The next point release for iPadOS 26 has been released for developer testing. Its release comes just a day after the public launch of iPadOS 26.1 (aka, the one that brought Slide Over back).

Unlike previous years, we don’t really know what to expect from most of the point releases, so it’s kind of fun to dig in and see what new features Apple has included.

Here’s what’s new in Beta 1:

Set Alarms for Reminders

File this one firmly under “things I would never think to ask for in a million years.”
When you set a reminder, there’s now an option to set an alarm, which, at first glance, feels strange. Aren’t the current notifications for reminders pretty obvious?

I guess the use case is that alarms are harder to ignore than Reminder notifications. Alarms are presented full-screen and in a very obvious way. They can also be easily snoozed without having to tap and hold, unlike Reminder notifications.

Something about this still feels strange to me, but based on the reactions I’ve seen, it’s something people have wanted 🤷🏾‍♂️.

Podcasts App Improvements

One of my most-used apps across iPadOS, iOS, and visionOS has to be the Podcasts app. iPadOS 26.2 is bringing a few nice enhancements for those of us who use Apple’s built-in podcast client.

Automatic Chapters

For podcasts that don’t provide their own chapter markers, the system will now intelligently create them using what I can only assume is some kind of machine learning algorithm.

According to Apple’s developer documentation, publishers will be able to opt out of this, which is probably for the best. It’s not hard to imagine that it won’t always be 100% accurate.

Podcast Mentions

In theory (I haven’t seen this working yet), if a podcast references another show, that mention will be surfaced in the transcript, allowing you to view and follow that podcast without having to search for it yourself. Pretty slick, if it works.

From This Episode

Links mentioned in a podcast can now be surfaced directly in the UI for easier access.

Liquid Glass Clock Slider

The adjustable clock is one of the more prominent UI elements in Apple’s Liquid Glass design. With 26.2, there’s now a slider that lets you adjust the level of transparency applied to the clock. There’s also a toggle that lets you switch between Glass and Tinted looks.

LED Screen Flash for Alerts

There’s long been an accessibility setting in iPadOS and iOS that lets you flash the camera LED when an alert comes in. Now, there’s an additional option to flash the screen when an alert appears as well.

Freeform Table Support

Freeform, the unofficial fourth iWork app, now supports creating tables.