Apple’s iOS 26 is bringing Liquid Glass design, Apple Games and Apple Intelligence to life and giving great updates to the Phone and Messages apps.
iOS 26Liquid Glass is translucent and behaves like glass in the real world. Liquid Glass uses real-time rendering and dynamically reacts to movement with specular highlights.
Available on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV, Liquid Glass extends from the smallest elements users interact with every day — like buttons, switches, sliders, text, and media controls — to larger elements, including tab bars and sidebars for navigating apps, the Lock Screen, Home Screen, notifications, Control Center, and more.
Liquid Glass reflects and refracts its surroundings, bringing greater focus to content, and delivering a new level of vitality across controls, navigation, app icons, widgets, and more.
Liquid Glass also brings new customization options to app icons and widgets, including in Apple Music, News, and Podcasts. On the Lock Screen, the time fluidly adapts to the available space in an image for a more dynamic feeling.
iOS 26 also introduces new features in CarPlay, Apple Music, Maps, and Wallet, as well as Apple Games, a brand-new app that gives players a single destination for all their games.
According to Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering. “Experiences are more expressive and personal, from the Lock Screen and Home Screen, to new capabilities across Phone and Messages that help users focus on the connections that matter most. And with powerful new Apple Intelligence capabilities integrated across the system, users can get things done easier than ever.”
Apple Intelligence elevates the iPhone experience and helps users get things done easier than ever, while unlocking new ways to communicate and do more with what’s on their screen.
Live Translation is integrated into Messages, FaceTime, and Phone to help users communicate across languages, translating text and audio on the fly. Live Translation is enabled by Apple-built models that run entirely on device, so users’ personal conversations stay personal.
Building on Apple Intelligence, visual intelligence now extends to a user’s iPhone screen, making it easy to search and take action across apps with anything they’re viewing.
Fundamental to the iPhone experience, the Phone app now offers a unified layout that combines Favorites, Recents, and Voicemails all in one place. Call Screening builds on Live Voicemail and helps eliminate interruptions by gathering information from the caller and giving users the details they need to decide if they want to pick up or ignore the call. And for the times when a user is stuck on hold, Hold Assist notifies the user when a live agent is available
In Messages, users can now screen messages from unknown senders, giving them more control over who appears in their conversation list. Messages from unknown senders will appear in a dedicated folder where users can then mark the number as known, ask for more information, or delete. These messages will remain silenced until a user accepts them.
iOS 26 also offers enhancements to conversations, including custom backgrounds and the ability to create polls. With Apple Intelligence, Messages can detect when a poll might come in handy and suggest one, and users can generate unique backgrounds that fit their conversation with Image Playground. Additionally, in group chats, users can now see typing indicators, and request, send, and receive Apple Cash.
CarPlay in iOS 26 includes a new compact view for incoming calls, allowing users to see who’s calling without missing key information like upcoming directions.
iOS 26 also brings Tapbacks and pinned conversations to Messages in CarPlay, and with widgets and Live Activities, users can stay in the loop without losing focus on the road. These updates also come to CarPlay Ultra, which brings the best of iPhone and the best of the car together for a deeply integrated, unified experience across every screen
In Apple Music, Lyrics Translation helps users understand the words to their favorite songs, while Lyrics Pronunciation allows everyone to sing along, regardless of language. AutoMix uses intelligence to transition from one song to the next like a DJ, using time stretching and beat matching to seamlessly move from one song to the next.
In Apple Maps, Visited Places help users remember the places they’ve been. Users can view all of their Visited Places in Maps. Visited Places are protected with end-to-end encryption and cannot be accessed by Apple.
Apple Wallet in iOS 26 can help users choose to pay with installments or rewards when they make in-store purchases with Apple Pay. Refreshed boarding passes in Wallet offer the ability to see and share Live Activities for real-time updates on a flight. There also Maps to navigate airports, Find My to track important items and report missing bags.
Apple Games is an all-in-one destination for games. It helps players jump back into titles they love, find their next favorite, and have even more fun with friends. Players can find out info about all their games, including major events and updates. The Games app is also the best way to experience Apple Arcade, Apple’s game subscription service with more than 200 games.
iOS 26 will be available soon as a free software update for iPhone 11 and later. Apple Intelligence is supported by iPhone 16, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPad mini (A17 Pro), and iPad and Mac models with M1 and later that have Apple Intelligence enabled and Siri.