Cupertino, February 8, 2026, 22:34 (PST)
- iOS 26.4’s first developer beta is expected in the week of Feb. 23, with a wider release eyed for late March
- Forbes says Apple’s iOS 26.3 update could arrive as soon as Monday, Feb. 9
- The iOS 26.4 cycle is tied to long-promised Siri and Apple Intelligence upgrades, plus new emoji
Apple is expected to seed the first developer beta of iOS 26.4 in the week of Feb. 23, a release aimed at unlocking long-promised Siri upgrades and other Apple Intelligence features, 9to5Mac reported on Sunday, citing Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. The site said a public beta could follow later this month or in early March, before a broader rollout that could land at the end of March. (9to5Mac)
The timing matters because iOS 26.4 is expected to be the first real test of Siri features Apple previewed at WWDC 2024 and then delayed. In March 2025, Apple spokeswoman Jacqueline Roy said it was “going to take us longer than we thought” to deliver the upgraded capabilities. Developer betas are early test builds; what ships there tends to set expectations for what Apple can deliver in the next public release. (9to5Mac)
MacRumors, also citing Gurman’s Power On newsletter, said iOS 26.4 will “include some components” of the Siri overhaul, with iOS 27 slated to deliver more Apple Intelligence improvements. Gurman also called WWDC “a fairly muted affair this year,” as Apple focuses on performance and bug fixes, the report said. (MacRumors)
Before iOS 26.4, Apple’s next public software drop is expected to be iOS 26.3, and Forbes said the update could arrive as soon as Monday, Feb. 9, or later in the week. (Forbes)
Apple seeded iOS 26.3 RC — short for “release candidate,” a near-final build — to developers on Feb. 4, according to its developer releases page. Apple’s security releases index still lists iOS 26.2.1 as the latest public iPhone software. (Apple Developer)
A video rundown cited by Geeky Gadgets said iOS 26.3 will add a setting that limits how precisely carriers can infer a user’s location and streamline transfers from iPhone to Android. It also pointed to RCS (Rich Communication Services, the texting standard used by many Android phones) changes and notification forwarding to third-party smartwatches in the European Union, including models such as Samsung’s Galaxy Watch. (Geeky Gadgets)
MacRumors’ feature roundup said iOS 26.3 includes an iPhone-to-Android transfer tool and, in the EU, notification forwarding and AirPods-like pairing for third-party accessories — changes it linked to the bloc’s Digital Markets Act, which targets interoperability for “gatekeeper” platforms. The same report said iOS 26.4 is expected to bring a “more personalized” Siri and noted Apple and Google have said Google’s Gemini will help power that push, alongside additions like new emoji and other smaller features. (MacRumors)
Apple has framed one of iOS 26.3’s privacy additions as a carrier-side control. In a support document, Apple said the “Limit Precise Location” setting reduces the precision of location data available to cellular networks without affecting signal quality. It said the setting does not change the precision of the location data shared with emergency responders and does not affect location data shared with apps through Location Services. (Wsparcie Apple)
TechCrunch reported the carrier setting lands amid growing scrutiny of how location data can be pulled from phone providers, whether through legal requests or criminal access. Gary Miller, a Citizen Lab researcher and senior director of network intelligence at iVerify, said: “Most people aren’t aware that devices can send location data outside of just apps.” (TechCrunch)
RCS is also on the list. Apple told 9to5Mac it helped lead a GSMA effort to bring end-to-end encryption — meaning only sender and recipient can read messages — to the RCS Universal Profile and that it “will add support” for encrypted RCS messages across its platforms in future software updates. The site said iOS 26.3 RC still lacks the upgraded RCS package and expects the changes to show up in early iOS 26.4 betas. (9to5Mac)
That timetable could still move. Apple has not confirmed the iOS 26.4 beta schedule, and some features — especially carrier-dependent or region-limited ones — can arrive in stages or slip, while early betas often ship with bugs that developers and testers have to work around.
For now, attention is on iOS 26.3’s public drop and whether it lands early in the week, followed by the first iOS 26.4 test build later in February.
