iOS 26.2
Juli Clover (release notes, security, enterprise, developer):
iOS 26.2 adds an option to activate an alarm when a reminder is due, an option to change the opacity of the time on the Lock Screen, updated AirDrop functionality, and new features for the Podcasts app.
It also brings Live Translation for the AirPods to the EU, and adds support for alternative app stores and other voice assistants in Japan.
See also this previous article.
To be clear, I think it’s absurd that Apple doesn’t allow iOS users to downgrade. This year, Apple unsigned iOS 18 just a week after iOS 26 launched, meaning it could never be downgraded to again.
Previously:
- iOS 26.2 to Open Up iPhone–Apple Watch Wi-Fi Sync in EU
- iOS 26.2: Third-Party Voice Assistants in Japan
- iOS 26.2: App Marketplaces and Browser Choice in Japan
- iOS 26.2 to Remove iPhone–Apple Watch Wi-Fi Sync in EU
- iOS 26.1
Update (2025-12-15): Juli Clover:
After installing iOS 26.2, if you’re just tapping through screens, you could miss the update turning on automatic software updates.
My father got tricked into updating to iOS 26, and the new Safari toolbar design broke one of his essential Web sites. (One of the site’s buttons near the bottom of the screen became inoperative, though it wasn’t actually under the liquid glass.) Fortunately, this can be worked around by changing the Safari tab bar setting.
Apple says that the updates address over 20 vulnerabilities, including two bugs that are known to have been actively exploited.
My wife is now giving me a daily briefing about which new part of iOS 26 she found annoying.
Today: playing podcasts via a USB connection in the car no longer works and the skip button doesn’t skip anymore.
An Apple Tech Support did an AMA.
“The 26 has made work a living hell. I tell people not to even upgrade to that bullshit.”
let’s start a thread of iOS 26 UI glitches
Previously:
Update (2025-12-16): Joe Rossignol:
In a support document published on Friday, Apple said that a “technical failure” in Australia prevented some older mobile phones from being able to make emergency calls by dialing 000, and it said there is a low chance that it could happen again.
[…]
For iPhone 12 users specifically, Apple vaguely stated that the iOS 26.2 update released last week “provides support for this scenario.”
Oh god, this checkmark button is the actual new default? I thought that was just bad taste in some demo apps :)
Update (2025-12-18): Sloane Crosley:
Tech companies are accustomed to a certain amount of kicking and screaming after foisting new interfaces on the public. You can’t please all of the people all of the time, especially when “all of the people” is in the billions. But ask your friends—or Google or Reddit or Bluesky or ChatGPT—about the operating system update, and you will be swept away in a river of anger. “This is like foundationally bad,” author and musician John Darnielle replied on Bluesky to someone who agreed with his original tweet (about the poor photo-cropping function). One Reddit thread was posted under the headline “New iPhone update made me so overwhelmed, I ended up throwing my phone.” The subsequent post does not specify where the phone was thrown or at whom, but I have some suggestions. One wonders at what point a company’s petrification of obsolescence risks becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Ask yourself: Is this good for the phones? Normally, I’d be curious about the hissy-fit metrics inside Silicon Valley, about when public upset gets severe enough to become private data. But right now, I have my own problems.
I downloaded Apple’s new iOS 26.2 last week because I am a trained circus seal who will press any button presented to me. I came home late from a holiday party, agreed to the latest iOS almost by accident, and woke up to a new world. There’s something very A Thief in the Night about any new operating system, but in this case, the complaints, some witnessed, some personally experienced, are intense. Here is a partial list: the slow speed (every action takes twice as long), the animation of text bubbles, the incongruous mix of sensitivity and imperviousness to touch, the swipes to nowhere, the difficulty posting downloaded photos, the fact that almost nothing is where you left it (search fields, files), the unsolicited status sharing regarding dwindling battery life (“24m to 80%”), the lack of visual contrast, the screenshot fussiness, the requirement that users drive up to a mansion on Long Island and whisper “Fidelio” in order to toggle off the “Liquid Glass” function. You have to admit: It’s a little funny to get a transparency feature from a tech company.
Update (2025-12-19): John Gruber:
Lastly, iOS 26.2 seems to be the release that Apple is starting to suggest as an upgrade for users who hadn’t already installed it by choice. Be prepared for questions and complaints from non-nerd friends and family who’ve never even heard of “Liquid Glass”.
Apple generally tries not to leave behind users who haven’t updated or can’t update to the latest OS version. Apple also usually offers security updates for past OS versions, and indeed, the company also released iOS 18.7.3 to address the same issues.
