iOS 26! It feels like just last year we were here discussing iOS 18. How time flies.
After a year that saw the debut of Apple Intelligence and the subsequent controversy over the features that it didn’t manage to ship, Apple seems to have taken a different tack with iOS 26. In addition to the expansive new Liquid Glass design that spans all of its platforms, Apple has largely focused on smaller, “quality of life” improvements rather than marquee new features.
That’s not a bad thing, either—these are often the types of things that Apple does best, and which actually make a meaningful impact on the lives of their customers: saving them time waiting on hold on the phone, helping them avoid dealing with spam, and improving their driving experience.
It’s also worth noting that almost all of the iOS 26 features that Apple demoed during its WWDC keynote this year are available in this initial version. (The exception seems to be the Digital ID feature that lets you use your U.S. Passport to make an ID in the Wallet app, which Apple says is still forthcoming in a future update.) Most of it has been there since the earliest beta builds this summer, showing that Apple really is trying not to get over its own skis.
While this update is probably going to be most remembered for its Liquid Glass overhaul—a redesign that feels more than a little ill-conceived—there are definitely things to like in iOS 26. Let’s dive in.
Liquid Glass half-full or half-empty?
Apple’s new design language, dubbed Liquid Glass, applies across all its platforms, but unsurprisingly, it feels most at home on the iPhone and iPad. That’s in part because of the touch interface; the literal hands-on nature makes the feel responsive and more like physical things that you’re interacting with. For example, dragging the new magnifying loupe across the screen, watching the way it magnifies and distorts text and images as it passes over them—this interaction has always been unique to iOS for practical reasons, but the way it feels here doesn’t have a direct analogue on other platforms.
