The Top New Features in Apple’s iOS 26 and iPadOS 26

Your iPhone and iPad will look significantly different when iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 roll out this fall. And no, you haven’t missed seven operating system upgrades since iOS 18 last year. Apple has changed the naming structure of its OS updates and made them all consistent—visionOS 26, watchOS 26, macOS 26—so they’re now tied to the year after their launch, similar to what car makers do when debuting new models.

The main highlight across all of Apple’s updates announced at WWDC 2025 revolves around the new look and feel of the interface, a design language the company calls Liquid Glass. Beyond that, several new features are coming to iOS, from live translation features in messages and calls to the ability to search anything on your iPhone screen through Visual Intelligence. The Photos app is also ...