iOS 26

iOS 26 – What’s New

iOS 26 reached iPhone owners on Monday, September 15, 2025 as a free software update, three months after Apple previewed it at WWDC on June 9, 2025. The release shipped alongside iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, watchOS 26, tvOS 26, and visionOS 26, the first time every Apple platform shares a common version number.

Apple’s Liquid Glass material is a glass-like layer that runs across controls, navigation bars, app icons, widgets, and Lock Screen elements, picking up color and reflections from whatever sits behind it as the device moves. Tab bars shrink as you scroll to clear the way for content, then expand again as you scroll back up. Several stock apps have been redesigned around the new material, including Photos, Camera, Safari, Apple Music, FaceTime, Apple Podcasts, and Apple News. App icons have a fresh look, with options for light, dark, color-tinted, and a new clear appearance.

Apple Intelligence is woven through more parts of the system. Live Translation works across Messages, FaceTime, and the Phone app, using on-device models to translate text and audio. Visual intelligence reaches on-screen content for the first time, letting you press the same buttons used for screenshots to ask ChatGPT about what’s visible, run a Google or Etsy lookup, or send an event straight to the calendar. According to 9to5Mac, citing Apple, ChatGPT integration in iOS 26 uses GPT-5 rather than the earlier GPT-4o model.

The Phone app has been reorganized. A unified layout brings Favorites, Recents, and Voicemails onto one screen. Call Screening prompts unknown callers to identify themselves before the call rings through, and Hold Assist sits on hold in the background and rings when an agent picks up. Messages adds polls, custom backgrounds, and screening for unknown senders, plus typing indicators in group chats and the option to send and receive Apple Cash from inside a thread.

Apple Music has new tools for transitioning between songs and translating lyrics. Apple Games, a brand-new pre-installed app, gathers everything game-related onto one screen: titles you’ve installed, Apple Arcade content, achievements, and head-to-head Challenges with friends. Wallet gains AI-summarized order tracking, refreshed boarding passes with airport maps, and Digital ID for U.S. passport holders that can be presented in beta at TSA checkpoints in more than 250 airports.

For developers, a new Foundation Models framework lets any app tap into the same on-device model that powers Apple Intelligence: a 3-billion-parameter model that runs offline with inference free of cost. Adaptive Power, available on iPhone 15 Pro and later, learns how you use the iPhone and trims display brightness and background work on heavier-than-usual days. Apple has shipped 9 point releases since launch, the most recent being iOS 26.4.2 on April 22, 2026, with iOS 26.5 in beta and a public release expected in May.

Current Version

iOS 26 currently sits at iOS 26.4.2, released on April 22, 2026. According to Macworld, the update brought bug fixes and security patches without any new user-facing features.

iOS 26.5 is in beta. According to 9to5Mac, Apple seeded developer beta 4 (build 23F5069b) on April 27, 2026, with a public release expected in May. The beta does not add any new Siri capabilities; according to MacRumors, the long-promised personalized Siri features are now expected to ship with iOS 27 instead.

The biggest user-facing addition in iOS 26.5 is a Suggested Places feature in Apple Maps that recommends nearby locations based on trends and recent searches. MacRumors reports that the same betas also lay the groundwork for ads in Apple Maps. End-to-end encryption for RCS messages between iPhone and Android is back in testing after being pulled from iOS 26.4 before launch.

The release notes also call out two App Store changes: a new monthly-with-12-month-commitment subscription billing option (worldwide except the U.S. and Singapore), and EU-specific support for pushing Live Activities to third-party accessories, per 9to5Mac.

iOS 18 to iOS 26

The leap from iOS 18 directly to iOS 26 needs an explanation, since iOS 19 might seem like the natural next number. Apple decided to align all of its operating system version numbers on a year-based convention, so iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS now share the same number for the same release season. The “26” represents the 2025-2026 cycle.

iOS 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, and 25 do not exist as iPhone software releases. Apple’s update history page lists iOS 18 followed directly by iOS 26, with point releases iOS 26.0.1, 26.1, 26.2, 26.2.1, 26.3, 26.3.1, 26.4, 26.4.1, and 26.4.2 in between.

The change makes future numbering simpler. The trade-off is a one-time number gap on every platform that didn’t already use the year, but every platform Apple ships now lines up.

Design Changes

Apple has swapped most interface materials for Liquid Glass, a glass-like layer that takes on color from whatever sits behind it. Light passes through, edges catch reflections as the device moves, and content reads as the foreground while the surrounding controls fade back. Apple says the design extends across iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, watchOS 26, tvOS 26, and visionOS 26.

“At Apple, we’ve always believed in the deep integration of hardware and software that makes interacting with technology intuitive, beautiful, and delightful,” said Alan Dye, Apple’s vice president of Human Interface Design.

Navigation has been rebuilt around the new material, with controls and toolbars sitting on a distinct functional layer above the app rather than being baked into it. Many menus expand only when you tap them, and tab bars shrink while you scroll. Apple’s redesign breaks down into 4 visible patterns: pop-out menus that hide controls until you need them, navigation that disappears as content takes focus, rounder corners with more padding throughout, and a unified language across every Apple platform.

Pop Out Menus

Permanent on-screen controls have been replaced in many apps with menus that open only when you tap them. The Camera app is the clearest example: the main interface shows just Photo and Video as toggles, with everything else (timer, exposure, format) hiding behind small icons that expand into a pop-out panel on tap. Settings inside many other apps follow the same pattern.

