Apple today released iOS 26, bringing a new design, intelligent experiences, and improvements to the apps users rely on every day.
The new design provides a more expressive and delightful experience across the system while maintaining the instant familiarity of iOS.
Integrated throughout the system and built with privacy from the ground up, Apple Intelligence gets even more capable.
Updates to the Phone and Messages apps help users stay connected while eliminating distractions like unwanted calls.
iOS 26 also introduces new features in CarPlay, Apple Music, Maps, and Wallet, as well as Apple Games, a brand-new app that gives players a single destination for all their games.
Liquid Glass
The new design makes apps and system experiences more expressive and delightful, while keeping iOS instantly familiar.
It’s crafted with Liquid Glass — a new translucent material that reflects and refracts its surroundings, bringing greater focus to content, and delivering a new level of vitality across controls, navigation, app icons, widgets, and more.
Translucency is the defining characteristic of Liquid Glass, behaving like glass in the real world in the way it deals with light and colour of objects behind and near controls. But it’s not just a glassy look: The “liquid” part of Liquid Glass refers to how controls can merge and adapt — dynamically morphing.
The new design extends to the Home Screen and Lock Screen, making them more personal and expressive than ever. Liquid Glass also brings new customization options to app icons and widgets, including a stunning clear look.
On the Lock Screen, the time fluidly adapts to the available space in an image, and spatial scenes bring wallpapers to life with a 3D effect when users move iPhone. Updated design elements also deliver fresh experiences in apps.
The Liquid Glass interface also now enables a third way to view app icons on the iPhone home screen. iOS 26 now features an All Clear look — every icon is clear glass with no colour.
Camera
A simplified, streamlined Camera layout helps users keep their attention on the moment they’re capturing.
The Camera app features a “new, more intuitive design” that takes minimalism to the extreme. The streamlined design shows just two controls: Video or Camera.
Swipe left or right to choose modes. Swipe up for settings such as aspect ratio and timers, and tap for additional preferences.
Photos
The Photos app is updated to feature separate tabs for Library and Collections views.
Instead of a long, difficult-to-discover scrolling interface, Photos regains a Liquid Glass menu at the bottom of the screen.
Safari
In Safari, web pages flow from the top edge to the bottom of the screen, enabling users to see more of the page while maintaining access to frequently used actions like refresh and search.
An updated set of APIs provides developers with access to Liquid Glass materials and components so they can make their apps appear just as dynamic and delightful.
Apple Intelligence Gets More Capabilities
Apple Intelligence elevates the iPhone experience and helps users get things done easier than ever, while unlocking new ways to communicate and do more with what’s on their screen.
Live Translation
Live Translation can help users communicate across select languages when messaging or speaking. The feature is seamlessly integrated into Messages, FaceTime, and Phone, and users can also access it with AirPods Pro 3 to translate in-person conversations, enabled by Apple Intelligence on iPhone.
With this new feature, users can translate all types of conversations — whether over the phone or while using FaceTime, in person, or asynchronously in Messages — right when they need to. It protects user’s privacy with on-device processing, so personal conversations stay personal.
In Messages, Live Translation can automatically translate a user’s response as they type and deliver it in the recipient’s language. During FaceTime calls, users can follow along with live translated captions while still hearing their friend or family member’s voice. And during a phone call, the translation is spoken out loud in real time.
Users can access Live Translation on AirPods with an all-new gesture by simultaneously pressing both AirPods stems; by saying “Siri, start Live Translation;” or even from the Action button on iPhone, which will allow them to hear in their preferred language.
Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) lowers the volume of the person speaking so it’s easier to focus on the translation.
Visual Intelligence
Building on Apple Intelligence, visual intelligence extends to a user’s iPhone screen so they can search and take action on anything they’re viewing across apps.
Users can ask ChatGPT questions about what they’re looking at onscreen to learn more, as well as search Google, Etsy, or other supported apps to find similar images and products.
Visual intelligence also recognizes when a user is looking at an event and suggests adding it to their calendar, repopulating key details like date, time, and location.
Genmoji and Image Playground provide users with even more ways to express themselves, including mixing their favorite emoji, Genmoji, and descriptions together to create something new.
Shortcuts
Shortcuts help users accomplish more faster, by combining multiple steps from their favorite apps into powerful, personal automations.
