Apple renames beta again, introduces ‘beta 2’ of iOS 13.6 and iPadOS 13.6

Chance Miller | Jun 9 2020 - 10:06 am PT

Apple is releasing a new developer beta of iOS 13.6 today. This follows last week’s release of an iOS 13.5.5 beta to developers and public beta users. Apple is renaming the beta and referring to today’s release as iOS 13.6 beta 2. [Update: Now available for public beta users as well.]

This is not the first time Apple has changed the numbering of a beta iOS release. Just last month, we jumped from iOS 13.4.5 to iOS 13.5 when Apple introduced the Exposure Notification API. At the time, Apple explained that any revision of iOS that uses a new SDK must have its minor version number changed.

Presumably, that is what’s happening today, but it’s unclear what the changes included are. Apple’s release notes for the update are vague. “This beta version of iOS 13.6 contains bug fixes and improvements,” Apple explains.

Things are getting confusing with Apple’s iOS 13 releases just two weeks before we also expect the first beta of iOS 14 to be released. Here is a short recap of everything released over the last few weeks:

May 20: iOS 13.5 was released with the new Apple and Google Exposure Notification API
June 1: iOS 13.5.1 released to everyone with a security patch for the unc0ver jailbreak vulnerability.
June 1: iOS 13.5.5 beta 1 released to developers and public beta users with “bug fixes and improvements”
June 9: iOS 13.5.5 renamed to iOS 13.6, beta 2 released to developers

Whether or not Apple will release iOS 13.6 to the general public before the introduction of iOS 14 remains to be seen. If not, Apple would seemingly have two concurrent betas available at the same time, which would surely complicate things for developers working to adopt iOS 14 features ahead of this fall.

In addition to iOS 13.6 and iPadOS 13.6, Apple has also released beta 2 of tvOS 13.4.8 today as well as the second beta of macOS Catalina 10.15.6.

Spot any major changes in today’s new release of iOS 13.6? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter, @9to5Mac.

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