The point is to keep the controls layer and the content layer visually separate. Apple’s framing is that controls now live on their own layer above the app, which is then free to morph based on context. If a setting seems missing in iOS 26, the answer is usually that it has been moved into a tap-to-expand menu rather than removed.

Disappearing Navigation

Tab bars in iOS 26 collapse as you scroll. In Safari, the bar at the bottom shrinks down to the page name once you start scrolling through a page; scrolling back up brings it back, with the full set of controls intact. Photos and Apple Music both have an expanding search bar that takes over the rest of the navigation bar when you tap it, then collapses again when you tap away.

Corners and Spacing

Almost every interface element in iOS 26 is rounder than its iOS 18 counterpart. Single buttons in Control Center are circular. The navigation bars use a pill shape now. Toggles and notifications take the same elongated pill outline. Cards have rounder corners, and the keyboard is rounded along its top edge.

iOS 18 used squircles, or rounded squares, for many controls. iOS 26 uses true rounds for most. App icons are the exception: they keep their existing squircle silhouette, even with the new Liquid Glass material on the surface.

Settings pages have more spacing between rows and more padding around content. The trade-off is that lists scroll longer, but each row is bigger and easier to read or tap. Bottom-of-app navigation bars have shrunk, freeing more vertical space for content.

Cross-Platform Cohesiveness

All of Apple’s other operating systems share Liquid Glass too. iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, watchOS 26, tvOS 26, and visionOS 26 all released the same day with the same material, and visionOS, where the layered glass aesthetic originated, looks closest to the new iOS in spirit. Macs running macOS Tahoe show the most dramatic change after iPhones, with a transparent menu bar and a Liquid Glass Dock.

For developers, Apple has updated SwiftUI, UIKit, and AppKit so apps can adopt the new material without rebuilding their interfaces from scratch. The shared design across platforms is a stated goal.

Design Summary

Five things to remember about the iOS 26 redesign:

• Liquid Glass replaces opaque interface materials with a glass-like layer that lets color and content show through.
• Controls and toolbars sit on a separate layer above the app, dynamically expanding and collapsing as you interact with them.
• Almost every interface element is now circular or pill-shaped; app icons keep their squircle outline.
• Navigation hides as you scroll and reappears when you ask for it.
• The same look extends to iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS for the first time.

Home Screen and Lock Screen

The Home Screen looks the most familiar of the redesigned surfaces. App icons keep their shape but pick up the Liquid Glass material, with options for light, dark, tinted, and a new clear appearance. The clear option treats every icon as transparent glass, exposing the wallpaper behind it. Tinted icons can be set to match the physical color of the iPhone or, if you use one, the color of an Apple-branded case.

On the Lock Screen, the clock has gone adaptive. The time resizes to fill the space a wallpaper leaves above its subject, growing or shrinking as notifications and Live Activities come and go. A drag handle on the bottom-right corner of the clock frame lets you size the clock manually, up to about half the screen, with widgets reflowing to the bottom when the clock takes more room. According to Engadget, the resize handle only appears with the default clock font and the standard Arabic Western numeral script. Switch fonts or scripts and it disappears.

Spatial scenes are new on the Lock Screen too. Any photo wallpaper can be turned into a 3D scene with the subject lifted forward of the background, shifting subtly as you move the iPhone. The feature works on iPhone 12 and later. With photo wallpapers using a depth effect, the clock automatically positions itself behind the subject, and if a photo leaves no space above the subject, the resize handle disappears.

Apple has continued to add Lock Screen options through iOS 26 point releases. iOS 26.1 introduced a Liquid Glass setting that lets you switch between the default clear look and a new Tinted look that increases the opacity of the material in apps and notifications. iOS 26.2 added a more granular slider for adjusting Liquid Glass opacity. iOS 26.3 split out a new Weather wallpaper section in the Lock Screen wallpaper gallery, previously combined with Astronomy, with three pre-designed Weather wallpapers, according to MacRumors.

Messages

Three big additions reshape Messages in iOS 26: screening for unknown senders, polls inside conversations, and customizable backgrounds. The screening feature puts texts from unknown senders in their own area of the conversation list and silences them by default. From there you can mark a number as known, request additional context from the sender, or delete the thread. Spam messages live in a separate category from unknown senders, both reachable through a new filter button in the app’s upper-right corner.

Polls let any participant in a thread vote on a list of options. A poll can hold up to 12 options, and anyone in the conversation can add an option after the poll is sent. On Apple Intelligence-capable devices, Messages will sometimes suggest a poll based on the conversation. Voting works for none, one, or all options. All participants need to be using iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe, watchOS 26, or visionOS 26 to start, see, or vote in a poll.

Custom backgrounds set the tone for individual conversations. You can also pick a photo or generate one with Image Playground. Group chats add typing indicators and the option to request, send, and receive Apple Cash inside the thread (U.S. only on eligible devices). Messages also adds natural language search and the ability to copy a fragment of a message rather than the entire bubble. Long-press a message and tap Select to choose a single line or snippet.

Screen Unknown Senders is off by default for fresh installs. Anyone who had Filter Unknown Senders turned on in iOS 18 keeps the new equivalent turned on after upgrading. Time Sensitive notifications, like one-time verification codes, bypass the screen for an hour, so they still appear on the Lock Screen even when the sender is unknown. Live Translation in Messages handles English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish, and Chinese (Simplified), translating incoming and outgoing messages on Apple Intelligence-capable iPhones.

Phone

The app has a new unified layout option that puts Favorites, Recents, and Voicemails on a single screen. CarPlay, which Apple says is used over 600 million times per day, picks up the same redesign. The biggest additions to the app itself are Call Screening, Hold Assist, and Live Translation.

