iOS 14.5 and iPadOS 14.5 are officially coming to iPhones and iPads next week, but you don’t have to wait until then to get your hands on the final release candidates of the new operating systems.
While it’s always possible for Apple to fix or tweak the publicly available version of iOS or iPadOS, the Release Candidate is usually the final version of the operating system that anyone can access on launch day. That said, you don’t run the risk of installing a faulty operating system on your iPhone if you install the release candidate today before the majority of iPhone and iPad owners get it.
But before you pull the shutter button, take a few moments to make sure you’ve backed up your device to iCloud or a connected desktop or laptop. This applies to CYA, just in case your device fails to update or one of your critical apps has problems with iOS 14.5. Those circumstances are more likely in the future transition between iOS 14-point whatever and iOS 15, but it never hurts to be careful.
Once you are ready, all you have to do is register your device for iOS public beta or Developer beta. Either works from this point on; I used the latter and recently received notification to update to the release candidate for iOS 14.5.
As a quick reminder, sign up for either beta version by downloading a profile to your device (which means you’ll need to use Safari to access either website). You then start your Settings App> General> Profile and install it, reset your phone and then Perform a software update by following the usual steps. Once you have iOS 14.5 installed on your device, you can go back to the same screen and remove the profile to opt out of future beta updates (unless you want to live on the wild side).
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We’ll have a full guide to iOS 14.5 next week, but if you’d like to try out some of the new features, we’ve covered the following so far:
