iOS 11 Developer Beta 6 Released, Plus Beta 5 Goes Public

Only a week has passed since the launch of iOS 11 beta 5 for developers, but Apple has sped up its typical two-week cycle to release the sixth beta for developers early. The iOS 11 beta 6 release is available to developers only at the moment, and it brings with it some bug fixes for things like the Family Sharing issues, as well as some minor new changes such as tweaked colors and new icons.

If you're an AirPods owner, you'll be greeted with a new animation when you open the AirPods case near your iOS device. However, if you were fond of the half a dozen fish Live Wallpapers, bad news: those disappeared with this latest beta release. There's a new splash page for Photos, though, plus new icons for both the App Store and Maps. The Reminders icons have been tweaked.

Other changes are minor, including things like bolder numbers on the Clock icon, a solid blue color applied to the 'Now Playing' AirPlay indicator, plus a movement of the auto-brightness feature to the Accessibility menu; before it was located in Display & Brightness. Overall, the update doesn't represent anything huge. You can get in on the Apple Developer Program here.

In addition to the latest developer beta release, Apple has also pushed out the iOS 11 beta 5 release for the public beta testers. As we detailed last week, this fifth beta removed iCloud Messages temporarily, added a multi-tasking explainer splash screen for the iPad, changed some icon designs, added the ability to swipe open on an alert, and fixed bugs including some app crashing problems and issues related to AirPlay.

Of course, you need to be enrolled to get access to the public beta; you can do that here. It's important to remember that beta releases do bring bugs with them, and so it is not advised that you install the software on any of your everyday devices where reliability and stability are necessary.