By Zaman Adrees 
Apple has just rolled out iOS 26 Beta 3 to developers, exhibiting a redefined “Liquid Glass” concept along with fine-tuned visual clarity, now featuring a wider spread of animated wallpapers and receiving necessary bug fixes that not only fix main stability issues but also bring us a step closer to a smooth user experience. This new build also carries that part performance improvement, especially on battery life and general responsiveness, introducing gentle but penetrating features such as a more resourceful Recovery Assistant and smarter Journaling indications, thus reflecting Apple’s promise to both beauty and strong use before the public beta and the final launch.
Key Features and Improvements
- While iOS 26 has incorporated a new “Liquid Glass” design language, Beta 3 is centered on implementing this look and the productivity aspects of the OS.
- Modified Liquid Glass Design: Apple is in the process of continuously adjusting the transparency and glass-like parts of the Liquid Glass interface. In Beta 3, most of the UI elements, such as the Control Center and tab bars in certain apps, have become more “frosted” in appearance, thus making it easier to read and reducing the problem of the crowded look that some users mentioned in the first betas. The extreme blur effects that were used before have been cut down in different sections; thus, it feels more optimized and refined.
- More wallpaper options: The iOS 26 default wallpaper that was characterized by nature of dynamic turquoise and lapis-colored circles going on now has more color variations. The users are free to pick one of these: “Shadow,” “Sky” (the original default), “Halo,” and “Dusk.” What is interesting is that “Dusk” adds a number of pink and purple colors to the Liquid Glass parts, thus creating a new visual direction. When switching to Dark Mode, these wallpapers also exhibit more different color variations.
- Home Screen Icon Alignment Fix: One of the changes that may not be immediately noticeable but is definitely an improvement is the fix for app icon alignment in the Dock. Before, if you had less than four icons, they would be aligned to the left.
Beta 3 brings back the centered alignment, thus providing a more balanced look to the Home Screen.
Subtle Icon Tweaks: Firstly, the Photos app icon has been slightly desaturated, making it less fuzzy at smaller sizes. Besides that, the Files app icon gets a lighter purple shade in its gradient now.
iPadOS 26 Cursor Improvement: Now, iPad users can enjoy a feature from macOS that has just been adopted to iPad: if you quickly move the cursor back and forth, it will temporarily get bigger, thus it becomes easier to find on the screen.
Upgraded Maps Functionality: Apple Maps is also getting new features such as offline maps with fog advisory and improved commute delay alerts.
Amplified A11y Features: To prevent any unpleasant consequences, app creators have been given a new tool, “accessibility nutrition labels,” on the product pages. These labels basically are short transparencies of what the app’s accessibility features will be before downloading.
Journaling Ideas Get Smarter: The most recent updates of journaling suggestions are that they will be constantly synchronized with the iPad via iCloud, which resultingly makes us get notifications all while providing more context.
Recovery Assistant: One great new feature is that Recovery Assistant is a major step forward, which provides technical help to the users whose devices are not booting up properly by means of automatically diagnosing and fixing the problems.
Functionality and Battery Life: Reports from beta testers give us indications of remarkable battery life improvements as compared with earlier betas, along with fewer heating problems and overall smoother operation, especially on older iPhone models.
Known Issues and Bug Fixes:
Beta 3 brings a lot of improvements, but it is still a pre-release software, and some issues persist.
Fixed Issues:
- Battery/Power Bug: A bug in the first beta where some iPhone 15 and 16 models would show a low battery icon and become unresponsive has been fixed.
- Ringtone Bug: A major issue, which led to no ringtones during incoming calls, has been solved.
- Lock Screen Depth Effect: The problem that caused the loss of the depth effect on the lock screen wallpaper has been fixed.
- CarPlay Album Artwork: A bug that prevented CarPlay from loading the album artwork has been fixed.
- Incorrect Text Rendering: The issue with wrong text rendering in the Apple TV app has been sorted out.
- Safari “Open in background” Freeze: When trying to open a link in the background, Safari will no longer freeze.
Known Issues that Have Not Been Resolved:
- CarPlay Navigation Bugs: Some users may continue experiencing bugs with CarPlay navigation.
- Photos App Crashes: Searching in the Photos app may cause it to crash.
- Visual Glitches on Lock Screen: The lock screen might still have different visual bugs.
- Notification Choppiness: Some users claim that notifications and the Notification Center are sometimes choppy and slow.
- AirPod Connectivity: Certain people share that the new update has helped their situation; however, the problem of the AirPods connection still persists among some users.
- Liquid Glass Inconsistencies: Users who have noticed such changes, however, still mention that they experience the lack of the
What’s Next:
Apple is rumored to be launching the public beta for iOS 26, at the latest, in July. With this step, Apple significantly expands the number of its users that can test the new operating system and also gets them the opportunity to provide feedback. The present beta cycle will not only enable more improvements and bug fixes, but it may also include new functionalities that Apple prepares for the fall public release of iOS 26, expected to be launched along with the new iPhone 17 series. Just like any other beta program, the company suggests that users be very cautious and not install the beta on their main device, as there could be bugs and the system might be unstable.