iOS 26 beta 4 includes warning-laden Apple Intelligence news summaries
Apple has released the latest beta versions of its operating systems to developers – iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS 26. Among the changes are the return of Apple Intelligence news summaries which was the subject of controversy several months ago.
With the first public (non-developer) beta versions expected to land in the next week or so, these developer previews give us a very good idea of what to expect. As such, the appearance of Apple Intelligence news summaries and tweaks to Liquid Glass are very much in line with what we’d expect at this stage.
When its AI-powered news summaries first launched, Apple made a great deal of fuss about the feature. But celebrations about the innovative service were short-lived. Apple Intelligence managed to not only create news summaries that were not true, but also attributed them to news sources that had not written such stories.
This led to complaints from news agencies, caused users to lose faith, and forced Apple to withdraw the feature. But now that Apple Intelligence news summaries are back, has Apple addressed the problem that blighted it before?
The answer seems to be “maybe”. Apple is clearly happy enough with the improvements it has made to unleash the feature on developers, but it still does not have full confidence. This is evident from the bright red warning that users see during the setup process that advises:
Summarization may change the meaning of the original headline. Verify information.
This feels like a big disclaimer to add to a service designed to help people informed about what is going on in the world. Apple Intelligence may throw headlines at you, but you have no way of knowing whether they are correct without looking elsewhere – which forces us to wonder why not just cut out the middleman and rely on news alerts directly from news sources?
Apple has not provided details of what, if any, changes have been made in the background, under the hood, to make summaries more trustworthy. It could be that slapping a warning on them is the extent of things.
The much-lauded Liquid Glass look of iOS 26 has been given a bit of a facelift to make it more “glassy”. This is effectively Apple backtracking on a change introduced in the third developer beta that saw the company making elements less transparent.
Other changes iPhone users have to look forward to include a redesigned Camera app. Apple uses a welcome screen to say of it:
New Camera Design
A streamlined design elevates Photo and Video modes. Simply swipe left or right across additional modes. Tap the control button on the top to access settings.
While we do not yet have an exact release date for the first public betas of iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS 26, Apple said previously that they would be coming in July. In all likelihood this means they will land within a week.
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