And now with Apple Intelligence, users can take advantage of intelligent actions in the Shortcuts app to create automations, like summarizing text with Writing Tools or creating images with Image Playground.
Users can tap into Apple Intelligence models, either on device or with Private Cloud Compute to generate responses that feed into the rest of their shortcut, maintaining the privacy of information used in the shortcut.
For example, users can create powerful Shortcuts like comparing an audio transcription to typed notes, summarizing documents by their contents, extracting information from a PDF and adding key details to a spreadsheet, and more.
Apple Intelligence can now automatically identify and summarize order tracking details from emails sent from merchants and delivery carriers, giving users the ability to see their full order details and progress notifications all in one place — even for purchases not made with Apple Pay.
Additionally, a new Foundation Models framework opens up access for any app to tap directly into the on-device foundation model at the core of Apple Intelligence, giving developers direct access to powerful intelligence that’s fast, built with privacy at its core, and available offline, using AI inference that is free of cost.
Staying Connected and Eliminating Interruptions
The Phone app now offers a unified layout that combines Favourites, Recents, and Voicemails all in one place.
Call Screening builds on Live Voicemail and helps eliminate interruptions by gathering information from the caller and giving users the details they need to decide if they want to pick up or ignore the call.
Call Screening automatically answers calls from unknown numbers, and your phone rings only when the caller shares their name and reason for calling.
And for the times when a user is stuck on hold, Hold Assist automatically detects hold music and can mute the music but keep the call connected.
Once a live agent becomes available, the phone rings and lets the agent know you’ll be available shortly.
Custom Ringtones
You can now set custom ringtones on iPhone with iOS 26. Until now, if you wanted a custom ringtone on your iPhone, you could pay for one on the iTunes Store, or use GarageBand.
You still can’t just download any audio from the internet, but setting a custom tone is a bit simpler now.
To set a custom ringtone on iOS 26:
- Before you start you need to ensure that the audio file you want to use is already in the Files app or in Voice Memos on your iPhone.
- If the file is in Files, long-press it and tap Share.
- If the file is in Voice Memos, tap the three-dot icon next to the file, then tap Share.
- In the Share menu, swipe up and tap Use as Ringtone.
- As easy as that, you’ve now set your custom ringtone.
Your custom ringtone will now also show up in the Ringtones section under Sounds & Haptics.
In Messages, users can now screen messages from unknown senders, giving them more control over who appears in their conversation list. Messages from unknown senders will appear in a dedicated folder where users can then mark the number as known, ask for more information, or delete. These messages will remain silenced until a user accepts them.
iOS 26 also offers enhancements to conversations, including custom backgrounds and the ability to create polls.
With Apple Intelligence, Messages can detect when a poll might come in handy and suggest one, and users can generate unique backgrounds that fit their conversation with Image Playground.
Additionally, in group chats, users can now see typing indicators, and request, send, and receive Apple Cash.
Enhancements to CarPlay
CarPlay with iOS 26, receives updates that make it even more beautiful and easy to use. The stunning design includes a new compact view for incoming calls, allowing users to see who’s calling without missing key information like upcoming directions.
iOS 26 also brings Tapbacks and pinned conversations to Messages in CarPlay, and with widgets and Live Activities, users can stay in the loop without losing focus on the road.
These updates also come to CarPlay Ultra, which brings the best of iPhone and the best of the car together for a deeply integrated, unified experience across every screen.
Apple Music
In Apple Music, News, and Podcasts, the tab bar is redesigned to float above users’ content, dynamically shrink when users are browsing to put content front and center, and then expand when they scroll back up.
In Apple Music, Lyrics Translation helps users understand the words to their favorite songs, while Lyrics Pronunciation allows everyone to sing along, regardless of language.
AutoMix uses intelligence to transition from one song to the next like a DJ, using time stretching and beat matching to seamlessly move from one song to the next.
Maps
In Apple Maps, Visited Places help users remember the places they’ve been. Users can choose to have iPhone detect when they’re at a place like a restaurant or shop, and view all of their Visited Places in Maps.
Visited Places are protected with end-to-end encryption and cannot be accessed by Apple.
Additionally, iPhone can now use on-device intelligence to better understand a user’s daily route, presenting them with their preferred route when they’re headed home or to the office, along with notifying them of delays and offering alternate routes.
