iPadOS 27 is here, announced at WWDC 2026, with a big emphasis on performance improvements, efficiency, Liquid Glass and slider fixes, many small changes, and some great new features for Apple Intelligence and Siri AI. If you’re excited to try out the iPadOS 27 beta on your iPad, you might be wondering about installing the developer beta now and getting an early look at the changes and information.
The usual caveats apply here, as we generally do not recommend installing an early beta system on any device. But if you’re going to ignore that warning, and want to try the iPadOS 27 beta right now, and are comfortable with bugs, app incompatibilities, incomplete features, and other known issues common to beta software, you’re in the right place. And yes, we understand the irony of installing a buggy iPadOS beta that focuses on performance improvements, but beta!
Read on and we’ll walk you through the steps to install the iPadOS 27 developer beta on your iPad.
iPadOS 27 Compatible iPad Models and System Requirements
Although Apple was free to allow iOS 27 to run on any iPhone running iOS 26, this is not the case with iPadOS 27. For reasons that are unclear, Apple has removed several iPad models from supporting iPadOS 27 that are capable of running iPadOS 26.
Specifically, iPad Pro 11″ first generation, iPad Pro 12.9″ 3rd gen, iPad Air 3rd gen, iPad Mini 4th gen, and iPad 8th gen, are not supported on iPadOS 27. Maybe that will change during the beta development period, but don’t count on that, just assume your old iPad knows it well!
This means that the following iPad models can run iPadOS 27: iPad Pro 11″ 2nd gen and newer, iPad Pro 12.9″ 4th gen and newer, iPad Air 4th gen and newer, iPad Mini 6th gen and newer, iPad 9th gen and newer.
There are some additional strict requirements to run the latest and full Siri AI and Apple Intelligence experience, where you will need an M4 iPad or better to be able to have a customized Siri voice and use the full models on the device.
You’ll also need at least 30GB of free storage available on your compatible iPad to be able to install iPadOS 27 beta.
How to download and install iPadOS 27 Developer Beta
Downloading and installing iPadOS 27 beta is very easy, here’s what you need to do:
- Back up the iPad to iCloud, and be sure to back up the iPad to the Mac as well so you can downgrade if you wish – DO NOT SKIP BACKUPS!
- Next, join the Apple Developer program at developer.apple.com with your Apple ID, this allows you to access beta versions of OS 27
- Open the “Settings” app on the iPad
- Go to “General” and select “Software Update”
- Select “Beta Updates” (you will not see “Beta Updates” if your Apple ID is not registered in the beta program)
- Select “iPadOS 27 Developer Beta” from the list of available betas
- Return to the main Software Update screen and select “Update Now” to download and install iPadOS 27 beta on your iPad.
The iPad will install the iPadOS 27 beta like any other software update. Future updates to iPadOS 27 beta will come via Software Update, just like any other update. It’s easy peasy.
You’ll soon be looking at the iPadOS 27 beta, which looks very similar to iPadOS 26, and you’ll be presented with a Liquid Glass slider and a few other options.
Is iPadOS 27 beta usable? Is it buggy? Is it stable?
While iPadOS 27 beta is currently in early developer beta, it’s actually pretty stable in my limited experience, given that I don’t use my iPad for anything too crazy or serious, and I don’t push its limits too much.
For me, my M4 iPad is mostly a powerful sofa web browser, a bill paying device, a Fortnite player, and something I read long articles on, and I don’t try to engage in anything too serious or serious on it.
There are beta bugs and quirks with the iPadOS 27 beta though, like rotating the Lock Screen can get stuck in a weird moving loop that changes the background image endlessly, and Safari’s already weird color tab thing randomly becomes very difficult when it gets stuck on color or color cycles, iCloud Photos seems to do everything to put your photos without filling up space in the way of storing photos. clean pictures, System Data and iPadOS seem to take up a ridiculously large amount of storage capacity, and I’m not even sure that the Liquid Glass slider makes a difference no matter which way we move it, but apart from all that, I haven’t run into any major displays or problems yet (except for my 128GB iPad which is full all the time now, but I’m not sure if it’s iPadOS’s ’27). That doesn’t mean you’ll have the same experience, and again, we generally don’t recommend installing beta system software on any critical device, while my iPad is nice but not critical, so the bomb going into developer beta is mine! And if I haven’t installed the beta how can I write this article for you, dear reader?
What about the latest Siri AI features for iPadOS 27?
The latest Siri AI features and the dedicated Siri app currently have a waiting list, which you can join by using Settings > Siri > Join Waiting List.
But, if you’re using the MacOS 27 Golden Gate beta, you can use a little trick to bypass Siri’s waiting list.
Ideally, signing up for the waitlist often gets approval quickly, with most people being approved within a day or so. I was approved the same day, and I’m not even a real developer, I’m just curious and I have an iPad.
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Now that you’ve installed the iPadOS 27 beta on your iPad, you might be brave enough to try it on other devices. Again, we don’t recommend that (wait until the public beta at least!) but if you feel impatient, you can learn how to install iOS 27 dev beta on iPhone now, and you can also install MacOS 27 beta, watchOS 27 beta, tvOS 27 beta, and visionOS 27 beta, if you can get full information about OS2.
What do you think of the iPadOS 27 beta? Anything notable so far? Do you skip the developer beta and wait for the public beta, or the final version? Let us know your experience in the comments.