “CC” button.
In tvOS, go to Settings → Accessibility → Accessibility Shortcut, and set it to “Closed Captions”. Now you can just triple-click the Menu/Back button on the remote to toggle captions. (On older Apple TV remotes, the button is labelled “Menu”; on the new remote, it’s labelled with a “<”.)
[…]
You can also toggle captions using Siri on the remote: “Turn on captions” or “Turn off captions” (or use the word “subtitles”). And the coolest feature: “What did he/she/they just say?”, which rewinds 15 seconds and temporarily turns on captions.
I meant to post this at the time. In the interim, Apple added a feature in tvOS 18 where pressing Back will automatically show subtitles until you return to to the original play position.
Juli Clover:
Netflix today announced that it is introducing a new subtitle option that only shows subtitles for spoken dialogue, aimed at those who don't need captions, but prefer to watch movies and TV shows with the subtitles turned on.
According to Netflix, nearly half of all viewing hours on the streaming service in the U.S. happen with the subtitles or captions on, which is why it is debuting the new setting.
Some of this is probably for accessibility reasons or because of situations where you can’t turn on the audio. But, also, it seems like newer movies and shows are not mixed well.
Samuel Axon:
Traditional closed captions are still available, of course. Those are labeled “English CC” whereas this new option is simply labeled “English” (or whatever your preferred language is).
[…]
The performance style of actors in current TV shows and movies is more naturalistic and less elocutive than it once was, so characters are more likely to speak softly. Streaming services compress the audio more vigorously than is common in physical media, which can cause problems with intelligibility.
I’m not sure I buy this compression explanation. How much bandwidth could they be saving on audio compared with what the video’s using?
thaddeus:
And it would be amazing if they better aligned text appearing to when lines are delivered. I'm kind of annoyed when my reading is ahead of what's happening in the scene. 😬
Previously:
Update (2025-07-24): Craig Grannell:
Amazingly (and depressingly), BBC iPlayer on Apple TV still lacks subtitles, despite the organisation’s public service remit. Which must say a lot about how many people are using Apple TV in the UK.
Accessibility Audio Netflix Remote.app Siri tvOS tvOS 17 tvOS 18
