I’ve used iOS 26 for months: The 5 best updates coming to your iPhone this week

Like other intrepid Apple fans and journalists out there, I have downloaded and used the iOS 26 public beta software for the past couple of months on my iPhone 16. This is the official way to check out Apple’s upcoming iPhone software before it is officially rolled out normally to millions of iPhones across the world.

It’s always a bit risky to download iOS beta software as there are bugs early on and things can break – the whole reason there is a beta is to get people like me to use it so Apple and third party app developers can see where things might go wrong, and fix them.

And fix them they must before Monday, September 15, 2025, when iOS 26 will roll out to anyone with an iPhone 11 or newer. If that’s you, you might be wondering what the fuss is about this supposedly big update.

I’ve had iOS 26 downloaded and running on my main personal phone since July. Below I’ve picked out my five favourite new things to watch out for that are useful or just plain fun.

In case you were wondering, Apple is skipping from iOS 18, the eighteenth version, to iOS 26, the nineteenth version. The firm is changing the numbering of its software to reflect the year that the version will be longest in use globally – in this case iOS 26 in 2026.

Apple is making a big song and dance about the look of iOS 26, which the firm has gone as far as to name ‘Liquid Glass’. You can presume this will be the look of your iPhone – and iPad and Mac – for the next few years as this design language will be carried through several versions.

It’s based on the software of Apple’s Vision Pro headset, and replaces the plainer icons and app elements from iOS 18 with shiny, see-through, well, glassy looks.

It took some getting used to, and I didn’t like it at first. But after two months, now it’s just what my iPhone looks like. Moaning about these sorts of changes is like when Facebook used to change what Facebook looked like and everyone complained for a week or so. You’ll get used to it, and on an older iPhone it might go some way to making it feel newer, which might save you money by stopping you upgrading for another year.

As well as the glassy look of app icons and other UI elements, you can go all-out and make every app a serene see-through projection (see above) as part of app theming (light, dark and colour tinted also available). I quite like it, as it removes all the bright colours that are there to get you to tap on the apps and waste time on them. That said, I now have no idea where my apps are. Probably for the best.

And let’s not forget, you can now make the clock big!

Apple Intelligence, Apple’s AI features are only available on iPhone 15 Pro or later (and not the iPhone 15 or 15 Plus) and they debuted on iOS 18, but in iOS 26 is where you’ll find the tools more embedded.

If you don’t have one of these phones, you’ll still get all the visual changes that iOS 26 brings, but none of the AI.

I personally am not a fan of Apple Intelligence features such as summarised notifications, where a stack of texts from a contact on, say, WhatsApp appears in italics with the AI trying to summarise everything said. It’s often incorrect, and even if it’s not, you need to open the stack to figure out what’s going on anyway.

I’ve been mostly testing the addition of Visual Intelligence and ChatGPT. Hold down the Camera Control button on the side of compatible iPhones and it brings up the camera to scan what’s in front of you. You can tap to ‘Ask’ or ‘Search’, and using ChatGPT, which Apple has integrated into Siri here, the phone will tell you about what’s in front of you.

It’s a little ropey, as are a lot of similar AI tools. It could better tell me what type of stoneware mug my coffee was in than the correct model of various Android phones I had to hand, for example. It can also read storefronts and use location data to determine what business you’re looking at, and find its website.

It works well to add events to your calendar – walk past a poster or flyer and scan it (or grab a screenshot from Instagram) and the phone gathers all the info and pops up with ‘Add to Calendar’. In my testing this works well, and means you’ll never miss another gig, car boot sale or next knitting circle meetup.

If you use Apple’s own apps, you’ll see some visual and design changes. Messages now has a handy filter that removes unknown senders from your messages list. This is great, as I receive a lot of annoying but often necessary texts from couriers and online services, as well as two factor authentication texts, and they crowd up my messages. Now you don’t have that.

I still wish you could archive individual message threads though, like you on WhatsApp or in Google Messages. Sometimes I want to remove a thread from my list without deleting it entirely, but you can’t do that. But you can now add individual message chats with custom backgrounds, either using photos or Image Playground, Apple’s AI generation tool.

Apple’s Mail app has a solid filter upgrade too, with Primary, Transactions, Updates and Promotions tabs. This has made me want to use the Mail app more, as I tend to use Gmail but have got tired of the ads. Mail is clearer and more usable now.

The Photos app has had a bigger makeover, with simpler Library and Collections tabs. It’s the same in the camera app, which now has only Video or Photo options at the bottom – but you can scroll through to find all the other modes. It takes a while to find other options compared to iOS 18, but it’s probably a sign that Apple knows hardly anyone changes anything in the app, so it has been simplified for a better point-and-shoot experience.

Taking a leaf out of the Google Pixel’s book are the new Call Screening and Hold Assist that do exactly what they say on the tin.

Call Screening is quite hands on. It uses AI to judge whether you may be receiving a spam call, or at least a call from someone outside of your contacts, and the phone will pick up for you and ask who is calling. Your iPhone will buzz and display what is being said on the screen. It’s then up to you to pick up or hang up.

If you’re the one dialling up a call centre or a business where you get put on hold, Hold Assist will sit on the line for you so you can get on with something else, and then alert you when someone picks up the call.

Another cool new tool limited to iPhone 15 Pro or iPhone 16 and newer iPhones is Live Translation in the Phone, Messages and FaceTime apps. iOS 26 can translate a person speaking in another language and display the translated words as text on the screen of your phone. It can also translate the other way in some instances, but it’s a little unclear if the other person needs an iPhone, or iOS 26, or both.

Perhaps best of all, if you have a compatible phone and AirPods 4 or AirPods Pro 2 (or the upcoming AirPods Pro 3), you will be able to hear the translation as audio in your earbuds.

I’ve been unable to test this particular feature, but I am keen to try it when more people have iOS 26. Apple has shown videos of two people in an in-person meeting both wearing AirPods and speaking to each other in their own language, with translations piped into both ears.

On one hand that feels a bit dystopian, but on the other, if these sorts of tools can allow for communication where otherwise it would be difficult, it could prove one of the best uses of AI to date.

It certainly beats Genmoji.