iOS 26 marks a major evolution of Apple’s mobile operating system, distinguished by its striking Liquid Glass design — a translucent, fluid aesthetic that brings expressive, glass-like refractions and dynamic controls to the Lock and Home screens, app icons, widgets, and more.
It features improved Apple Intelligence features such as live translation across Messages, FaceTime, and Phone, AI-powered visual search, Contextual Shortcuts, Genmoji enhancements, and screenshot-based ChatGPT interactions.
iOS 26 also refines communication apps with customizable chat backgrounds, polls, draft filtering, advanced call screening and Hold Assist, introduces a unified Games app, optimizes apps like Music, Maps, Wallet, and Clock, adds broader system-level enhancements like Qi 2.2 support for faster wireless charging, accessibility innovations such as Braille input and head tracking, smarter battery management, and seamless eSIM transfers.
All this combines into a more intuitive, personalized, and visually immersive iPhone experience.
When Apple needs to install a security patch onto an iPhone, iPad or Mac, it now does so without requiring the user to do anything — or even be aware of the update. The new Background Security Improvements feature delivers “additional security protections between software updates,” according to Apple.
It’s a feature of iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1 and macOS 26.1, but users have the option to deactivate it.
This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: Apple reportedly plans to pay a cool $1 billion a year to use Google Gemini to make Siri smarter. How do we feel about that? Honestly, anything that fixes Siri sooner rather than later would be a big win.
Anybody creeped out about iPhones and Macs with Google inside should rest easy, though. Apple plans to keep everything safe and secure. And Cupertino’s still scrambling to get its own AI up to speed.
Also on The CultCast:
Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video live stream, embedded below.
You’re happily listening to music on your AirPods when the audio suddenly gets yanked away by a Bluetooth speaker. Don’t get frustrated. Make a quick tweak to the settings on your iPhone running iOS 26.1, and it’ll never happen again.
Here’s what to do.
Liquid Glass in iOS 26 brings dramatic change to the look of the iPhone user interface, so it’s no surprise that some people hate it. If it’s just not for you, the option to turn off Liquid Glass was added in iOS 26.1. And it’s easy.
The same setting is available in macOS Tahoe 26.1 and iPadOS 26.1, so you can turn off Liquid Glass on all your devices. Here’s how:
My favorite change in iOS 26.1 has nothing to do with Liquid Glass, though cosmetic tweaks to the glossy user interface have drawn the most attention in the latest OS update. To me, the biggest improvement is the option to disable the Lock Screen swipe to open the iPhone’s Camera app.
I frequently pull out my iPhone to find the Camera app has been running in my pocket, draining the battery. It’s that damn Lock Screen swipe at fault. If this happens to you, too, here’s how to disable it in iOS 26.1.
A day after releasing iOS 26.1 to the public, Apple seeded the first beta of iOS 26.2 to developers on Tuesday. The next major point update to iOS 26 packs several big changes and expands the availability of some features to the European Union.
Below is everything new in iOS 26.2 beta 1.
iOS 26.1 arrived on Monday, but Apple always keeps pushing ahead. As a result, iOS 26.2 beta 1 reached developers Tuesday.
The same goes for iPadOS 26.2 beta 1, watchOS 26.2 beta 1, tvOS 26.2 beta 1 and visionOS 26.2 beta 1. However, macOS Tahoe 26.2 beta 1 did not arrive with the rest.
iOS 26.1, which Apple released Monday, brings five features you should check out immediately after you install the update.
The biggest change gives you a way to customize the legibility of Liquid Glass, the major user interface overhaul Apple delivered to all its software platforms this year. But there’s plenty of other cool stuff you don’t want to miss.
Other key upgrades come to Apple Music and the iPhone’s alarm clock interface. Plus, there’s a setting that can keep your iPhone battery from draining in your pocket. And for iPad owners, there’s the celebrated return of Slide Over on iPad.
In addition to a bunch of much-needed bug fixes, iOS 26.1 brings plenty of new features. Tweaks to Liquid Glass improve its legibility without sacrificing its cool effects. iPad multitaskers can rejoice the return of Slide Over, which returns better than before.
There are 20 new changes: A new user interface for alarms, improvements to Photos, a new gesture for quickly fast-forwarding music, a setting that fixes a long-standing problem with the Lock Screen, and much more.
Here’s the complete list. Read on or watch our hands-on video.
Apple seeded the release candidates of iOS 26.1 and macOS Tahoe 26.1 to developers and the public on Tuesday. This is usually the final step before new versions launch — which should happen next week. The highlight is a new setting that makes the controversial Liquid Glass UI less transparent.
Release candidates for iPadOS 26.1, watchOS 26.1, tvOS 26.1 and visionOS 26.1 also went out to on Tuesday.
The upcoming iOS 26.1 makes it easy to disable Liquid Glass, the translucent, glasslike user interface recently added to the iPhone (and Apple’s other devices). But judging from the results of a poll of Cult of Mac newsletter readers, a large majority of users are quite happy with Liquid Glass.
