At WWDC 2025, Apple revealed a significant visible shake-up for iOS (to not point out the remainder of the corporate’s working methods). That is the largest change, aesthetically, for the reason that shift away from the stitching, textures and skeuomorphic design of the iOS 4. It additionally comes with considerably fewer AI and Siri updates this time round. Nevertheless, it’s the smaller touches that make iOS 26 appear to be a notable enchancment over its predecessor.
I’ve been working the iOS 26 developer beta for the final two weeks and here is how Apple’s new Liquid Glass design — and iOS 26 broadly — stacks up.
(Ed. be aware: Apple just released the public betas for iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26 and watchOS 26. This implies you’ll be able to run the preview for your self, if you’re prepared to threat probably buggy or unstable software program that might trigger a few of your apps to not work. As standard, we extremely advocate backing up all of your information earlier than working any beta, and you may comply with our guide on how to install Apple’s public betas to take action.)
Liquid Glass adjustments every thing
iOS 26 seems to be new and fashionable. And for as soon as, how Apple describes it — liquid glass — is smart: it’s loads of layers of clear components overlapping and, in locations, the animations are fairly… liquidy. Menus and buttons will reply to your contact, with a few of them coalescing round your finger and generally separating out into new menus.
Liquid Glass encompasses the complete design of iOS. The house and lock screens have been redesigned as soon as once more, that includes a brand new skyscraping clock font that stretches out from the background of your photographs, with ever-so-slight transparency. There’s additionally a brand new 3D impact that infuses your photographs with a little bit of spatial magic, providing a contact of Imaginative and prescient Professional for iPhone customers.
The expertise within the first few builds of the iOS 26 beta was jarring and messy, particularly with clear icons and notifications, on account of these overlapping components making issues nearly illegible. Updates throughout subsequent releases have addressed this problem by making floating components extra opaque. There’s additionally a toggle inside the Accessibility tab in Settings to scale back transparency additional, however I hope Apple affords a slider in order that customers can select precisely how “liquid” they need their “glass” to be. When you personal different Apple merchandise, then you definately’ll come to understand the design parity throughout your Mac, iPad and Apple Watch.
One noticeable change I would been ready for was the iOS search bar’s relocation to the underside of the display. I first observed it inside Settings, but it surely reappears in Music, Podcasts, Pictures and just about in every single place you may want to search out particular information or menu objects now. If, like me, you’re an iPhone Professional or Plus consumer, you might have struggled to succeed in these search bars after they have been on the high of the display. It’s a welcome enchancment.
Visible Intelligence
With iOS 26 on iPhones highly effective sufficient to run Apple Intelligence, the corporate is bringing Visible Intelligence over to your screenshots. (Beforehand it was restricted to Digicam.) When you’ve grabbed a shot by urgent the ability and quantity up buttons, you’ll get a preview of your picture, surrounded by advised actions that Apple Intelligence deduced could be related based mostly on the contents of your screenshot.
Managing Editor Cherlynn Low did a deep dive on what Visual Intelligence is capable of. From a screenshot, you’ll be able to switch info to different apps with out having to change or choose them manually. This implies I can simply screenshot tickets and emails, for instance, so as to add to my calendar. Apple Intelligence can even determine sorts of crops, meals and automobiles, even. If there are a number of folks or objects in your screenshot, you’ll be able to spotlight what you need to deal with by circling it. There aren’t many third-party app choices at this level, however that’s usually the case with a beta construct. These are options that Android customers have had courtesy of Gemini for a 12 months or two, however no less than now we get one thing related on iPhones.
One fast tip: Be certain that to faucet the markup button (the little pencil tip icon) to see Visible Intelligence in your screenshots. I initially thought my beta construct was lacking the function, but it surely was simply hidden behind the markup menu.
Extra broadly, Apple Intelligence continues to work properly, however would not stand out in any specific method. We’re nonetheless ready for Siri to obtain its promised upgrades. Nonetheless, iOS 26 seems to have improved the efficiency of many options that use the iPhone’s onboard machine studying fashions. Because the first developer construct, voice memos and voice notes aren’t solely a lot sooner, but additionally extra correct, particularly with accents that the system beforehand struggled with.
