Apple CEO Tim Cook Says iOS 26 Developer Beta is Most Popular Ever

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Apple's CEO Tim Cook today said the iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS 26 developer betas are the company's most popular developer betas ever.

iOS-26-Feature.jpg

"It's wonderful to see great momentum building for our platforms," said Cook, on a conference call discussing Apple's quarterly earnings results. "iOS 26, macOS 26, and iPadOS 26 are by far the most popular developer betas we've had."

Apple released the developer betas immediately following its WWDC 2025 keynote in June. Cook did not provide any specific installation numbers, nor did he comment on the public betas of the updates, which were released last week.

Jason Snell shared a transcript of Cook's full remarks on Six Colors.

Two years ago, Apple dropped the requirement to pay $99 per year for an Apple Developer Program membership in order to access its developer betas, allowing anyone who creates an Apple Developer account to install them for free. This change has surely resulted in a larger number of non-developers installing the developer betas, even though Apple recommends that average customers wait for the public betas.

In addition, the new Liquid Glass design across Apple's platforms is a major visual change, which developers might want to prepare for. And many non-developers likely wanted to play around with the new design too, without having to wait until the public betas were released in July, or the final releases come out in September.

Article Link: Apple CEO Tim Cook Says iOS 26 Developer Beta is Most Popular Ever
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/07/31/ios-26-developer-beta-most-popular-ever/
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That’s good

I used to pay the $99/yr fee to become a developer (enabling me to access the beta iOS before the September release) and would run the beta software on a secondary iPhone that I used at the time but I’ve since stopped doing that because all of the main features that I wanted in iOS were implemented years ago and beta software is oftentimes very buggy, so the risk/reward calculus is not in the favor of downloading beta software, in my opinion
 
Justin Cymbal said:
That’s good

I used to pay the $99/yr fee to become a developer (enabling me to access the beta iOS before the September release) and would run the beta software on a secondary iPhone that I used at the time but I’ve since stopped doing that because all of the main features that I wanted in iOS were implemented years ago and beta software is oftentimes very buggy, so the risk/reward calculus is not in the favor of downloading beta software, in my opinion
Click to expand...
I love trying out the betas to see the new features. I have run into lots of bugs over the years, but nothing show stopping.
 
That’s right, folks, this is the BIGGEST, BEST beta cycle EVER! Customers are clamoring for the revolutionary Liquid Glass design language. Apple spent years developing this game-changing design language for the best-in-class OS 26 and is thrilled by the response to just the beta version. The new OS is truly the OS for consumers and ultra pros alike. Apple can’t wait to see the incredible things customers are able to do with the ALL NEW OS 26 and the breathtaking Liquid Glass. Apple thinks you’re gonna love it!
 
Well yeah, people wanna test drive the new design

Also I can’t speak for everyone but these betas have been super stable for me
Usually I end up bailing on the beta train because they’re not stable but iOS 26 works just fine for me
 
Honestly them dropping the fee is probably cuz they couldnt figure out the bug that mistakenly gave developer permissions to an account that downloaded developer betas from other sites 😂 I remember having to search for developer seeds iOS 6-9, then sometime around iOS 10-11 I started getting emails every year from Apple that gave me direct links to the developer profiles needed for betas. I’ve never paid the dev fee in my life. Unless it wasn’t a bug and they just gave it since I always made sure to give consistent bug feedback reports ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I’ll never know 😇😇
 
3 times as many iPhones in the world today as 10 years ago.
If the same percentage of users want to give a beta a try, then there will be 3 times as many without it being more successful or more popular.
 
Ruggy said:
3 times as many iPhones in the world today as 10 years ago.
If the same percentage of users want to give a beta a try, then there will be 3 times as many without it being more successful or more popular.
Click to expand...
I suspect volume has a lot to do with it. I also think people want to see the first major refresh in a while as well.
 
Ruggy said:
3 times as many iPhones in the world today as 10 years ago.
If the same percentage of users want to give a beta a try, then there will be 3 times as many without it being more successful or more popular.
Click to expand...

I assumed he was talking about adoption rates (# of users on Beta of iOS 26/# of eligible beta users)
 
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