Apple says the upcoming iOS 26, expected in a polished “release” version in September, will support devices back to the iPhone 11 from September 2019 and second-generation iPhone SE from April 2020—both with A13 Bionic processors. For those who don’t want to wait, the iOS 26 public beta release is now available.
It previews many updates, including call and text spam filtering, and revamped designs for apps such as Camera, Wallet, and especially CarPlay. Apple has revived the translucent look of the Liquid Glass interface after toning it down in the third beta released for app developers on July 7. Some of the biggest changes in iOS 26 are for the newest models—starting with the iPhone 15 Pro—with upgrades to the Apple Intelligence AI suite, such as live translation and visual search across apps.
iOS 26 on older iPhones: mostly positive signs
But how well will iOS 26 support older devices? To get a sense, I ran formal tests with an SE2 running developer beta 3, and also lived with it as my personal phone for over a week. I then upgraded to developer beta 4 and finally the public beta this week. It’s common for such early versions to be buggy. Much to my surprise, even the experience with developer beta 3 was very smooth, with no major issues in performance and none in battery life. The public beta brought some incremental improvements, especially in graphics performance. These are good signs for September’s release version.
Of course, that’s not a guarantee. Online discussions of the developer beta 3 were mixed, with some testers reporting battery issues and sluggish performance. Some issues diminished in beta 4, but other random bugs with apps, such as CarPlay compatibility, emerged.
The iOS 26 public beta appears to be very close to or even the same as the latest developer beta, but all its fixes and foibles won’t be clear until a lot of people try it for a while. And the Apple Beta Software Agreement exempts the company from any responsibility if things go south.
The ideal way is to use an old phone you don’t need; the next best is to first back up your phone and learn how to restore it if things go wrong.
However, my positive experiences with the iOS 26 betas jibe with early impressions from several pros whose job includes testing new software on old devices. Tom Quinlan, a longtime technician at Apple-authorized service provider Charlotte Street Computers in Asheville, North Carolina, tried Developer Beta 3 on an iPhone 11 and came away impressed. “I must say it did NOT feel sluggish,” he writes in an email. “I am very surprised.”
Used-device sellers are another early indicator. “A few of our team members are running the [Developer Beta 3] for iOS 26 on their devices and are fans of the new release,” says Michael Lipson, director of technology at Swappa, an online marketplace. They ran the software on an iPhone 12 and a third-gen iPhone SE.
Performance comparison: iOS 18.5 versus iOS 26 beta
In my tests with the SE2, shows played just as smoothly in the Amazon Prime Video app on iOS 18.5 and iOS 26 developer and public betas. Response times when tapping, scrolling, or opening apps (Photos, Camera, Mail, Reminders, Clock) were comparable at first. Over the week, though, I did notice occasional sluggishness in the interface of developer beta 3. I will keep an eye on the public beta in the coming days.
My tests with the 3DMark Wild Life graphics benchmark showed insignificant differences, with average scores of 6,082 on iOS 18.5 vs. 5,766 on iOS 26 public beta. For real-world perspective: Average frame rates dropped from 36.4 fps to 34.5 fps.
Battery life was unchanged. I tested the SE2 (which had 88% of its original battery capacity) by playing shows in the Apple Podcasts app, with a half-light/half-dark screen. I set brightness at 50% and disabled low power mode. Running the battery from 80% to zero took close to five hours with all OS versions.
Is it safe to install iOS 26 public beta now?
Beta versions carry risks, but so do release builds. Last year’s iPadOS 18 bricked some iPads with M4 processors, prompting Apple to rush out version 18.0.1 with fixes. If you’re not prepared for possible glitches, the public beta may not be for you. And it won’t hurt to wait a few days after the release version drops to see how it shakes out.
Predictions for September are favorable for all iPhones. “Based on past versions [of iOS], it should run perfectly, and there’s no reason not to update to iOS 26,” writes Kewin Charron, senior lead refurbishment operations manager at Back Market, a Swappa competitor. But he’s not committing to a time frame for their sellers, saying it will depend on how stable they find the nearly final beta version, called release candidate, to be.
Sellers really want to avoid support headaches, and you may, too.
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