Call Screening

Call Screening handles incoming calls from numbers your iPhone doesn’t recognize. The iPhone picks up before the call rings through and prompts the caller to identify themselves and say why they’re calling; the response surfaces on screen so you can choose to answer, send to voicemail, or ignore. Screened calls from unknown numbers can be tucked into a separate area of the call list. The toggle lives in Settings under Phone.

Call Screening understands Cantonese (China mainland, Hong Kong, Macao), English (U.S., Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Singapore, South Africa, UK), French (Canada, France), German, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin Chinese (China mainland, Taiwan, Macao), Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish (U.S., Mexico, Puerto Rico, Spain).

Hold Assist

Hold Assist takes over when you call a business and end up parked on hold. After tapping Hold during the call, the iPhone holds your spot in the queue while you do something else; when a real person picks up, your phone rings to bring you back, and the agent is told you’re rejoining the call shortly.

Hold Assist supports English (U.S., Australia, Canada, India, Singapore, UK), French (France), Spanish (U.S., Mexico, Spain), German, Portuguese (Brazil), Japanese, and Mandarin Chinese (mainland China).

Live Translation

Live Translation handles real-time translation during one-on-one calls in the Phone and FaceTime apps. The translated audio is read aloud as the call continues, with on-device models doing the work; Apple says no audio is sent to its servers. Live Translation in Phone and FaceTime supports one-on-one calls in English (U.S., UK), French (France), German, Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish (Spain). The Messages version of Live Translation supports the same languages plus Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (Simplified).

Other Features

The Phone app has more changes worth knowing about beyond the screening, hold, and translation flows.

• Type to Siri during calls — With the toggle at Apple Intelligence & Siri > Talk & Type to Siri turned on, double-tapping the bottom edge brings up the Siri text-entry field, even on a cellular call, according to iDownloadBlog.
• Screen Sharing and SharePlay — The More button on the call screen exposes options to share your screen, take remote control for troubleshooting, or run SharePlay. According to MacRumors, both participants need to be on iOS 26, iPadOS 26, or macOS Tahoe.
• Call History — Opening a contact from inside the Phone app reveals a full call log with that number, potentially going back years.
• eSIM transfer to and from Android — Settings > Cellular > Add eSIM > Transfer From Android pulls a number off an Android device, and the reverse flow is in Settings > Cellular > Transfer to Android. Carrier and handset support varies.
• Per-Focus SIM filter — Dual-SIM users can pick which line stays fully active during a Focus, per iDownloadBlog. The unselected line plays the carrier’s busy response while still being usable for outgoing calls, texts, and data.
• Spam voicemail reporting — Voicemails from unknown numbers gain a Report Spam button, with options to report and keep or report and delete the message, per MacRumors.
• Callback reminders — Swiping left on a missed call in Recents and tapping the blue clock icon offers Remind Me in 1 hour, Remind Me Tonight, Remind Me Tomorrow, or a custom date and time.

Apple Music

Apple Music’s biggest addition is AutoMix, but iOS 26 brings several other Apple Music changes worth noting, with more layered in across point releases.

AutoMix

AutoMix stitches one track to the next the way a DJ would, blending songs through time stretching and beatmatching to keep the energy continuous. Tempo and key analysis pick the transition point automatically. AutoMix is a different beast from the older Crossfade option, which only faded volume between tracks.

Other New Features

The rest of the Apple Music updates split between launch additions and post-launch features delivered in point releases.

• Lyrics Translation and Lyrics Pronunciation — The first translates lyrics for select songs across pairs including English-Chinese (Simplified), English-Japanese, Korean-English, Korean-Japanese, Korean-Chinese (Simplified), and Spanish-English. The second helps with singing along in another language.
• Library organization — Songs, albums, and playlists can be pinned to the top of the Library, and playlists can be organized into folders.
• iPhone as microphone — When you use Apple Music Sing on Apple TV, the iPhone can act as a karaoke microphone.
• Lock Screen now playing — Full-screen album artwork on the Lock Screen, with artist-designed animations on supported albums.
• iOS 26.1 added MiniPlayer swipe gestures for next or previous track, plus AutoMix support over AirPlay.
• iOS 26.2 added the Favorite Songs playlist to Top Picks and offline lyrics for downloaded songs.
• iOS 26.4 added Playlist Playground in beta, an Apple Intelligence feature that builds a 25-song playlist from a natural-language prompt; a Concerts feature for nearby shows by artists in your library; full-screen backgrounds for album and playlist pages; and Ambient Music widgets for Sleep, Chill, Productivity, and Wellbeing, according to MacRumors.

Shortcuts

Shortcuts is the app where Apple Intelligence is most directly exposed to advanced users. iOS 26 adds intelligent actions that handle text summarization, image generation, or any prompt that returns model output for use in subsequent steps. Image Playground and Writing Tools each have dedicated actions of their own.

The most flexible new addition is the Use Model action. Drop it into any shortcut and pick the model you want: an on-device Apple Intelligence model, a Private Cloud Compute model, or ChatGPT. Once you choose, Shortcuts gives you a free-form prompt where you can describe what you want the model to do; the result feeds into whatever step comes next.

Apple has loaded the Shortcuts Gallery with pre-built examples that use the new actions. Templates include morning summaries of your day, haiku generation, and PDF summarization, all of which can be edited or extended into your own automations.

Other New App Features

Beyond the marquee redesigns of Phone, Messages, and Apple Music, iOS 26 makes meaningful changes to a long list of stock apps. The list below covers what’s changed in each.

