Apple just dropped iOS 26, and honestly, it’s a lot to take in. This isn't just another update where they move a button two pixels to the left and call it a day. It’s a total vibe shift. If you’ve been staring at your iPhone wondering if you should tap that "Install Now" button or if your battery is about to melt, you’re not alone.
The headline act here is something Apple calls Liquid Glass. It’s the biggest visual overhaul we’ve seen in probably a decade. Basically, everything—your icons, your sliders, your notification banners—now looks like it’s made of actual, physical glass floating over your wallpaper. When you scroll, things refract and bend. It’s pretty, sure. But it's also been kinda polarizing.
What is the new iOS update actually doing to your screen?
The first thing you’ll notice after the reboot is that the Home Screen looks... different. Icons are no longer flat. They’re layered. Apple is using real-time light refraction so that as you tilt your phone, the light "hits" the edges of your apps differently.
It’s not just for show, though. This Liquid Glass stuff is meant to help you focus. In apps like Mail or Notes, the toolbars now morph and shrink when you don’t need them, creating more "white space" for your content.
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But there’s a catch. Some people hate it.
Early reports from users on Reddit and social media suggest the transparency is actually making text harder to read for some. If you have a busy, colorful wallpaper, the "glass" icons can sometimes get lost in the noise. Apple did try to fix this in the iOS 26.2 update by adding a "Tinted Glass" mode, which lets you turn up the opacity so things look a bit more solid.
The Features Nobody Is Talking About
Beyond the glass, there are some genuinely useful "quality of life" tweaks that actually matter for daily use:
- Hold Assist: This is a lifesaver. If you’re on a call and need to step away, you can put the caller on hold, and your iPhone will actually notify them when you’re ready to talk again. No more awkward "Are you there?" silences.
- Call Screening: Finally. It works like the Google Pixel feature where your phone answers unknown numbers for you and asks why they’re calling. You see a transcript in real-time. If it’s a scammer, you just tap "End."
- Smart Reminders: If you have a long thread in Messages about a dinner plan, iOS can now automatically suggest a Reminder with the time and place. It’s spooky but helpful.
Apple Intelligence and the Google Gemini Deal
This is where things get interesting. You might have heard the rumors, and yeah, they're true: Apple and Google have basically teamed up. While Apple is still doing its own "Private Cloud Compute" for privacy, the heavy lifting for the next-gen Siri is being powered by Google’s Gemini models.
We haven't seen the full fruit of this yet—that's coming in iOS 26.4 later this spring. But right now, you can feel the AI (or "Apple Intelligence") working in smaller ways.
Take Live Translation. You can now be on a FaceTime call with someone speaking Japanese while you speak English, and the phone translates the audio out loud in real-time. It’s not 100% perfect—it still sounds a bit like a robot—but the fact that it works on-device is wild.
Why your group chats look different
If you’re a heavy iMessage user, iOS 26 finally fixed some of the most annoying omissions.
- Polls: You can finally run a poll in a group chat to decide where to eat.
- Custom Backgrounds: You can set a specific wallpaper for just one group chat.
- Typing Indicators: You can finally see who is typing in a group, not just in one-on-one chats.
Is it worth the update? (The Battery Question)
Look, every time a new iOS comes out, people scream about battery life. Usually, it’s just the phone re-indexing files in the background, which takes a day or two. But with iOS 26, the Liquid Glass animations are actually a bit demanding on older hardware.
If you’re on an iPhone 13 or older, you might notice a bit of a "lag spike" when opening the App Library or using the new magnifier loupe. It’s not a dealbreaker, but it’s there. If you’re worried, it might be worth waiting for the iOS 26.3 stable release, which is expected to focus heavily on performance "polish" rather than new bells and whistles.
Real Talk: The Limitations
Apple still hasn't fixed everything. Siri is still in a "transition phase." While the Gemini partnership is official, the "Super Siri" that can actually look at your screen and understand what you're doing isn't fully live for most people yet. We’re basically in a beta year for AI.
Also, the "Clear" theme for icons is cool, but if you have a lot of third-party apps, your Home Screen will look messy. Not every developer has updated their icons to support the glass layers yet, so you’ll have a mix of beautiful glass icons and old, flat squares.
Moving Forward: Your Next Steps
If you haven't pulled the trigger on the update yet, here is the move:
Check your storage first. This update is huge (roughly 6GB), and it needs another 10GB of "buffer" space to install smoothly. If you're tight on space, delete those 4K videos of your cat before you start.
Second, if you do update and find the new look distracting, go to Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size and play with the "Reduce Transparency" toggle. It kills some of the Liquid Glass vibe, but it makes the phone feel way snappier.
Finally, keep an eye out for the iOS 26.3 public beta if you’re a glutton for punishment. It’s supposed to introduce the new RCS encryption standards, which will make texting your Android friends a lot more secure.