One of the new features of iOS 15 and macOS Monterey is iCloud Private Relay, which is basically an extra layer of security that protects users’ privacy while browsing the web. Although Private Relay has been available since June with the beta versions of Apple’s operating systems, the company is now considering it a “beta” feature, which means that it will no longer come enabled by default.
Ahead of the public release in a few weeks, Apple today released the seventh beta of iOS 15 to developers. While the update doesn’t come with any significant changes, the company mentions in today’s beta release notes that iCloud Private Relay will be released as a “public beta.”
iCloud
New Features in iOS & iPadOS 15 beta 7
iCloud Private Relay will be released as a public beta to gather additional feedback and improve website compatibility. (82150385)
Now, when you go into the iCloud settings in iOS 15 beta 7, iCloud Private Relay is labeled as “beta” and no longer comes enabled by default. According to Apple, the company decided to “delay” the official launch of the feature because it was causing incompatibility issues with some websites, which was, in fact, happening to users running iOS 15 with this option enabled.
Private Relay is currently in beta. Some websites may have issues, like showing content for the wrong region or requiring extra steps to sign in.
iCloud Private Relay is part of iCloud+, which is what Apple now calls the paid iCloud subscription plans with more storage. With Private Relay, Apple provides multiple security proxies that change the route of user traffic and keep it private. It’s almost as if Private Relay is Apple’s VPN for iCloud subscribers.
With this option enabled, the user’s real IP address is not shown to third-party servers so that they cannot track them across the web — which is known as fingerprinting. As the release of iOS 15 approaches, Apple has chosen not to force users to browse the web with Private Relay enabled since the feature is still not working as expected.