Safari

Safari has three tab-bar layouts: Compact (the default), Bottom, and Top. Compact compresses the tab bar, places it below web pages, and tucks additional controls on either side of the URL bar. Bottom expands the tab bar to its older form with controls beneath; Top moves the bar above the page with controls at the bottom of the screen. The setting lives at Settings > Apps > Safari > Tabs.

In Compact mode, swiping the URL bar enters tab view, and swiping side to side switches between tabs. The tab bar collapses as you scroll down a page and reappears when you scroll back up, the same disappearing-navigation pattern that runs through the rest of the system. Advanced fingerprinting protection now applies to every browsing session by default; previously it kicked in only inside Private Browsing. Safari also adds support for HDR images and SVG icons in the bookmarks bar and start page. A page pinned to the Home Screen now opens as a web app even when the underlying site isn’t configured as one.

Camera

The Camera app has been streamlined around Photo and Video modes, with everything else (Pano, Time-Lapse, Slo-Mo) a swipe away. Lesser-used controls have moved into menus that expand on tap. Lens cleaning hints alert you when the rear camera lens is smudged, available on iPhone 15 and later. A new gesture on AirPods 4 and AirPods Pro 2 turns a stem long-press into the shutter trigger for stills or video. iOS 26.1 added a setting to disable the Lock Screen swipe-to-open-Camera shortcut.

Photos

The Photos app splits Library and Collections into separate tabs again, undoing the iOS 18 single-tab merger. Library behaves like the pre-iOS 18 Photos app; Collections holds the customizable sections Apple introduced in iOS 18, with 3 layout options and easy reordering. Search is reachable from every view. Recognition for events like concerts and sports surfaces details and related content for each.

Spatial Scenes turn 2D photos into 3D-feeling images using the same depth-mapping technology as visionOS, lifting the subject away from the background and adding subtle motion as the iPhone moves. The feature is accessed from a button in the top-right corner of any photo. Video thumbnails now appear in search results, per MacRumors.

Notes

Notes lets you import and export files in Markdown format. Markdown documents shared into Notes from another app open as Notes; individual notes can be exported as Markdown. Math Notes handles three-variable equations and renders them as 3D graphs.

Reminders

Apple Intelligence can now spot tasks in any text you share into the Reminders app, whether an email, a webpage, or a note, and turn them into Reminder Suggestions. The system can also group similar reminders into sections automatically, removing the need for manual sorting.

iOS 26.2 added alarms for Reminders that ring when an urgent reminder comes due, with a 9-minute snooze and Live Activity support. iOS 26.4, per MacRumors, added the option to mark reminders as urgent from the Quick Toolbar or by touching and holding, plus a Smart List filter for urgent items.

FaceTime

FaceTime has a card-style home screen, with each recent contact rendered as a card showing the contact’s photo (when shared) and the date and type of the last call. Video messages auto-play in the background as you scroll, per MacRumors. A green New Call button sits at the bottom of the screen.

Live Translation overlays translated captions on screen during a FaceTime call. The launch language list is English (U.S. and U.K.), French (France), German, Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish (Spain). Both participants need an Apple Intelligence-capable device on iOS 26, iPadOS 26, or macOS Tahoe.

Communication Safety now intervenes in live FaceTime video. When nudity is detected, FaceTime freezes audio and video on-device and shows a warning with options to resume or end the call. Communication Safety is on by default for accounts of users 17 and under and managed via Screen Time; adults can opt in via Settings > Privacy & Security > Sensitive Content Warning. Call filtering for unknown callers and identified spam lives at Settings > FaceTime > Call Filtering.

Podcasts

Apple Podcasts now ranges from 0.5x to 3x playback speed, up from the four fixed presets (1.25x, 1.5x, 1.75x, 2x) in iOS 18. Tapping the 1x button in fullscreen reveals presets; swiping across them opens a granular dial in 0.1x increments. Speed and Enhance Dialogue can be saved per show under Show Settings > Speed & Audio Adjustments rather than reset between episodes. Enhance Dialogue mutes background sounds to bring vocals forward.

The Browse tab has been renamed New, surfacing editorial curation, Top Charts, and category-level collections for popular topics. iOS 26.2 added automatically generated chapters for podcasts using transcripts and on-device AI, plus links to mentioned podcasts in the player and transcript.

iOS 26.4 brought adaptive video podcast streaming and video podcasting capabilities, and made captions and subtitles easier to find, customize, and preview through the captions icon during media playback. Live Captions also gained Taiwanese-variant Chinese support. According to AppleInsider, the same update added support for dynamic video ad insertion server-side for creators.

Apple Maps

Visited Places lets the iPhone detect locations you spend time at, like restaurants, shops, parks, and landmarks, and stores them on-device. The list is reachable through the Maps profile picture > Places > Visited Places, with filtering by city or category, search, sharing, notes, ratings, and per-entry removal. Retention is configurable at three months, one year, or forever. Visited Places is end-to-end encrypted and not accessible by Apple, and is available in beta in Australia, Canada, Malaysia, Switzerland, the U.K., and the U.S.

Preferred routes uses on-device intelligence to learn the routes you take between frequent destinations, then alerts you to delays, road closures, or significant traffic ahead and proposes a faster way around. A Maps Suggestions Home Screen widget surfaces the same alerts. Incident reporting during turn-by-turn directions has a new button on the right side of the screen, and additional incident categories are now selectable.

iOS 26.5, currently in beta, adds a Suggested Places feature that recommends nearby locations based on trends and recent searches, per 9to5Mac.

