The iPhone’s design language just got its biggest overhaul in more than a decade, with a frosted glass look that’s sure to split opinion and two brand-new stock apps. But this isn’t just a facelift – there are plenty of new features coming our way when iOS 26 releases publicly this September.
So if you missed the keynote, here’s your guide to the 26 most interesting changes coming soon with iOS 26.
1. Wait… why 26?
First of all: you may have noticed that Apple jumped the gun from iOS 18 straight to iOS 26. In theory, this is to align its naming convention across all devices with the following year, taking a leaf from the playbook of the FIFA and Madden games. But the truth is surely that Apple knows I write an “X new features coming to iOS X” wrap-up every year and wanted this list to be as long as possible. Thanks, guys.
2. Liquid Glass
This changes everything. iOS is now shot through with a vibrant new look called “Liquid Glass,” which offers translucent, reflective interfaces. Buttons have specular highlights, toggles move like sloshing water, translucency is everywhere. It’s beautiful, but already we’re seeing questions about legibility and accessibility. Either way: better get used to it!
3. Adaptive Lock Screen
The Lock Screen’s clock now intelligently shifts height to fit the subject in your wallpaper. That means you can have a super tall time readout if you like, dominating the display without overshadowing your precious wallpaper. Notifications also smartly rearrange to ensure the main subject remains unobstructed.
4. Clear App Icons
Building on last year’s Home Screen customizations, you can now choose a “clear” mode that makes all of your app icons shiny and translucent. This minimalist aesthetic perfectly complements the new Liquid Glass theme, although it can make it difficult to tell your apps apart. Good thing it’s optional.
5. Redesigned Camera Interface
The Camera app has been simplified to help you quickly focus on capturing photos and videos, with a cleaner layout that reduces distractions and keeps essential controls within easy reach. All modes beyond photo and video are hidden until you start swiping, and most of the camera controls are kept out of eyeshot in sub-menus.
6. Photos App Tabs
Last year’s Photos redesign was controversial, but thankfully Apple has listened to (some) customer feedback. The popular Library and Collections tabs return, allowing you to organize and browse your images without getting lost in a one-page nightmare.
7. Edge-to-Edge Safari
Safari now utilizes the entire screen real estate, maximizing your browsing view. Controls like refresh and search remain conveniently accessible despite the expanded display, but note that it’ll take you an extra tap to find your open tabs. It’ll be interesting to see whether this tweak survives beta testing – last time Apple made big changes to Safari, it quickly corrected course.
8. Live Translation Across Apps
Messages, FaceTime, and Phone now feature real-time translations, breaking language barriers during conversations. All translations are processed privately on-device, ensuring conversations remain confidential. This features supports a handful of languages to start, and is limited to one-on-one calls.
9. Visual Intelligence Enhancements
Apple’s Visual Intelligence, which can magically give you information about the content of photos, has been leveled up. It can now make suggestions based on what’s on your screen, like adding events to your calendar or searching for similar products. It’s triggered any time you take a screenshot.
10. Genmoji and Image Playground
Apple’s generative AI tools have been expanded. They’re still fairly limited, thanks to a dedication to privacy that most AI companies don’t share. But you’ll at least get a few more stylistic choices to pick from now when creative an image from a prompt.
11. Smarter Shortcuts
Shortcuts are now context-aware and more intelligent, suggesting relevant actions based on your tasks. You can now thread the results from Apple Intelligence calls into your workflows, meaning – for example – you could create a Shortcut to analyse a voice clip, write a summary of the content, and then output the text somewhere else.
12. Automatic Order Summaries
Apple Intelligence automatically extracts and summarizes tracking information from your emails. Easily monitor your online orders in one convenient place, even if you didn’t use Apple Pay. You’ll see this information in the Wallet app.
13. Unified Phone App Interface
You can now view favorites, recent calls, and voicemails combined into a single, unified layout. This simplifies navigation and makes managing calls more intuitive. In the beta, it seems Apple is making this change optional – you can switch back to the old style. But come September, it might be baked in.
14. Advanced Call Screening
Automatically screen unknown calls, allowing you to preview the caller’s stated reason before deciding to pick up. Apple Intelligence will act as your personal assistant, answering the call and asking some questions before passing it over to you. This could be a great way to minimize spam and unwanted interruptions.
15. Hold Assist
In a similar move, Hold Assist will help to avoid tedious wait times when calling busy businesses. Your iPhone listens to the hold music on your behalf and alerts you when a customer support agent finally picks up.
16. Message Filtering
Messages from unknown senders are now automatically placed into a separate folder. These messages remain silenced until you confirm them as known contacts, helping keep your inbox clutter-free. There always used to be a slightly unintuitive way to turn on this kind of filtering, but it’s now much more prominent in the UI and works more like an email spam filter.
17. Group Chat Enhancements
Group chats gain new interactive features like typing indicators and custom polls – about time! You can also add personalized backgrounds to each chat, enhancing your group messaging experience.
18. New Apple Games App
One of two brand new apps in iOS 26. Rolling Game Center and the App Store’s Games and Arcade tabs into one, you can now access all your gaming-related bits in a centralized hub. Discover new titles, and compete with friends through leaderboards and challenges. The Games app also supports controller navigation, meaning you can sit back and feel like you’re operating a tiny games console.
19. Apple Music AutoMix
Your Apple Music listening experience improves with seamless track transitions, intelligent beat-matching, and automatic time-stretching. Lyrics translations and pronunciation guides take the app even further.
20. Visited Places in Maps
You can choose to automatically track places you’ve visited, viewing them in Maps with full privacy protection. This helps in recalling favorite locations and past visits easily – but if it creeps you out, you can always turn it off.
21. Intelligent Route Suggestions
Maps learns your routine routes and proactively notifies you of delays, offering alternate paths to help you avoid traffic. In theory, this will help your daily commutes become smoother and less stressful. Whether or not you trust Apple Maps to be accurate in your area is another thing.
22. Wallet Enhancements
Boarding passes in Wallet now include real-time flight updates, luggage tracking, airport maps, and digital ID integration. These features streamline your travel experience from start to finish.
23. Audio Recording Upgrade
You can now choose your mic inputs when recording audio or video, picking a difference source for each app or website. High-quality audio recording is now available too, leveraging advanced Voice Isolation technology. Meanwhile, you can now control your camera remotely using AirPods stems and record enhanced quality audio directly through your AirPods. Handy.
24. Enhanced Safari Privacy
Advanced fingerprinting protection in Safari is now enabled by default, bolstering your browsing security. Your online activities become even more secure from tracking. Creating and managing Child Accounts is easier, too, giving you more peace of mind in that regard as well.
25. Expanded Accessibility Options
Accessibility Reader delivers a customized, systemwide reading experience, and Braille Access significantly improves integration for users with braille displays. Updates to Live Listen and Personal Voice further enhance accessibility across all Apple devices.
26. Preview comes to iPhone
Finally, the Mac’s long-standing Preview app comes to iPhone and iPad, giving users a dedicated space to view and edit PDFs and files. Previously, this capability was kind of hidden in the screenshot tools and somewhat limited – this is a big improvement. All the Markup and AutoFill stuff you might need for annotating and filling out forms is here, too.
How to try these new features
iOS 26 won’t be released in full until September, but developers can already get their hands on the beta release for testing. If you’re excited to try the new features, Apple’s public beta program will go live in July, allowing anyone to trial iOS 26 early. It’s free to sign up as a beta tester, but be warned that you’re likely to encounter bugs and increased battery drain. Be sure to back up your device.