Everything Coming in iOS 26: Apple’s Boldest Update in a Decade

Apple’s iOS 26, unveiled at WWDC 2025, marks the most significant overhaul to the iPhone experience since iOS 7.From the visually stunning “Liquid Glass” design to the integration of advanced AI features under the banner of Apple Intelligence, this update redefines user interaction. With enhancements across core apps, new functionalities, and a focus on personalization and privacy, iOS 26 sets a new standard for mobile operating systems.

When iOS 7 was released in 2013, it was Apple’s boldest move in mobile software; flattening the entire interface and ushering in a design revolution. Fast forward over a decade, and iOS 26 stands as its spiritual successor. But instead of just a design shift, this year’s update combines interface changes with deeply integrated AI, transforming both the look and the brain of the iPhone.

At WWDC 2025, Apple didn’t just roll out another version update. It reframed the iPhone as an intelligent companion; one that can summarize your day, generate creative content on the fly, understand natural language in depth, and operate with greater autonomy. All this while staying loyal to Apple’s privacy mantra: what happens on your iPhone, stays on your iPhone (unless you say otherwise).

The question is no longer what new features iOS 26 brings. It’s how much smarter and more human your phone is about to become.

Liquid Glass Design & Apple Intelligence

Liquid Glass Design

The new Liquid Glass aesthetic is inspired by the visual elegance of visionOS, Apple’s platform for spatial computing. Instead of a static 2D interface, iOS 26 feels layered and alive. Here are some key upgrades:

Translucent Layers: Backgrounds blur softly, allowing users to see what’s beneath panels or cards, much like frosted glass.
Dynamic Lighting: The UI reacts subtly to changes in time of day, wallpaper hues, and even what’s on-screen.
Spatial Depth: Buttons and toggles feel elevated; shadowing gives a sense of physical presence.
Haptic Feedback Tuning: Touches now yield different haptic responses based on context, helping bridge the gap between physical and digital.

This design is more than a facelift. It sets the stage for Apple’s long-term vision of unifying experiences across mobile, desktop, and spatial platforms like Vision Pro.

Apple Intelligence

Apple Intelligence is a set of capabilities built atop large language models, but with a privacy-first, hybrid architecture. Here’s how it works under the hood and in practice:

How It Works:

On-Device by Default: Most queries are processed on-device using Apple’s smaller, optimized AI models. This is fast and private.
Private Cloud Compute: If your query requires more power, iOS sends it to a private cloud compute node. Isolated, encrypted, and ephemeral. Data is never stored and never linked to your Apple ID.
Semantic Memory: Apple Intelligence builds a local, semantic understanding of your activities, what documents you opened, who you messaged, what reminders you set; to answer nuanced prompts.

What It Enables:

Live Translation: Translates spoken or written content in real-time across apps like Messages, FaceTime, and Phone.
Smart Summaries: Offers TL;DRs for articles, emails, documents, and group chats. Can even summarize missed notifications or meetings.
Genmoji: Uses prompts like “grumpy avocado with sunglasses” to generate unique emoji-like characters on demand.
Image Playground: Creates AI-generated images using prompts and styles, cartoon, sketch, 3D render; that can be used in Notes, Keynote, and Messages.

Apple isn’t positioning itself as a ChatGPT alternative. It’s building an ecosystem where AI is a silent but powerful copilot.

Siri Reborn and Core App Upgrades

Siri Reimagined

Siri has long lagged behind Google Assistant and Alexa in natural language processing and contextual intelligence. With iOS 26, Apple is giving its voice assistant a much needed reboot; transforming Siri into a more conversational, aware, and useful AI.

Key Siri Upgrades:

Conversational Memory: Siri now retains short-term context within a session. You can say “Text that to her” right after referring to someone by name, and it understands who “her” is.
Screen Awareness: It can act based on what’s currently on your screen. For example, “Add this address to my contacts” works while looking at a map or a message.
Multi-modal Input: You can now start with a voice command and continue with text, or vice versa. Siri seamlessly transitions between modalities.
Live Actions: Commands like “Edit this photo’s lighting” or “Move this email to my Work folder” happen inline, in real time.

Visually, Siri ditches the old orb animation. Now, it’s ambient. A glowing light pulses around the screen’s edges when Siri is listening, mirroring Vision Pro’s aesthetic and reducing screen clutter.

Messages: Beyond Just Texting

Messages gets a suite of highly-requested upgrades in iOS 26:

Chat Backgrounds: Customize individual or group chats with themed wallpapers or gradients.
Reactions with Any Emoji: Not just the usual six Tapbacks, now you can react with anything from 😎 to 🐙.
Inline Polls: Create quick polls in group chats, perfect for lunch decisions or team planning.
Scheduled Sends: Type a message and choose when it should send; finally catching up with email clients.
Spam Detection for SMS: Machine learning filters junk messages and categorizes them similarly to email spam folders.

Apple also promises faster syncing between devices, with Messages in iCloud now using a more resilient sync engine.

