A brand-new iPhone design was recently unveiled by Apple.
By Chukwuebuka
Here’s Everything Coming in iOS 26.
For the first time in over a decade, Apple is redesigning iOS, the software that powers your iPhone.
iOS 26 will have a design that Apple calls Liquid Glass. Expect to see controls that change shape according to what you're doing on your phone and transparent layers. The new design extends to iPads and Macs, too.
The most recent software from Apple won't be available for download until this fall, but we're at Apple Park in Cupertino, California, so we can get a sneak peek at everything that will be coming to your iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Here are the biggest changes you can expect.
The most exciting features coming to iOS 26
New names are being given to Apple's operating systems. If you’re confused by the jump from iOS 18 to iOS 26, that’s understandable. From now on, iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and the rest of Apple’s operating systems will be named by the year after their release. This is similar to how car companies assign model years to vehicles. For instance, iOS 26 was the version that was announced at WWDC, and iOS 27 will be released in the fall. Apple will continue its naming tradition for macOS by choosing California locations — macOS 26 will be known as Tahoe.
Your iPhone is getting a sleek, transparent redesign. iOS took design cues from physical objects when it was first released in 2007: the YouTube icon looked like an old-fashioned TV, the dock at the bottom of the screen looked like metal mesh, and materials like woodgrain and brushed steel were used in apps. However, in 2013, iOS 7 changed the iPhone's skeuomorphic design to a simpler, flat-color design. With the launch of iOS 26, Apple bridges the gap between those styles with a design that has touchable physicality while still being clear and easy to understand. The new design style is referred to by the company as Liquid Glass. The iPhone menus will have a frosted-glass glow and a few hints of color. Many elements are more rounded and have a subtle sense of depth. And the "liquid" part is true: When you touch a menu or button, it will respond, sometimes breaking up into new menus. The new look supports light and dark modes, as well as a new all-clear mode that applies a semitransparent appearance to your iPhone’s interface.
All of Apple’s devices are getting the Liquid Glass look: Macs, iPads, Apple TV, and Apple Watch will use the same design language and share features. Apple said that this was the first time it had done a total redesign across all of its devices.
Real-time call and text translation will make chatting easier. Texts in Messages will be automatically translated into the language that the recipient prefers. You can hear the speaker's language during FaceTime calls, and translations are displayed as text. Even if the person you're calling doesn't have an iPhone, this will work in regular phone calls as well: you and the caller will both hear your preferred spoken language. (This feature will be available only for iPhones that can run Apple Intelligence, meaning the iPhone 15 Pro and later models.)
English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, and simplified Chinese will all be supported for real-time translation in Messages. English, French, German, Brazilian Portuguese, and Spanish are the only languages that can be translated in FaceTime. Real-time translation is one of the most compelling applications of artificial intelligence, but executing it well is challenging. Google fumbled its own live translation demo onstage at its Google I/O developers conference in May. We’ll have to see if Apple is able to make this tricky feature work successfully.
Camera controls will be easier to use, and the Photos app brings back familiar features. When you open the iPhone Camera app, you’ll be able to choose between shooting video or taking still photos. You can access other options, such as panoramas, with a swipe. Advanced options are concealed but readily available. The Photos app changed in iOS 18 in ways that were hard to understand and made it harder to find your library. Good news: In iOS 26, Apple is bringing back tabs for your Library and Collections.
Messages group chats get upgraded with custom backgrounds and polls. Group chats are their own social networks, and now you’ll be able to personalize them even more. You can choose your own background to share in a group chat, or choose from Apple’s premade dynamic backgrounds. Backgrounds sync across devices, so you can start a conversation on your iPad or Mac with the same look and feel. You can set up a poll to settle disagreements if your group chat can't agree on something like where to eat or the nature of existence. Members can cast their votes and add their own options to the poll, too.
Additionally, typing indicators are being added to group chats to indicate when someone is responding, which may help calm down the family conversation. (Maybe.)
Spam messages get easier to dodge. The Messages app can now move texts from unknown numbers outside of your inbox to a separate location. You can respond to them or ignore them. For calls from unknown numbers, your iPhone can now automatically answer and ask the caller for their name and the nature of the call. Only after the caller provides this information will your iPhone ring.
