iOS 26

Apple (feature list, release notes, security, enterprise, developer):

Featuring the new design with Liquid Glass, iOS 26 brings more customization options to the Lock Screen, including a sleek adaptive time presentation and delightful 3D spatial scenes, as well as enhancements to Camera, Photos, Safari, the Phone app, and more. To help users eliminate distractions and focus on the conversations that matter most, Call Screening can screen calls from unknown numbers, while Hold Assist can hold on the line until a live agent is available. In Messages, users can now choose to screen messages from unknown senders, create polls, and add backgrounds to conversations.

iOS 26 also adds Lyrics Translation and Pronunciation in Apple Music, Visited Places in Apple Maps, and order tracking in Apple Wallet. Updates to AirPods allow creators to record content with great sound quality and remotely control content capture in the Camera app. Additionally, iOS 26 introduces the Apple Games app, an all-new personalized gaming destination designed to help users jump back into the games they love, find their next favorite, and have more fun with their friends. Also, CarPlay users will see a new compact view for incoming calls, Tapbacks in Messages, as well as widgets and Live Activities.

Craig Grannell:

The reaction during the summer’s public beta program was divisive. And while some people just hate change, Liquid Glass does invite criticism. Instead of sharpening focus, it too often muddies it due to legibility issues and distracting visual effects. On Mac, controls are overly prominent, yet on iPhone, they are relentlessly eager to disappear into a new Apple take on hamburger menus, denying users the chance to build effective muscle memory.

Niléane Dorffer:

Oh and […] everyone who has kept gaslighting us all summer assuring us that the legibility and contrast issues would get fixed before the public release.

See also:

• MacStories
• Six Colors
• MacRumors
• 9to5Mac
• AppleInsider
• The Verge

Previously:

• Design Is How It Works
• iOS 26 Developer Beta 9
• appleOS 26 Public Betas
• Assorted Notes on Liquid Glass
• iOS 26 Announced
• iOS 18

Update (2025-10-06): BasicAppleGuy:

iOS Icon History
Phone ☎️

Shayan:

iOS 26 has some good ideas, but it’s an overall UX downgrade for me.

Possibly their worst case of form over function so far.

A lot of common actions now require extra taps. Text is still hard to read. So much dead and white space across the UI. The enlarged bubble effect feels unnecessary. Colors heavily bleed into each other when UI stacks, and so on.

Jeff Johnson:

Unfortunately, the iOS 26 Release Candidate still includes a few bugs specifically affecting Safari extensions.

Steve Moser:

Liquid Glass icons for Apple Store, Clips, GarageBand, iMovie, Keynote, Numbers, and Pages have surfaced on Apple’s iPhone tech spec pages.

Juli Clover:

There are a lot of changes and features to learn about, so if you want a quick, easy-to-read list that outlines what’s new, we’ve got you covered.

Ben Lovejoy:

It certainly takes some getting used to, but overall I’m a fan, and I particularly like some of the small but notable changes … For me though, it’s the little things that make the biggest difference. For example, I find the notification banners cute while now still being easy to read[…]

D. Griffin Jones:

Quick, which of these Home Screens are checked? This is on the iOS 26 default wallpaper.

Benjamin Mayo:

I’ve had a response to one of my OS 26 submitted Feedbacks! I reported that the use of the Music’s app red tint colour in alert dialogs was confusing when the dialog included destructive actions. The design has been changed to resolve the ambiguity.

Update as of iOS 26 release day: this remains my only Feedback to have received an explicit response.

Rosyna Keller:

Yay, 3 of the 18 privacy bugs I’ve filed so far look to be fixed in iOS 26. Only one counts for a bounty so far? (I don’t understand the bounty system)

David Price:

Users across a range of forums have claimed that periodically, Wi-Fi connectivity “briefly disconnects and then reconnects after they unlock the iPhone,” which can also cause CarPlay to disconnect.

Joe Rossignol:

iOS 26 breaks search functionality in the Calendar app for some iPhone users, according to comments from affected users across the Apple Support Community, Reddit, X, Facebook, and other online discussion platforms.

Scharon Harding:

This time around, we’re taking a look at some of the updates targeted at people who rely on their iPhones for much more than making phone calls and browsing the Internet. Many of these features rely on Apple Intelligence, meaning they’re only as reliable and helpful as Apple’s generative AI (and only available on newer iPhones, besides). Other adjustments are smaller but could make a big difference to people who use their phone to do work tasks.

Juli Clover:

iOS 26 has somewhere around 200 new features and changes, some of which are more useful than others. We’ve highlighted some of the updates that we think provide the best quality of life improvements to the iPhone.

Geoff Duncan:

Apple seems to have removed the ability to block callers from the Phone app in iOS 26. In order to block an unknown number, I guess I have to create a contact card for them, and block them there. That seems less-than-great.

Yes yes: I know I’m supposed to turn on call screening but I really don’t want call screening.

Pierre Igot:

It’s quite revealing to me that Apple appears to have no qualms about giving the iOS upgrade itself an icon in which the “26” is barely readable.

Marco Arment:

Shout out to one thing that got much nicer recently:

Music.app on iOS not only remembers the song you were playing through a termination or iPhone reboot, but it even resumes from the timestamp you left it at!

Craig Hockenberry:

Bugs are being reported in OS 26.0.

And we fix them.

And then they break again in a point release.

This is why releasing an OS in such a broken state is so harmful - there is no incentive for third-parties to fix things that are clearly works-in-progress.

Craig Hockenberry:

This new behavior of devices deciding to update themselves during daytime hours is bullshit.

I just picked up my phone to test something and went through several minutes of thinking my iPhone was bricked. No sign of an update and not responding to button presses.

I was in the process of starting a DFU when the screen came back on.

As far as I can tell, there’s no way to disable this behavior.

And who’s to blame if it was a medical emergency?

Design iOS iOS 26 iOS Release Liquid Glass

9 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

---

Leave a Comment

Name

E-mail (will not be published)

Web site

Δ