Wallet

Wallet has picked up four substantive additions: Apple Intelligence-powered order tracking, refreshed boarding passes, Digital ID, and Verify with Wallet on the Web.

The order tracking feature is in beta. Apple Intelligence scans incoming emails for shipment notifications and pulls the tracking details into Wallet, including for purchases not made with Apple Pay. Refreshed boarding passes show timely information below the pass: airport map navigation through Maps, Find My luggage tracking, shareable Live Activities, and quick links to airline app features. American Airlines added support for the redesigned passes on April 13, 2026, per MacRumors.

Digital ID launched on November 12, 2025. The feature creates an ID in Apple Wallet from a U.S. passport’s information and is presentable on iPhone or Apple Watch. Acceptance is rolling out in beta at TSA checkpoints at more than 250 U.S. airports for domestic-travel identity verification only; Apple is explicit that Digital ID is not a substitute for a physical passport and cannot be used at international borders.

“With the launch of Digital ID, we’re excited to expand the ways users can store and present their identity, all with the security and privacy built into iPhone and Apple Watch,” said Jennifer Bailey, Apple’s vice president of Apple Pay and Apple Wallet.

Verify with Wallet on the Web lets websites query a Wallet-stored ID directly through the browser, using the W3C Digital Credentials API with end-to-end encryption and Face ID, Touch ID, or passcode authentication. On non-Apple browsers and operating systems, the website shows a QR code that the user scans with their iPhone camera to complete the exchange. According to MacRumors, launch partners include Chime, Turo, Uber Eats, and U.S. Bank, plus three state ID apps for the Arizona MVD, Georgia DDS, and Maryland MVA.

Apple Pay extends installment financing and rewards to in-store purchases, and credit and debit cards used with AutoFill can be managed directly from Wallet.

Games

Apple Games is a new pre-installed app that pulls game library, achievements, multiplayer matchmaking, and Apple Arcade content into one place. The Home tab features a Continue Playing carousel and personalized sections such as Arcade Games for You, Friends Are Playing, Top Played Games, and Because You Played, per MacRumors. The Library tab consolidates per-game achievements with platform filters, plus quick links to Apple Arcade titles (more than 200 of them) and Events.

Challenges let players compete in real-time score-based showdowns. Game Mode activates when a game launches, and an Overlay option in Control Center surfaces leaderboards, friend invites, sound and brightness controls, and controller settings without leaving the game. iOS 26.2 added library filters by category and size, in-game challenge score banners, and improved support for connected controllers like Backbone and Razer.

Metal 4 ships alongside iOS 26, exclusive to Apple Silicon, with new MetalFX Frame Interpolation and MetalFX Denoising features. It runs on iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV with A13 Bionic or newer, and does not work on Intel-based Macs.

Preview

Preview, the app Mac users have known for years, is now available on iPhone and iPad. It handles PDFs (viewing, annotating, AutoFill, document scanning, exporting) and images (cropping, flipping, rotating, resizing, editing).

Journal

Journal supports multiple journals, so entries about different parts of your life can be kept separate. Images can be added inline with text, and a map view shows entries plotted by location.

CarPlay

CarPlay picks up the Liquid Glass design across its full interface, with a redesigned tab bar for navigation, a Dashboard that distinguishes interaction areas, and the same glass-like styling used elsewhere in iOS. Apple says CarPlay is used over 600 million times per day. CarPlay Ultra, the deeper integration available in select vehicles, also gains the new design.

New Messages App Features

Messages in CarPlay supports Tapbacks: the heart, thumbs up, exclamation marks, and other reactions you’ve been able to use on iPhone. Pinned conversations from your iPhone now appear at the top of the Messages app inside CarPlay, so the thread you’ve pinned for a partner or family member surfaces first.

Phone Calls

Incoming calls show in a new compact view rather than taking over the screen. The compact view keeps turn-by-turn directions visible during the ring, so the navigation guidance is not blocked while you decide whether to answer.

Live Activities and Widgets

The CarPlay Dashboard now displays Live Activities automatically: flight arrivals, sports scores, ride-share status, and other in-progress events synced from your iPhone. Widgets appear to the left of the Dashboard, with HomeKit accessory shortcuts and calendar entries among the supported types.

Other New Features

CarPlay has a few smaller but useful additions worth flagging.

• Multi-touch maps — Mapping apps in supported vehicles support pinch-to-zoom and pan gestures, per MacRumors.
• AirPlay video while parked — iPhone can wirelessly stream video to the CarPlay screen, but only with the car stationary; once motion is detected, playback stops. Automakers must add support, so availability may be limited initially, per MacRumors.
• Smart Display Zoom — A new setting auto-scales the CarPlay interface so it sits comfortably on a vehicle’s dashboard screen regardless of aspect ratio, per MacRumors.
• Large Text and Sound Recognition — Accessibility additions for CarPlay alert drivers and passengers who are deaf or hard of hearing to crying babies, horns, and sirens.

Battery and Adaptive Power Mode

Apple has rebuilt the Battery section of Settings around comparison and prediction. The new view shows a weekly chart of battery usage paired with how today is tracking against your normal day. A status line at the top reports whether the iPhone’s battery draw is heavier than usual, on par, or lighter, with a per-app breakdown of which apps are draining the most.

App-level analytics get more specific. Each entry flags whether the app sent more notifications than usual, kept running in the background past its norm, or held the screen longer than your average. Daily consumption is color-coded, with orange flagging higher-than-typical usage. Battery used since the last charge is shown alongside the weekly view.