Maps: More Than Just Directions

Apple Maps has grown up. iOS 26 makes it more predictive and personalized:

Preferred Route Learning: Maps recognizes which roads you typically avoid and suggests better alternatives automatically.
Delay Forecasting: Uses anonymized crowd-sourced data to warn you if your usual route has likely future delays.
Transit Upgrades: Real-time bus/train data now includes estimated crowding and service changes mid-route.

Plus, the interface gets a visual refresh that better aligns with the Liquid Glass theme, especially on CarPlay, where it now supports glanceable widgets and live transit info.

Photos: Organized, Simplified, Smarter

The Photos app receives a major UI overhaul focused on simplicity and intelligence:

Two-Tab Interface: Apple collapses navigation into “Library” and “Collections” to reduce clutter.
AI Memories: iOS 26 auto-generates memory collections with smarter filtering like “Cats in Nature” or “Sunsets from Summer Trips.”
People & Pets Detection: More accurate facial recognition and now includes your furry friends.
Search by Context: You can now type “that PDF I took a photo of last week” or “receipt from coffee shop in LA” and it just works.

This functionality leans heavily on on-device machine learning, making it snappy and private.

Phone App and Voicemail: Smarter Conversations

The humble Phone app gets surprisingly sophisticated:

Call Screening: Just like on Pixel phones, unknown calls are screened with a voice prompt and transcription. You decide if you want to pick up.
Hold Assist: Siri can stay on hold for you and notify you when a human picks up.
Live Voicemail 2.0: Now supports AI summaries so you can skim long voicemails without listening.

Together, these changes make the iPhone feel less like a phone and more like a smart assistant that manages your calls.

Apple Games App and the Gaming Experience

Gaming on iOS takes a leap forward with the launch of the Apple Games app, a dedicated space for tracking, discovering, and engaging with games across Apple devices.

What It Offers:

Game Activity Feed: Track what your friends are playing, their achievements, and new in-game events.
Cross-Device Sync: Start a game on your iPhone and pick it up later on Apple TV or iPad complete with synced game state and settings.
Event Notifications: Get alerts about time limited challenges, leaderboards, and seasonal updates from your favorite games.
Apple Arcade+ Integration: Highlights curated titles with bonus content or exclusive features for subscribers.

For developers, iOS 26 adds Haptic Sync APIs so that in-game events like explosions or rhythm changes can produce immersive, precisely timed feedback using the iPhone’s Taptic Engine.

Accessibility: Inclusion Through Innovation

Apple has long been a leader in accessibility, and iOS 26 continues that tradition with some of its most advanced tools yet.

New Accessibility Features:

Eye Tracking: Using the iPhone’s front-facing camera and Face ID sensors, users can navigate and interact with UI elements using just their gaze.
Voice Shortcuts: Custom phrases can be created to trigger Shortcuts, allowing hands-free control of complex tasks.
Custom Sound Recognition: Train your iPhone to listen for unique sounds, like your front door chime, microwave beep, or even your pet’s bark and trigger alerts.

These features are especially valuable for users with motor impairments, hearing loss, or cognitive differences, reinforcing Apple’s commitment to universal usability.

Health and Wellness: Daily Utility Meets Preventive Care

Health on iOS 26 expands into holistic wellbeing tracking:

Mood Journal: Integrated with the Health app and the iOS Journal app, this tool lets users track daily mood using emoji scales, tags, and reflection prompts. It connects mood with other health metrics like sleep, activity, and screen time.
Cycle and Sleep Analysis: Cycle tracking now includes predictions for mood and sleep impacts, based on historical hormonal patterns.
Medication Reminders with Smart Refill: iOS now connects to participating pharmacies to alert users when it’s time to refill prescriptions, eliminating one of the most common barriers to adherence.

These tools help users understand not just physical health, but emotional and behavioral trends over time.

Cross-Platform Harmony: The Apple Ecosystem, Elevated

Apple is uniquely positioned to deliver tightly integrated experiences across devices. iOS 26 enhances this with:

Universal Control 2.0: You can now drag files from your iPhone to your iPad or Mac and vice versa. No setup needed.
FaceTime Continuity: Switch a FaceTime call from iPhone to iPad or Mac mid call with no interruptions; audio and video shift seamlessly.
Shared Focus and Wallpaper States: Focus modes and wallpapers now sync intelligently, or can be separated by device. Want a Work Mode wallpaper on your Mac but a calm one on your iPhone? No problem.

These updates strengthen Apple’s “better together” pitch, reinforcing that every device you own becomes more useful when used in concert with others.

Final Thoughts

iOS 26 is less about what’s new, and more about what’s next. It’s Apple laying the foundation for a future where software isn’t just a static tool, but a responsive, contextual assistant. Through Apple Intelligence, the iPhone becomes more anticipatory. Through Liquid Glass, it becomes more fluid and beautiful. Through universal features like Eye Tracking, Smart Recap, and Live Translation, it becomes more human.

This update is a major milestone; not just because of how much it changes, but because of what it signals. Apple is pivoting toward a more intelligent, more integrated future, and iOS 26 is the first real blueprint.

Whether you’re a casual user, a hardcore Apple fan, or a developer, iOS 26 is worth exploring. And it’s coming soon to a pocket near you.