Apple Tweaks iOS 18 Developer Beta Ahead of Public Beta
Toggle Dark Mode
If you were hoping the iOS 18 public beta would land today, it looks like you might have to wait a little bit longer. Instead of a public beta, Apple has released an updated build of the third iOS 18 beta for developers only.
Today’s developer release isn’t a whole new beta version — it still identifies itself as “beta 3,” but it has a slightly different build number. The iOS 18 beta released last week was 22A5307f, while today’s is 22A5307i.
The minor difference suggests that the new beta build doesn’t include any significant changes. Still, the fact that Apple felt it was necessary to push out a new build to developers also likely means it found one or more bugs that were important enough to fix before unleashing the iOS 18 beta on a wider audience of public beta testers.
For the most part, the third iOS 18 beta seems reasonably stable. While Apple has yet to turn the key on Apple Intelligence, most other iOS 18 features are present and functional. Last week’s beta even turned the key on RCS support for about 15 carriers worldwide, including most of the mainline carriers in the US and Canada.
Other features introduced in the last beta were new AI-skinning of third-party app icons for Apple’s new Dark Mode Home Screen and a new dynamic wallpaper for iOS 18 that changes throughout the day.
However, the one thing that appears to have been rolled back in this latest iOS 18 beta 3 build is the unified emoji keyboard in Messages. New in iOS 18 beta 3 was an emoji picker that combined Memoji and stickers — and would likely have been where Genmoji would fit when they arrived with Apple Intelligence. The emojis were also noticeably larger (and therefore easier to see and select).
With iOS 18 beta 3 build 22A5307i, that’s reverted to the standard emoji keyboard we’re all familiar with. The newer design was one of the slightly flakier things in the third beta, with emojis often failing to show up, particularly in the recents view. Some testers also reported that selecting an emoji from that keyboard sent a graphic image of the emoji (as in a JPEG) rather than the actual emoji character.
So, it’s clear that Apple has a bit more work to do here, and that may be the one thing it felt it needed to roll back before letting public beta testers get tangled up in it. The new design may reappear in a later beta after Apple has more time to polish it.
It’s unclear what else may have changed in the new beta build, but we’re hoping it fixes a few other minor quirks we experienced in the third beta, including random disconnects with CarPlay, duplicate messages being sent via RCS, and icon tinting on the home screen.
If Apple follows its usual schedule, developers will have a day or two to play with the latest build of beta 3 and report any problems. If all goes well, Apple should release it as a public beta later this week.
