Apple’s annual WWDC event took place today and the company announced details about its latest operating systems for iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple TV, Apple Watch, Apple Vision Pro, and more. Curious what’s to come? Along with the accessibility features Apple announced last month, we have distilled it down to the highlights.
Table of Contents & Quick Links
- Apple iPhone iOS 26 – Page 1
- watchOS 26 – Page 2
- macOS Tahoe 26 – Page 3
- Apple visionOS 26 – Page 4
- iPadOS 26 – Page 5
- Apple tvOS 26 – Page 6
Apple iPhone iOS 26
The latest iPhone iOS 26 is coming this Fall and will introduce improvements to Apple Intelligence, new features in Phone and Messages, updates to Apple Music, Maps, and Wallet, and a new CarPlay experience. Many of the features will sound very Android-esque for owners of the rival phone type. Apple is, in a way, just catching up when it comes to some of the new iOS 26 features. But timing isn’t everything, and die-hard Apple fans are happy to finally get equivalent features to ones they have enjoyed with Android phones for some time.
Liquid Glass Design: This new design leverages a translucent material that reflects and refracts its surroundings, bringing greater focus to content. It extends to the Home and Lock screens as well and affords new customization options to app icons and widgets. When you move your iPhone, you’ll get a 3D effect with wallpapers as well. Developers will receive an updated set of APIs to support the new Liquid Glass look.
Photos App: The design has been simplified so you can see separate tabs for Library and Collections.
Safari: Web pages now flow from the top to the bottom edges of the screen so you can see more of a page. Browsing in Safari is more private with advanced fingerprinting protection extending to all browsing by default.
Apple Music, News, Podcasts: The tab bar has been redesigned to float above the content and dynamically shrink when you are browsing, then expand when you scroll back up.
Apple Intelligence: Live Translation has been added to Messages, FaceTime, and Phone, translating text and audio on the fly. It’s enabled by on-device models. It can also now automatically identify and summarize order tracking details from e-mails, even if the purchase wasn’t made using Apple Pay.
Visual Intelligence: It now works via your iPhone screen so you can search and act on anything you’re viewing in any app. Ask ChatGPT a question about it to learn more, search Google, Etsy, or other support apps for similar products, even have an event added to your calendar, populating date, time and location as needed.
Genmoji and Image Playground: You can now mix your favourite emoji, Genmoji, and descriptions together to create something new.
Shortcuts: Tap into intelligent actions via a new set of shortcuts enabled by Apple Intelligence, and see dedicated actions for features like Writing Tools and Image Playground.
Phone: Favourites, Recents, and Voicemails are now all in one place for a more unified look. Call Screening helps eliminate interruptions, while Hold Assist notifies when a live agent is available if you’re on hold.
Messages: You can now screen messages from unknown senders. They will appear in a dedicated folder where you can then mark the number as known, ask for more information, or delete. These messages will remain silenced until you accept them. You can also now create custom backgrounds and polls within conversations. Thanks to Apple Intelligence, Messages can detect when a poll might come in handy and suggest one. In group chats, you can also now see typing indicators, and request, send, and receive Apple Cash.
CarPlay: Updates include a new design with a compact view for incoming calls so you can see who’s calling without missing key information like upcoming directions. iOS 26 also brings Tapbacks and pinned conversations to Messages in CarPlay. With widgets and Live Activities, youcan 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.
Apple Music, Maps, and Wallet: In Apple Music, Lyrics Translation help you understand the words to your favourite 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 you remember the places you’ve been. You can choose to have iPhone detect when you’re at a place like a restaurant or shop, and view all of your Visited Places in Maps. Visited Places are protected with end-to-end encryption and cannot be accessed by Apple. Additionally, iPhone can now use on-device intelligence to better understand your daily route, presenting you with your preferred route when you’re headed home or to the office, along with notifying you of delays and offering alternate routes.
In Apple Wallet, choose to pay with instalments or rewards when making in-store purchases with Apple Pay using iPhone. Refreshed boarding passes in Wallet offer the ability to see and share Live Activities for real-time updates on a flight. They also provide convenient access to a traveller’s most relevant information, such as Maps to navigate airports, Find My to track important items and report missing bags, and more.
Apple Games: This new app gives players an all-in-one destination for games. It helps players jump back into titles you love, find the next favourite, and have even more fun with friends. Find out what’s happening across all your games, including major events and updates. The Games app is also the best way to experience Apple Arcade, Apple’s game subscription service.
AirPods: New features for AirPods 4, AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation (ANC), and AirPods Pro 2 build on Voice Isolation with studio-quality audio recording for iPhone, iPad, and Mac users to record content with great sound quality and enjoy clearer calls. With camera remote, press and hold the AirPods stem to take a photo or start and stop a video recording on iPhone or iPad.
Parental Controls: Parents can now create or move kids into Child Accounts more easily, taking advantage of parental controls designed to keep children safe. Enhancements across Communication Limits, Communication Safety, and the App Store include parental approvals for contact requests from kids, blurring out sensitive content in FaceTime calls and photos in Shared Albums, and enabling parents to grant an exception for their child to download an app with an age rating that exceeds the app content restriction they set.
New software features will be available this fall as a free software update for iPhone 11 and later.