Apple Intelligence’s Writing instruments — which I primarily use for summarizing conferences, convention calls and even prolonged PDFs — would not choke with extra substantial studying. On iOS 18, it could wrestle with voice notes longer than 10 minutes, making an attempt to detangle or construction the contents of a gathering. I haven’t had that problem with iOS 26 thus far.
Genmoji and Picture Playground each supply up completely different outcomes via the replace. Picture Playground can now generate photos utilizing ChatGPT. I’ll be trustworthy, I hadn’t used the app since I examined it on iOS 18, however the upgrades imply it has extra utility once I may need to generate AI art work, which may often attain photorealistic ranges.
One helpful addition is ChatGPT’s “any fashion” possibility, that means you’ll be able to attempt to specify the fashion you take note of, which may skirt a bit of nearer to contentious mimicry — particularly if you’d like, say, a frivolous picture of you splashing in a puddle, Studio Ghibli fashion.
Apple additionally tweaked Genmoji so as to add deeper customization choices, however these AI-generated avatars don’t appear to be me? I preferred the unique Genmoji that launched final 12 months, which had the almost-nostalgic fashion of 2010 emoji, however nonetheless in some way channeled the auras of me, my family and friends. This new batch are extra detailed and elaborate, certain, however they don’t look proper. Additionally, they make me look bald. And opposite to my detractors, I’m not bald. But. This looks like a direct assault, Apple.
You may really feel otherwise, nonetheless. For instance, Cherlynn stated that the primary model of Genmoji didn’t resemble her, continuously presenting her as somebody with a lot darker pores and skin or of a special ethnicity, whatever the supply image she submitted.
Nonetheless, the flexibility to alter a Genmoji’s expression, in addition to add and take away glasses and facial hair via the brand new look customization choices, is an enchancment.
A Digicam app redesign for everybody
Apple has revisited the digicam app, returning to fundamentals by stripping away a lot of the beforehand provided modes and settings — no less than initially — to show solely video and picture modes.
You may swipe up from the underside to see extra choices, like flash, the timer, publicity, types and extra. You can too faucet on the brand new six-dot icon within the higher proper of the interface for a similar choices, although that requires a bit extra of a attain. These behave consistent with the brand new Liquid Glass design and also you’ll see the Photograph tablet develop into the settings menu while you press both space. Lengthy-pressing on icons enables you to go deeper into taking pictures modes, adjusting body charges and even recording resolutions.
What I like right here is that it advantages informal smartphone photographers whereas retaining all of the settings that extra superior customers demand. Not one of the updates listed here are earth-shattering, although. I hope Apple takes a great take a look at what Adobe’s Project Indigo camera app is doing — there are loads of good concepts there.
One further enchancment for those who use AirPods: Urgent and holding the stem of your AirPod (if it has an H2 chip) can now begin video recording.
Apple Music tries to DJ
Alongside the Liquid Glass design touches, the large addition to Apple Music this 12 months is AutoMix. Like a (a lot) extra superior model of the crossfade function discovered on most music streaming apps, in iOS 26, Music tries to combine between tracks, slowing or rushing up tempos, gently fading in drums or bass loops earlier than the subsequent track kicks in. Twenty % of the time, it doesn’t work properly — or Apple Music doesn’t even strive. However the brand new potential to pin playlists and albums is helpful, particularly for suggestions from folks that you simply by no means received round to listening to.
Messages get a bit of extra enjoyable
Apple is making Messages extra enjoyable. One of many methods it’s doing so is by enabling customized backgrounds in chats, very similar to in WhatsApp. I instantly got down to discover essentially the most embarrassing picture of my colleague (and frenemy) Cherlynn Low and make it our chat background. I do know she’s additionally working iOS 26 in beta, so she’s going to see it. [Ed. note: Way to give me a reason to ignore your messages, Mat!]
Apple’s Stay translation now works throughout Messages, voice calls and FaceTime. Setting issues up could be a little sophisticated — you’ll first have to obtain varied language information to make use of the function. There’s additionally some inconsistency within the languages supported throughout the board. As an example, Mandarin and Japanese are supported in Messages, however not on FaceTime but. In chats, in case your system language is about to English or Spanish, then you definately’ll solely have the ability to translate into English or Spanish. For these polyglots on the market, if you wish to translate incoming Japanese texts into German, you’ll have to set your gadget’s language to German.