Wallet
Updates in Apple Wallet help make everyday interactions with the physical world easier than ever.
Users can choose to pay with installments or rewards when they make in-store purchases with Apple Pay using iPhone. Refreshed boarding passes in Wallet offer the ability to see and share Live Activities for real-time updates on a flight.
They also provide convenient access to a traveler’s most relevant information, such as Maps to navigate airports, Find My to track important items and report missing bags, and more.
Apple Games
Apple Games is a new app that gives players an all-in-one destination for their games. It helps players jump back into titles they love, find their next favourite, and have even more fun with friends.
They’ll find out what’s happening across all their games, including major events and updates, so they never miss a moment.
The Apple Games app is also the best way to experience Apple Arcade, Apple’s game subscription service with more than 200 award-winning and highly rated games for the whole family.
AirPods
AirPods are more versatile than ever with new features for AirPods 4, AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), AirPods Pro 2 and the new AirPods Pro 3.
Building on the benefits of Voice Isolation, studio-quality audio recording allows iPhone, iPad, and Mac users to record their content with great sound quality and enjoy even clearer calls.
With camera remote, users can press and hold the AirPods stem to take a photo or start and stop a video recording on iPhone or iPad.
Child Accounts
Parents can now create or move kids into Child Accounts even more easily, taking advantage of a wide set of parental controls designed to keep children safe.
Enhancements across Communication Limits, Communication Safety, and the App Store include parental approvals for contact requests from kids, blurring out sensitive content in FaceTime calls and photos in Shared Albums, and enabling parents to grant an exception for their child to download an app with an age rating that exceeds the app content restriction they set.
Workout Buddy
Workout Buddy is a first-of-its-kind fitness experience powered by Apple Intelligence that analyzes a user’s workout data and fitness history to deliver personalized, spoken motivation throughout their session, based on data like heart rate, pace, distance, Activity rings, personal fitness milestones, and more.
To offer meaningful inspiration in real time, Workout Buddy analyses data privately and securely, with Apple Intelligence. A new text-to-speech model then translates insights into a dynamic generative voice built using voice data from Fitness+ trainers, so it has the right energy, style, and tone for a workout.
Workout Buddy will be available starting in English across some of the most popular workout types, and is available on Apple Watch with Bluetooth headphones, with an Apple Intelligence-supported iPhone nearby.
AirPods and iPhone users also have access to Workout Buddy, so their workout data and fitness history can be used to generate personalized, motivational insights during their session
Safari
Browsing in Safari gets even more private with advanced fingerprinting protection extending to all browsing by default.
Accessibility
Powerful accessibility features include Accessibility Reader, which provides a customized systemwide reading experience, and Braille Access, an all-new interface for iPhone devices with connected braille displays.
Updates to Live Listen, Background Sounds, Personal Voice, and more bring a new level of accessibility across the Apple ecosystem.
iOS 26 Availability
iOS 26 is available now as a free software update.
The Apple Intelligence features detailed require supported devices, which include all iPhone 17 models, iPhone Air, all iPhone 16 models, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPad mini (A17 Pro), and iPad and Mac models with M1 and later that have Apple Intelligence enabled and Siri and device language set to the same supported language: English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish, Japanese, Korean, or Chinese (simplified).
More languages will be coming by the end of this year: Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese (Portugal), Swedish, Turkish, Chinese (traditional), and Vietnamese.
iOS 26 Supported Devices
- iPhone 17
- iPhone 17 Pro
- iPhone 17 Pro Max
- iPhone Air
- iPhone 16
- iPhone 16 Plus
- iPhone 16 Pro
- iPhone 16 Pro Max
- iPhone 15
- iPhone 15 Plus
- iPhone 15 Pro
- iPhone 15 Pro Max
- iPhone 14
- iPhone 14 Plus
- iPhone 14 Pro
- iPhone 14 Pro Max
- iPhone 13
- iPhone 13 mini
- iPhone 13 Pro
- iPhone 13 Pro Max
- iPhone 12
- iPhone 12 mini
- iPhone 12 Pro
- iPhone 12 Pro Max
- iPhone 11
- iPhone 11 Pro
- iPhone 11 Pro Max
- iPhone Xs
- iPhone XS Max
To update to iOS 26.0 go to your iPhone Settings > General > Software Update and install iOS 26.0 as soon as you possibly can.
