Hands on with all the changes in iOS 18 beta 5

Apple has released the fifth developer beta of iOS 18

These latest betas come roughly two months after Apple initially revealed the updates at its annual developer conference. On our iPhone 15 Plus, the update weighed in at 1.42GB coming from beta four. The build number was 22A5326f.

Notably, these changes were included in the iOS 18.0 beta, not the iOS 18.1 version. If you jumped to the .1 update to test out Apple Intelligence, you’ll have to wait for a new beta of that before you’ll see any of these new features or changes.

Easily the headlining feature of this update is Distraction Control. This is a major new feature that is arriving with this milestone update that Apple didn’t highlight at WWDC.

With just a tap, it allows you to temporarily wipe out web elements in Safari. This could be ads, banners, or obnoxious content overlays.

Hide distracting items with Safari

Here’s how to use Distraction Control:

• Open a webpage in Safari
• Tap on the smart search field at the bottom of Safari
• Tap Hide Distracting Items
• Now tap any on-screen element then tap Hide
• Repeat this with anything that is distracting on the screen, then tap Done.
• To bring them back, tap Show Distracting Items in the smart search field again

Items just wisp away when hidden

There is a super cool animation when you hide each element as they disintegrate and float off of the screen.

These removals aren’t permanent and any part of the screen that constantly refreshes will not work, including any rotating ad content.

AppleInsider correctly reported on Distraction Control ahead of WWDC. It was then called Web Eraser, but it wasn’t presented at WWDC, and was a late addition.

Apple has continued to refine the Photos app with is beta, based on feedback from early beta testers. For better or for worse.

The biggest tweak is that the top Carousel has been removed. For us, this was unfortunate as we found it a great way to see highlighted memories or other pinned content.

The updated Photos app (left) ditches the carousel with featured images and pinned collections (right)

With the Carousel gone, the grid of all photos was also lowered so more can be seen at a time, before scrolling up. This makes it feel and look much more like the old Photos app.

Recently saved content now shows in the Recent Days collection and the bottom text was updated from “customize” to “customize and reorder.”

Both Maps and Find My got updated dark mode icons. The Find My icon background is now darker and the Maps icon lost all colors except the blue arrow and road.

Two more icons got updated for dark mode in beta 5

When you edit your Home Screen, there is a new option to edit whole pages. This existed before by tapping the dots above the dock while in edit mode.

In Control Center, more icons have been adjusted. The Apple TV remote icon has a larger remote glyph in the middle, the screen recording outer circle is faded, and the second box on the screen mirroring icon is also lighter.

Finally, Stolen Device Protection can now be edited from the Privacy & Security screen, as well as the old Face ID & Passcode screen.

These features and changes will arrive in iOS 18 this fall, alongside Apple’s other flagship updates such as iPadOS 18, macOS Sequoia, watchOS 11, and tvOS 18.