iOS 17.6 Release Candidate: This Could Be Apple’s Last Update Before iOS 18

Apple released the iOS 17.6 release candidate (RC) to public beta testers and developers on Tuesday, about a week after the company made the first public beta of iOS 18 available to developers and beta testers.

Read more: An Expert’s Guide to the Features in the iOS 18 Beta

The iOS 17.6 RC doesn’t appear to bring many new features to your iPhone. But the update comes with a note that says it provides important bug fixes and security updates for all users.

If you plan on downloading the iOS 17.6 RC, we recommend downloading it onto something other than your primary device. Because this isn’t the final version of iOS 17.6, the update might be buggy and battery life may be short, and it’s best to keep those troubles on a secondary device.

Note that the beta isn’t the final version of iOS 17.6, so more features could land on your iPhone when the update is released. There’s no word yet on when Apple will make iOS 17.6 available to the public.

What is in the iOS 17.6 RC?

Besides some minor wording changes on a couple of menus, there aren’t any other significant features, from what I can tell. That’s not that surprising, for a few reasons.

The first is that everything that Apple announced would be in iOS 17 has already been released. When the tech giant announced iOS 17 in 2023, it said it would bring a lot of features to your iPhone, like StandBy mode and the Journal app. Though most of these features were available upon iOS 17’s release, a few were made available later. They’re all accounted for now, so there’s nothing we were specifically waiting for in a future update.

Also, when Apple released iOS 16.6 in July 2023 — the last major iOS 16 update prior to the release of iOS 17 — it was focused on bug fixes and security patches. They were still important fixes, but there were no new features in that update. The 17.6 patch will likely mirror 16.6 in function.

Lastly, Apple is gearing up for the release of iOS 18. The company already released a public beta for iOS 18 after announcing the next operating system at WWDC in June. It’s unclear when iOS 18 will be released to the general public, but I imagine Apple is shifting its focus from iOS 17 to make sure iOS 18 works well.

As of now, there’s no word on when Apple will release iOS 17.6 to the general public.

For more on iOS 17, here’s what was included in iOS 17.5, and here’s our iOS 17 cheat sheet. You can also check out what to know about the iOS 18 public beta, along with our iOS 18 cheat sheet.

Watch this: iOS 18 Hands-On: Exploring the Big Design Changes

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