Unfortunately, there’s an ugly catch: Numerous iPhone users have reported that if your iPhone is capable of running iOS 26 but you’re still back on iOS 18, you won’t be offered iOS 18.7.3. Instead, the only update option you’ll be given is iOS 26.2.
There are a lot of reasons to avoid updating to iOS 26, from a dislike of Liquid Glass to software compatibility to a general wariness to install major updates for a while. This move effectively forces users to take the iOS 26 upgrade if they want the security updates.
[…]
Apple shouldn’t be withholding a security update from people not willing to upgrade to the next OS version.
Update (2025-12-22): Ryan Christoffel:
But in iOS 26.2, there’s a new AirDrop enhancement available: “codes.”
[…]
Now, if there’s someone you want to use AirDrop with who isn’t in your contacts, you can temporarily “authorize” each other via this new one-time code.
Previously:
Update (2025-12-23): Glenn Fleishman:
The new AirDrop code provides more privacy (and security), and even creates a temporary contact entry for a party agreeing to receive material.
However, it makes it even harder to use AirDrop in an ad hoc fashion—sending or receiving items quickly with another person a single time or a few times when permission is granted.
[…]
Because this code method allows 30 days of sending after using a code, it offers some balance between unwanted contact and persistent availability in the vast majority of cases in which AirDrop is used.
Update (2025-12-26): Fabian reports that the clock on the lockscreen keeps moving left (via Hacker News).
Update (2025-12-29): sid:
Drag and drop an app into a folder on iPhone.
Difficulty level: IMPOSSIBLE
I’ve had problems like this with both iOS 18 and iOS 26. I miss being able to rearrange app icons with iTunes.
16 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon
Reminders with alarms will be BIG for my wife (and slightly less important but still great for me).
A note that iOS 15.7.3 does not seem to have been released (yet?), at least not for me here in Europe with an iPhone 13 Pro. I see 26.2 but nothing else.
@ED — I've got the same on my 2022 iPhone SE — apparently iOS 18.7.3 is only being offered to those with phones that *cannot* be updated to iOS 26.
Apparently, in 26.2 CarPlay can display two widgets side-by-side on smaller screens. I wasn’t offered the option for two widgets before; now I am.
@Alan Yes. I see reports that the release build number of 18.7.3 is the same as its RC, and that the RC is available for every phone in the beta channel. So you could change to beta updates, install 18.7.3 RC, then change back to the release channel. But I have never switched to beta updates on my phone and I'm apprehensive about it, even though this seems to be the exact same version.
@ED they do this every year but I was hoping they wouldn't be so severe about it this year. After about .1 when they start really pushing the new version, it becomes mandatory if your device is eligible. They don't want people on fully patched previous versions.
Kind of makes their software adoption numbers seem a little disingenuous. The vast majority of those people had no option but to "upgrade."
@bart I guess I never felt the need before to hold out on upgrading to the major new version. This Liquid*ss thing, though....
Holy shit, just learned about 18.7.3 being hid under the rug to force you to go to iOS 26 (in fact, my phone is still in 18.7.1, presumably they treated the .2 the same way). This is a new low for Apple.
Having just upgraded my mother's iPhone 11 Pro Max to 26.2, I can honestly appreciate why people have been holding off on the older phones. It's definitely a noticeable performance hit. Fortunately that was her "burner" phone for Instagram, and I've already moved to 26 due to my new iPhone 17, and it's quite nice on the 15 Pro she now has as her new primary, by comparison. The new controls in the display settings are good enough for mum, though she likes bigger fonts. I think, realistically, Apple have burned it in, even though I hate the indecent speed with which they killed iOS 18. None of it would even be necessary if Apple QAed their shit properly to begin with, and documented every change in the release notes, though.
What happens if you switch to beta updates, install the 18.7.3 RC (same build as the release), and immediately switch back to release updates? Will you later still be able to update normally to a 26 release update, or would you have to e.g. do a factory reset before that's possible again?
ED: With versions of iOS prior to 26 I have not had to do a factory reset or anything additional. Simply disabling beta updates (public, in my case) reverted to standard iOS update behavior.
@NaOH Thanks. I went ahead and installed 18.7.3 from the public beta channel. As noted elsewhere, this also makes the nagging for the update to 26.x go away!
I reported a moving clock in November FB2111704 — there are more than 10 similar reports according to Feedback. (It moved to the right for me…)