Adaptive Power is the largest addition for users who run their batteries hard. The system learns your typical usage and, on heavier days, dials brightness down a touch and lets some background work run a little slower so the battery stretches further. The feature is exclusive to iPhone 15 Pro and later because it relies on Apple Intelligence.

The Lock Screen and Settings now show estimated time to charge while the iPhone is plugged in, so you can see how long until the battery is full at a glance.

Apple Intelligence Updates

iOS 26 expands Apple Intelligence in several directions. Some are visible system features (Live Translation in Phone, Messages, and FaceTime; Reminder Suggestions; visual intelligence on screen); others are infrastructure for developers (the Foundation Models framework with a 3-billion-parameter on-device model). Apple Intelligence is in beta for English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish, Chinese (Simplified), Japanese, and Korean, with 8 more languages coming: Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese (Portugal), Swedish, Turkish, Chinese (Traditional), and Vietnamese.

Visual Intelligence

Visual intelligence now reads on-screen content in iOS 26. Press the same buttons you use to take a screenshot, and a new layer appears with options to ask, search, or highlight. Ask sends what’s on screen to ChatGPT for follow-up questions; Search queries Google or other supported apps like Etsy; Highlight to Search lets you draw a region around a specific item to search for that item alone. If the screen contains an event with date and time information, visual intelligence can add it directly to your calendar.

Object recognition has expanded too. Beyond the animal and plant identification it could already do, visual intelligence now handles works of art, books, sculptures, and both built and natural landmarks.

Genmoji

There are three ways to make a Genmoji in iOS 26: mix two emoji characters together, combine an emoji with a written description, or add expressions and personal-attribute customizations to Genmoji of people pulled from your Photos library. Combining is a faster starting point than describing from scratch, since it lets you use existing emoji as a base and tweak from there.

Image Playground

ChatGPT-powered styles are the biggest Image Playground change. The new mode list adds Anime, Oil Painting, Watercolor, Vector, and Print to the existing Animation, Sketch, and Illustration set, plus an Any Style option where you describe both the image and the style in plain language.

ChatGPT

The ChatGPT integration in Apple Intelligence has moved up from GPT-4o to GPT-5, according to 9to5Mac. The newer model brings stronger reasoning and coding output to anywhere ChatGPT shows up in the system: Visual Intelligence, Image Playground, the Use Model action in Shortcuts, and ChatGPT-attributed responses through Siri.

New AirPods Features

iOS 26 unlocks several new AirPods features through accompanying firmware updates. The features are split across the AirPods 4, AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation, and AirPods Pro 2 (and later).

Improved Call Quality

AirPods 4, AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation, and AirPods Pro 2 (and later) gain studio-quality audio recording, building on Voice Isolation. The improvement reaches across iPhone, iPad, and Mac, covering everything from FaceTime and CallKit-based apps like Zoom to Voice Memos, Messages dictation, and both first-party and third-party camera apps.

Camera Remote

The AirPods Camera Remote turns the stem into a shutter button. With the iPhone’s Camera app or a supported third-party camera app open, a press and hold on the stem of AirPods 4 or AirPods Pro 2 (and later) fires the shutter for a still or toggles a video recording on and off.

iOS 26 also brings Live Translation to AirPods. The feature works on AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation and AirPods Pro 2 and later when paired with an Apple Intelligence-capable iPhone. Launch language support covered English (UK, U.S.), French (France), German, Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish (Spain). iOS 26.1 expanded the list to include Italian, Japanese, Korean, and Chinese (Simplified and Traditional).

Software Updates

iOS 26 adds a manual firmware update flow for AirPods. Open Settings while AirPods are connected, and a software update interface appears, similar to the iPhone’s own update flow. The change replaces the older behavior, where firmware updates installed silently when AirPods were charging near a paired iPhone with no way for the owner to confirm or trigger the update.

Pause for Sleep

If you fall asleep with AirPods in while audio is playing, the AirPods now pause playback automatically when they detect you’ve drifted off. Music, audiobooks, and podcasts all qualify.

Faster Qi Charging

iOS 26 enables 25W Qi 2.2 (Qi2 25W) wireless charging on every iPhone 16 model except the iPhone 16e, when paired with a Qi 2.2-certified charger, according to MacRumors. Apple has not announced the change in a press release, so the figure is based on iOS 26 beta detection and the simultaneous launch of compatible Belkin chargers. Older iPhones still cap at lower wireless wattages.

Smaller Changes

iOS 26 has dozens of additions that don’t fit neatly into a section of their own. The selected list below covers the most notable, with point-release additions noted where relevant.