There’ve been plenty of complaints about the new look, but it seems these are coming from a vocal minority.
With iOS 26.1, Apple will finally address one of the most annoying issues iPhone users face when uploading photos to third-party apps. They will no longer need to keep the app open for the upload process to complete.
Right now, only Apple’s Photos app can reliably back up your pictures to the cloud even if the app is not in the foreground.
iOS 26.1 beta 4, which Apple released to developers Monday, brings two major new updates — and they both offer ways to turn off existing features.
Find out what the new toggles do, and everything new we have found in the first four iOS 26.1 betas so far, below.
This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: After OpenAI’s Sora app races to the top of the App Store charts, it’s time to consider how fantastic and terrifying it really is.
The iPhone-only app produces startlingly photorealistic videos of wacky things like Pikachu as a World War II soldier and iJustine wrestling an elephant. Will we ever be able to believe our eyes again?
Also on The CultCast:
Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video version, embedded below.
iOS 26.0.1 and macOS Tahoe 26.0.1 launched on Monday, bringing a range of bug fixes to the major operating system upgrades introduced earlier this month. That includes taking care of multiple issues in the new iPhone 17 series — some quite serious.
In addition, iPadOS 26.0.1, watchOS 26.0.2, tvOS 26.0.1 and visionOS 26.0.1 all went to users on Monday.
iOS 26 includes an anti-spam feature that can protect you from getting bombarded with text message spam on your iPhone. You just have to activate it.
It’s easy. Here’s what to do to save yourself from the hassle and potential cost of spam texts.
Taking a cue from the iPhone’s Messages app, Meta is adding message translations to WhatsApp. With this feature, you can directly translate chats in a conversation into a familiar language.
At launch, the translate tool will support over 19 languages on the iPhone.
Code found in iOS 26 beta 1 reportedly reveals that Apple is prepping a new feature: Background Security Improvements. These will patch security problems and won’t need the user to be involved or even be aware that a patch is being applied to their iPhone.
This is apparently the replacement for Rapid Security Responses, an iPhone security tool that Apple introduced but then hasn’t used in years.
A week after the release of iOS 26, Apple has stopped signing iOS 18.6.2. So, you can no longer downgrade your iPhone from iOS 26 to iOS 18.
This move is standard practice for Apple. It usually stops signing older iOS builds shortly after a major update goes public.
This week on Cult of Mac’s podcast: Now that we’re all running the latest software versions on our iPhones and Apple Watches, it’s time to go over the coolest new features.
Yes, Apple’s new Liquid Glass user interface takes some getting used to, but it’s pretty sweet in the end. And there are a bunch of other great additions we love. Join us for the conversation!
Also on The CultCast:
Listen to this week’s episode of The CultCast in the Podcasts app or your favorite podcast app. (Be sure to subscribe and leave us a review if you like it!) Or watch the video live stream, embedded below.
iPhone users who just installed iOS 26 might notice a reduction in their battery life, or that their phone is heating up. The devices might even be running a bit slower. A new Apple support document explains that this is temporary as the iOS update process continues in the background.
In iOS 26, the awesome new Spatial Scenes feature lets you convert an ordinary 2D photo to a 3D scene that moves in your hand. It doesn’t have to be a recent picture or one taken with a special camera, either. You can try out Apple’s new 3D effect on any decent photo, even if it’s from 20 years ago.
You can play with Spatial Scenes in the Photos app, converting images and seeing how the effect works. But the best part is that you can set one as your iPhone’s Lock Screen wallpaper, and see it every time you unlock your phone. It even works with the excellent Photo Shuffle feature, so you’ll keep getting new ones to gawk at.
Check out the GIFs below that show how Spatial Scenes work, or watch our hands-on demo video.
iOS 26 introduces a new Adaptive Power mode to extend your iPhone’s battery under load. And Apple’s newest iPhones — iPhone 17, iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air — will ship with this feature enabled by default.
On older iPhones, you must manually enable Adaptive Power to boost their runtime.
iOS 26 is a major new update that brings the biggest visual redesign in 12 years — on top of more than 70 new features. It’s easy to overlook the new goodies that Apple sprinkled throughout the operating system because the shiny Liquid Glass user interface takes center stage.
But iOS 26 brings loads of great enhancements to Apple’s major apps. Group chats in Messages become much more useful. The Phone app gets a fresh design and plenty of smart new features. Other great enhancements level up Safari, Passwords, Maps, Photos, Journal and other Apple apps. And just like previous years, Apple added an expansive list of useful accessibility features you should check out.
iOS 26 is out now. Here’s where to find the good stuff — keep reading or watch our video.
Apple is finally ready to release iOS 26, iPadOS 26, watchOS 26 and macOS Tahoe to the public. After initially showcasing these operating systems at WWDC25 this spring, the company will release the first stable build on September 15.
So when will iOS 26 actually land on your compatible iPhone? With all the new features packed in, you’ll want to be first in line to grab the update. Here’s when iOS 26, iPadOS 26, watchOS 26 and macOS Tahoe go live in your region.