Apple has released the seventh developer betas of watchOS 26, tvOS 26, and visionOS 26. The new builds arrive one week after beta 6 and continue the steady pre-release cadence ahead of Apple’s fall software rollouts. For most users, these interim updates are about stability, bug fixes, and ensuring reliable performance across Apple Watch, Apple TV, and Apple Vision Pro.
Across the broader 26 cycle, Apple has highlighted design updates inspired by Liquid Glass, an AI-powered Workout Buddy and a new Notes app on Apple Watch, karaoke and Aerial additions on Apple TV with smoother AirPlay speaker use, and visionOS upgrades like spatial widgets, lifelike personas, and shared spatial experiences. Beta 7 continues refining these areas rather than unveiling brand new features, which is typical as platforms move from major changes to polish in the late summer.
From what has surfaced so far, watchOS 26 beta 7 does not introduce headline features. The focus remains on responsiveness, notifications, workout tracking reliability, and power efficiency across supported Apple Watch models. Developers should verify complications, widgets, and background tasks behave as expected, and confirm watch faces and health data permissions remain intact after updating. As always, beta software should be installed on secondary devices to avoid disruption.
tvOS 26 beta 7 targets the living room stack. Typical areas to validate include media playback, streaming app sign-in states, audio passthrough, and HomeKit automations triggered by Apple TV. Multi-user profiles, Up Next syncing, and remote input responsiveness are also common pain points late in the beta cycle. While tvOS rarely gains flashy new features this close to release, the platform benefits from Apple’s ongoing performance tuning and crash fix work.
On visionOS 26, the seventh beta concentrates on reliability for immersive apps and environments. Teams should test Shared Space behavior, hand and eye input, window resizing, and Bluetooth accessory pairing with Vision Pro. Developers shipping spatial experiences will want to profile launch times and memory use, and retest entitlement changes introduced earlier in the 26 cycle. The aim is to ship a stable baseline that improves day-to-day usability before new capabilities arrive later in the cycle.
Across all three platforms, beta 7 is a checkpoint that signals Apple is nearing candidate builds for public release. Expect incremental updates to continue as Apple closes out regressions found by developers and public testers. If you depend on third-party apps or accessories, confirm compatibility now to avoid surprises when the final versions land this fall.