• Custom ringtones can be added without GarageBand or iTunes syncing: any MP3 or M4A file under 30 seconds, assigned through the Files app or Voice Memos via Share > Use as Ringtone, per ithinkdiff.
• New ringtones include 6 variants of Reflection — Buoyant, Dreamer, Pond, Pop, Reflected, and Surge — plus a new standalone ringtone called Little Bird, per MacRumors.
• Custom snooze in Clock alarms can be set per alarm between 1 and 15 minutes, per MacRumors; the prior 9-minute default is no longer enforced.
• iCloud Drive cellular toggle lets you turn off iCloud Drive syncing on a cellular connection, and Captive Wi-Fi sync shares portal logins across your Apple devices.
• Password History in the Passwords app shows a timeline of changes for each account, including past passwords and previously generated strong passwords.
• Keep Audio in Headphones stops the iPhone from rerouting playback to a Bluetooth speaker or car stereo if you’re mid-listen on wired or wireless headphones.
• Weather via satellite works outside Wi-Fi or cellular range, and Apple Fitness+ Custom Plans generate a schedule from your workout and meditation history.
• Wi-Fi Aware enables direct device-to-device Wi-Fi links that work without an internet connection, with third-party app hooks for fast file transfers and media sharing.
• Cinematic mode and Audio Mix are now available to third-party video recording apps, with Audio Mix offering standard, in-frame, studio, and cinematic modes.
• Local capture records high-quality audio and video during any video conferencing call, and a new audio input picker in Control Center makes it easier to switch microphones per app.
• Adaptive Temperature in the Home app adjusts a thermostat to your preferred setting on the way home, and Health adds blood-pressure logging with a PDF report for healthcare providers.
• Workout tab in Fitness brings workout tracking with metrics like pace and distance, with compatible heart rate monitors like AirPods Pro 3 supported. iOS 26.1 added manual workout logging directly from the Fitness app.
• iOS 26.1 added a slide-to-stop control on Clock alarms, replacing the older large stop button, per MacRumors.
• iOS 26.2 added Enhanced Safety Alerts (U.S.) for floods and natural disasters, AirDrop codes for transfers with unknown contacts, Apple News section links at the top of the Today feed, Multipack accessory pairing in Home, and Tables in Freeform.
• iOS 26.3 added Transfer to Android, an Apple-Google joint tool for moving photos, messages, notes, apps, passwords, and phone numbers between iPhone and Android, per 9to5Mac.
• iOS 26.3 also added a Limit Precise Location setting that caps some carrier-tracked location data to neighborhood-level accuracy on the C1 and C1X modems used in iPhone 16e and iPhone Air, per MacRumors.
• iOS 26.4 added 8 new emoji including an orca, trombone, landslide, ballet dancer, and distorted face, per MacRumors; Purchase Sharing for Family Sharing so adult members can use their own payment methods; and Freeform integration with Apple Creator Studio.
• iOS 26.4 also improved keyboard accuracy when typing quickly, per MacRumors, and added Reduce Motion improvements for Liquid Glass animations along with a new Reduce Bright Effects toggle, per AppleInsider.
• Reduce Loud Sounds in Sounds & Haptics compresses the speaker’s volume range to soften loud audio while preserving quieter detail, per MacRumors.

Accessibility

iOS 26 adds the largest set of accessibility features in any iOS release in years. Apple announced the additions ahead of WWDC on May 13, 2025.

“At Apple, accessibility is part of our DNA. Making technology for everyone is a priority for all of us, and we’re proud of the innovations we’re sharing this year. That includes tools to help people access crucial information, explore the world around them, and do what they love,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook.

App Store Labels

Accessibility Nutrition Labels are a new section on App Store product pages that highlight which accessibility features an app supports, including VoiceOver, Voice Control, Larger Text, Sufficient Contrast, Reduced Motion, captions, and more. The labels let users tell whether an app will be usable to them before downloading.

Accessibility Reader

Accessibility Reader is a new reading mode designed for users with disabilities like dyslexia or low vision and available across the system. It reflows text from any app, webpages, PDFs, or even live camera-captured menus through Magnifier, into the reader’s preferred font, size, color, and line spacing, with Spoken Content support. A Reader button appears in Safari’s address bar, the Share Sheet, and the Magnifier toolbar. Accessibility Reader is available on iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Vision Pro.

Braille Access

Braille Access turns iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple Vision Pro into a full-featured braille note taker. With a connected braille display or Braille Screen Input, users can launch apps, take notes in braille, type math in Nemeth Braille, open BRF (Braille Ready Format) files, and stream Live Captions onto braille cells during a FaceTime call or supported app. Translation tables and cursor settings sync across iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Vision Pro.

Other Features

The rest of the iOS 26 accessibility additions span hearing, vision, motor, and cognitive support.

• Background Sounds — 8 new options join the existing 8 for a total of 16: Babble, Steam, Airplane, Boat, Bus, Train, Rain on Roof, and Quiet Night.
• Personal Voice — Faster setup that needs only 10 recorded phrases instead of the prior 150 and generates a smoother result in less than a minute on Apple Intelligence-capable iPhones. Spanish (Mexico) joins English (United States) and Mandarin Chinese (mainland China) as supported languages.
• Vehicle Motion Cues — Now available on Mac, with new ways to customize the animated onscreen dots on iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
• Eye Tracking — Switch and dwell selection options, a keyboard dwell timer that’s new in iOS 26, reduced steps for typing with switches, and QuickPath enabled for iPhone and Vision Pro.
• Head Tracking — Control iPhone or iPad with head movements, similar to Eye Tracking.
• Brain Computer Interfaces — A new BCI-Switch Control protocol that gives users a way to drive their device when physical movement isn’t possible.
• Assistive Access — A streamlined Apple TV app, built specifically for Assistive Access with a simpler media player, plus an API for developers to build tailored experiences.
• Music Haptics — Options to feel haptics for a whole song or vocals only, with an overall intensity adjustment for taps, textures, and vibrations.
• Sound Recognition — Adds Name Recognition, alerting users who are deaf or hard of hearing when their name is spoken nearby.
• Voice Control — A new programming mode in Xcode for developers with limited mobility, vocabulary syncing across devices, and additional language support including Korean, Arabic (Saudi Arabia), Turkish, Italian, Cantonese (mainland China), Mandarin Chinese (Taiwan), English (Singapore), and Russian.
• Live Captions — New language support for English (India, Australia, UK, Singapore), Mandarin Chinese (mainland China), Cantonese (mainland China, Hong Kong), Spanish (U.S., Mexico, Spain), French (France, Canada), Japanese, German, and Korean.
• Reduce Transparency — In Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size, this option now reliably suppresses Liquid Glass translucency systemwide for users who find the effect distracting.
• Share Accessibility Settings — A way to temporarily push your accessibility setup to another iPhone or iPad, handy when you pick up someone else’s device or use a public kiosk.

