iOS 26 is the latest iPhone update and it’s the biggest in years
Apple just unveiled iOS and iPadOS 26, with a huge, glassy redesign taking centre stage among plenty of other new features
At WWDC 2025, Apple unveiled the latest free update for the latest iPhones and iPads: iOS 26 and iPadOS 26. The new software version is a direct update to iOS/iPadOS 18, and will be available to beta testers later today. We anticipate a wider roll-out to all users in September alongside the next iPhone model.
I think iOS 26 is the biggest iPhone update in years. It offers a brand new glassy redesign called Liquid Glass, that makes the software look like the Apple Vision Pro’s visionOS. This lands alongside plenty of other new features. And it’s an identical story on iPadOS 26, with new multitasking abilities finally arriving.
Liquid Glass is Apple’s new swanky, translucent effect. It’s designed to refract your surroundings and reflect what’s on your screen. This new aesthetic seeps through every crevice of the system, jazzing up your Home and Lock Screens with spatial 3D wallpapers and widgets that now flirt with clarity. It’s even heading to macOS and watchOS, for true unity across your Apple devices.
The Phone app’s been spruced up with Call Screening and Hold Assist. These features lets AI vet dodgy callers or save you from hold music purgatory. It’s similar to what Google’s been doing for a while, so I’m glad to finally get it on my iPhone. Over in Messages, there’s now message screening, polls, and backgrounds you can spruce up with Genmoji and AI-generated flair. It seems like the messaging app is more like WhatsApp than ever before. Live Translation is another major feature to these communication apps. It lets you have real-time chats across languages in Messages, FaceTime, and Phone.
CarPlay (the regular kind, not CarPlay Ultra) is getting slicker too. Call notifications are now more compact and you can set pinned chats. Apple Music gains live wallpapers for your lockscreen and DJ-style AutoMix for those desperate to be the vibe curator on road trips. Maps now remembers where you’ve been, learning based on your routines. This has been imaginatively named Visited Places, and can be easily deleted at any time.
Wallet’s upgraded boarding passes try their hardest to make flying Ryanair feel first-class. They now serve up real-time flight updates via Live Activities, link out to airport maps in Apple Maps, let you track your luggage through Find My, and even help report missing bags.
Visual Intelligence in iOS 26 gets an update. It now lets you search, act on, or get more information about anything on your screen, including using ChatGPT to identify images or suggest related content.
Focusing on iPadOS 26, the update’s headline act is its fancy new multitasking system. Think of it like Stage Manager, but actually good. You can now move and resize app windows like you’re on a Mac, and for the first time, it doesn’t feel like iPad’s playing dress-up. There’s also a new menu bar that behaves like it was stolen from macOS, except now you can poke it with your finger.
The Files app, once the neglected stepchild of iPadOS, gets a glow-up too, with custom folder colours and drag-and-drop into the Dock. If that doesn’t scream productivity, nothing does. Also sneaking in is the Preview app from macOS, which finally lets you edit PDFs without rage-quitting and emailing them to yourself.
Creatives haven’t been forgotten. There are new Background Tasks for long-running processes, local audio/video capture, and multi-mic input control, perfect if you’re doing a live podcast while also sketching in Journal and managing your inbox. Which, of course, you are.
Both platforms now also include the Apple Games app, a central hub for all things gaming, because Apple’s still trying to make “Apple Arcade” happen. Meanwhile, Safari continues to be more secure with better fingerprinting protection, and accessibility features have been expanded in all directions.
iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 are available now via the Apple Developer Program, with a public beta coming next month. The final release lands this autumn as a free update, mostly likely in September. iOS 26 will support iPhone 11 and newer, and iPadOS 26 covers iPad Pro (M4 and back to 3rd-gen), iPad Air (M2 and 3rd-gen onward), iPad (8th-gen and up), and the iPad mini (5th-gen and A17 Pro variants).
Connor Jewiss