A new Hold Assist feature can save you from being on endless hold. iOS 26 can also detect that on-hold music is playing and offer to keep your place in line. If you accept, you can close the app and go about your business. When you’re taken off hold, iOS 26 will detect it, alert you, and tell the person that you’re on your way back.
Karaoke at home can be done with your iPhone and Apple TV. You can now use iPhones as microphones to sing along with Apple Music on Apple TV. The TV amplifies your voice, and your friends can choose the next track and respond with emojis. On the iPhone, Apple Music supports new animated album art on the lock screen and displays lyric translations and pronunciations. (I’m personally excited to understand what my new favorite Korean folktronic album is actually about.)
CarPlay’s redesign lets you focus on driving. Even when you receive calls or notifications, CarPlay, which transforms your dashboard into a touchscreen interface, will now keep important information like maps front and center. (You won't have to worry about getting lost because you answered a call from a loved one.) You can now use widgets and view live activities, such as flight status, on the display, too.
You can share flight updates from the Wallet app. A new design for digital boarding passes is being developed. You can also view airport information and share flight status from within the Wallet app, so family or friends can see where you are.
You can take a screenshot to search what’s on your screen. Previously Apple’s Visual Intelligence could view the world through your camera, doing things such as identifying businesses and capturing event details from posters. With iOS 26, when you take a screenshot you’ll have added options along the bottom to access Visual Intelligence. If you screenshot an event announcement, for example, Apple Intelligence can record the details. Apple demonstrated on stage how it used Visual Intelligence to locate a lamp that had been mentioned in a social media post. Apple's larger effort to expand the context that Apple Intelligence tools can access is reflected in these features, which are similar to Google's Circle to Search feature for Android. Apple is launching a new all-in-one gaming app. The new Games app provides easy access to browse the games you already own and view titles available through the Apple Arcade subscription service. In addition, the app aims to make it easier to find friends for multiplayer games and provides a single location for stats and leaderboards. Apple is also developing a Challenge mode so that you and your friends can compete to win single-player games. The new Games app is cross-platform, just like the new Messages and Phone apps. On macOS, you can see your stats and invite friends to play. But the smarter Siri is still a ways off. Apple showed a vision for Siri that used AI to understand both what you're looking at on your phone and your personal context—who you know and what you do—at the previous year's WWDC. This year, Apple said that those features weren’t yet up to snuff, and that the company would have more to share on that later this year.
Apple gives the iPad more Mac powers.
New features are coming to all of Apple’s devices this fall, but the most interesting are new multitasking features for iPads that will make them work more like Macs. And Macs are also getting some new tools for power users that we’re curious to try.
Windowing, menu bars, and pointers are coming to iPadOS. iPadOS 26 expands on support for attached touchpads by adding a pointer instead of a circle, which lets you use your iPad more effectively like a laptop. App windows on iPads can now appear as free-floating windows that you can resize and tile however you like. The familiar Menu Bar and red-yellow-green window controls from macOS are also coming to iPads. Even though iPads have a lot of power, they can't replace full laptops because they don't have software productivity features. We’re hopeful that iPadOS 26 will change this.
Macs are also getting more powerful, with the supercharged Spotlight. Right now, you can press Command+Space to quickly search your Mac's contents. You will be able to start a recording, play a podcast, or activate tools in the app you are using directly from Spotlight with macOS 26. You’ll also be able to view your clipboard history, a log of what you’ve cut or copied.
Quick Keys for Spotlight, which let you do even more from the Spotlight search bar, were also shown off by Apple. For instance, you can use the “sm” Quick Key to send a message.
Power users get more powerful tools in Shortcuts. The Shortcuts app lets you build simple automations on your Mac. With macOS 26, Shortcuts can also be triggered by a date or time or in response to actions, such as when you connect an external display. Apple Intelligence features are also coming to Shortcuts, so you can use text summaries or image generation in automations.
How to try the new iOS, iPadOS, and macOS.
Apple has released developer betas of its new software releases, with public betas available to try next month. The final releases are expected sometime in September. Using beta software comes with some risk, so we recommend that most people wait for Apple to release the finished versions. We also recommend that people update their devices to the latest operating system in order to benefit from stability and security improvements.
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