Compatibility

iOS 26 runs on every iPhone that supported iOS 18, except for the iPhone XS Max, iPhone XS, and iPhone XR. The full list:

• iPhone 17 Pro Max
• iPhone 17 Pro
• iPhone Air
• iPhone 17
• iPhone 17e
• iPhone 16 Pro Max
• iPhone 16 Pro
• iPhone 16 Plus
• iPhone 16
• iPhone 16e
• iPhone 15 Pro Max
• iPhone 15 Pro
• iPhone 15 Plus
• iPhone 15
• iPhone 14 Pro Max
• iPhone 14 Pro
• iPhone 14 Plus
• iPhone 14
• iPhone 13 Pro Max
• iPhone 13 Pro
• iPhone 13
• iPhone 13 mini
• iPhone 12 Pro Max
• iPhone 12 Pro
• iPhone 12
• iPhone 12 mini
• iPhone 11 Pro Max
• iPhone 11 Pro
• iPhone 11
• iPhone SE (2nd generation and later)

Apple Intelligence requires more recent hardware. The supported list covers iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, all iPhone 16 models, all iPhone 17 models, iPhone Air, iPad mini (A17 Pro), and iPad and Mac models with M1 and later that have Apple Intelligence enabled. Adaptive Power requires iPhone 15 Pro or later for the same reason.

What’s Next for iOS

iOS 27 is in development at Apple, with WWDC 2026 scheduled for Monday, June 8, 2026, per MacRumors. Per MacRumors, citing Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, iOS 27 will be a “Snow Leopard”-style update focused on bug fixes, performance, and stability rather than headline-grabbing additions.

The most-anticipated change is the long-delayed personalized Siri. Per MacRumors, the Siri features that were originally planned for iOS 26 are now expected in iOS 27 instead. iOS 26.5, currently in beta, does not include any new Siri capabilities.

Per Mark Gurman via MacRumors, iOS 27 is also expected to be tuned for Apple’s first foldable iPhone, allowing apps to run side-by-side and other iPad-like multitasking on the unfolded display.

iOS 26 Timeline

April 27, 2026 — Apple seeds the fourth iOS 26.5 and iPadOS 26.5 betas to developers, build 23F5069b. MacRumors.

April 22, 2026 — Apple releases iOS 26.4.2 and iPadOS 26.4.2 with bug fixes and security updates.

April 15, 2026 — iOS 26.4 is no longer signed by Apple, blocking downgrades from iOS 26.4.1. MacRumors.

April 13, 2026 — American Airlines now supports iOS 26’s revamped Wallet boarding passes. MacRumors.

April 8, 2026 — Apple releases iOS 26.4.1 and iPadOS 26.4.1 with bug fixes. MacRumors.

April 3, 2026 — Apple releases the first iOS 26.5, iPadOS 26.5, and macOS Tahoe 26.5 public betas. MacRumors.

March 24, 2026 — Apple releases iOS 26.4 and iPadOS 26.4 with new emoji, Playlist Playground, Purchase Sharing changes, Freeform Creator Studio, and other features.

March 4, 2026 — Apple releases iOS 26.3.1 with Studio Display (2026) and Studio Display XDR support.

February 11, 2026 — Apple releases iOS 26.3 with Transfer to Android, the Weather wallpaper section, Limit Precise Location for C1/C1X carriers, and 35+ security fixes. MacRumors.

December 12, 2025 — Apple releases iOS 26.2 with Apple Music, Podcasts, and Games enhancements, Reminder alarms, the Lock Screen Liquid Glass opacity slider, AirDrop codes, Enhanced Safety Alerts, and Freeform tables.

November 12, 2025 — Apple introduces Digital ID, rolling out in beta at TSA checkpoints at more than 250 U.S. airports.

November 3, 2025 — Apple releases iOS 26.1 with the Liquid Glass Tinted toggle, slide-to-stop alarm, Live Translation with AirPods in 4 new languages, AutoMix over AirPlay, and other additions. MacRumors.

September 29, 2025 — Apple releases iOS 26.0.1 with fixes for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, cellular connection issues, photo artifacts, blank app icons after custom tinting, and a VoiceOver issue on iPhone 17 models. MacRumors.

September 15, 2025 — Apple releases iOS 26 alongside iPadOS 26, macOS 26, watchOS 26, tvOS 26, and visionOS 26. Apple Intelligence features go live the same day in 9 launch languages.

August 23, 2025 — iOS 26 (in beta) adds Qi 2.2 (Qi2 25W) support for the iPhone 16 lineup excluding iPhone 16e. MacRumors.

August 8, 2025 — Apple confirms ChatGPT integration within Apple Intelligence will use GPT-5 starting with iOS 26. 9to5Mac.

July 24, 2025 — Apple releases the first iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 public betas through the Apple Beta Software Program. MacRumors.

June 9, 2025 — Apple announces iOS 26 at WWDC 2025 with the Liquid Glass design language unifying iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, watchOS 26, tvOS 26, and visionOS 26. First developer beta released the same day.

May 13, 2025 — Apple unveils accessibility features coming with iOS 26 across its platforms, including Accessibility Nutrition Labels, Magnifier for Mac, Braille Access, and Accessibility Reader.

Changelog

May 2, 2026 — Initial publication.

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