Whereas I didn’t get to flex my Japanese skills on voice calls and FaceTime, iOS 26 was greater than able to maintaining with some rudimentary German and Spanish. I’m unsure if I’d depend on it for critical enterprise translation or vacation bookings, however I believe it might be a really great tool for fundamentals.
There’s additionally the flexibility to filter spam messages to their very own little folder (purgatory). Spam texts stay a nightmare, so I admire any potential weapons within the struggle. Sadly, it hasn’t fairly handle to take care of the TikTok advertising businesses and telephone community buyer providers that proceed to barrage my Messages. Nonetheless, hopefully Apple will proceed to enhance its detection algorithms.
Yet another software within the battle towards spam: You may mute notifications for Messages from unknown numbers, though time-sensitive alerts from supply providers and rideshare apps will nonetheless attain you.
New apps are hit-or-miss
Not every thing within the beta lands, nonetheless. I’ve already touched on how Liquid Glass was initially a semi-transparent mess. The Video games App, too, looks as if an pointless addition. As a result of it’s a mix of the Video games tab of the App Retailer and a silo of your preinstalled video games, I’m unsure what it’s including. It’s not any simpler to navigate, nor does it introduce me to video games I need to purchase.
Cherlynn did need to spotlight that for an off-the-cuff gamer like herself, it’s intriguing to see if the Video games app may begin to advocate extra mind-numbing puzzles or farming simulations. She was additionally intrigued by the concept of a extra social gaming expertise on iOS, issuing challenges to her pals. Nonetheless, as a result of the telephone she has been testing the beta on doesn’t have entry to all her contacts or her gaming historical past, the suggestions and options are pretty restricted in the mean time.
Video games is certainly one of two new apps that may robotically be part of your property display. (Happily, they are often uninstalled). The opposite is Preview, which needs to be a well-known addition to any Mac consumer. It affords a straightforward method to view despatched or downloaded information, like menus, ticket QR codes and extra. In the course of the developer beta, the app pulled in a handful of my paperwork that beforehand lived within the Information app. Navigation throughout each these apps is similar, though Preview is proscribed to information you’ll be able to really open, after all.
AirPods, upgraded
That is extra iPhone-adjacent, however iOS 26 contains a number of quality-of-life enhancements for some of Apple’s headphones. First up: notifications when your AirPods are absolutely charged, lastly! The Apple Watch received this sort of notification again in iOS 14, so it’s nice to see Apple’s headphones catch up.
Apple can also be promising “studio-quality sound recording” from the AirPods, augmenting recordings with computational audio enhancements. There’s a noticable bump in audio high quality. It seems that AirPods 4 and AirPods Professional 2 will report information at a pattern fee of 48 kHz, which is double the speed used previously. The pattern fee bump occurred final 12 months, however it’s depending on what the app you are utilizing. Is it “studio high quality”? I don’t assume so, but it surely’s an enchancment. Whereas recordings sound barely higher in quiet areas, the larger change is in loud environments. The algorithm would not look like degrading audio high quality as a lot whereas making an attempt to scale back background noise.
iOS 26 additionally provides sleep detection to the buds. If the AirPods detect minimal motion, they’ll swap off robotically, which might be useful for the subsequent time I’m flying long-haul.
Wrap-up
In iOS 26, Apple has prioritized design adjustments and systemwide consistency over AI-centric software program and options. Whereas Liquid Glass is a giant change to how your iPhone seems to be, Apple has drawn from consumer suggestions to finesse the design into feeling much less jarring and gelling higher when the house display, Management Middle and Notification drop-downs overlap with one another.
There are quite a few high quality of life enhancements, together with Messages and Visible Intelligence, specifically. If something, the AI elephant within the room is the dearth of any substantial updates on Siri. After the corporate talked up superior Siri interactions over a 12 months in the past, I’m nonetheless ready for its assistant to meet up with the likes of Google.
2025-07-24 18:00:00