We’re now at the public beta stage of the iOS 26 development cycle, ahead of a full rollout to millions of iPhones later in 2025 (almost certainly at some point in September). If you’re prepared to put up with a few bugs and app glitches, you can try out the software now.
I jumped on board the iOS 26 train as soon as the first developer beta was launched right after WWDC 2025 in June – that’s the rougher version of iOS that developers can use to get their apps ready for the update – and so I can tell you in detail and from first-hand experience about some of the big changes this upgrade is bringing with it.
There’s a lot to like here, and it’s one of the most significant software upgrades we’ve seen in years – it can make your iPhone feel like a brand new device, because so much is changing. Here’s what I’ve liked and haven’t liked so far.
Love: the revamped Liquid Glass interface
The translucent, shiny visual revamp officially called Liquid Glass is heading to all of Apple‘s software platforms this year, including iOS. I can tell you that I’ve grown to love it over the last few weeks – but it does take some getting used to.
At first, I wasn’t convinced and thought the Liquid Glass look was too stylized and excessive. But once my eyes adjusted, I gradually found the interface to be fresh and modern – the old iOS 18 look now looks flat and dated by comparison. There were some legibility issues initially, but Apple has resolved most of them.
It’s not just the showy parts of the iOS 26 interface that shine, either: menus, dialogs, and toggle switches are now more rounded and sleeker, meaning everything feels easier on the eyes and more intuitive to use.
Love: the new lock screen customizations
Following on from the Liquid Glass redesign, the lock screen on iOS 26 has been given a fresh look and some extra customization options – and as far as I’m concerned, you can’t have too many customization options on a phone.
iOS 26 lets you add a frosted glass option to the lock screen clock, and you can tint it and adjust its size as well (or have it automatically expand to fill any missing space in your wallpaper). There’s even a realistic glint that shows up as you move your iPhone around, all adding to the sense that this is a premium operating system.
Your 2D wallpapers can be given a 3D spatial effect that works particularly well with certain images, allowing the subject of the background photo to stand out. There are more options for positioning widgets, and I love the full-screen Apple Music now playing interface too.
Love: the updated Photos app
Most of us will spend a lot of time in the Photos app on our iPhones, and it’s fair to say that the layout changes introduced in iOS 18 weren’t universally well received. To give Apple credit, it has heard the feedback and applied some welcome tweaks.
The tried and trusted tab bar navigation tabs are back at the bottom of the screen, which means I can quickly jump into different parts of my photo library. What’s more, these different views are now more customizable than before: I’m able to collapse the Collections that I don’t really browse through that often.
On top of that, there’s the Liquid Glass effect again, of course, meaning the button overlays shimmer and shine in a really elegant way as the video and image thumbnails pass underneath them. Good job, Apple.
Don’t love: Messages is getting messy
On the whole, it’s two big thumbs up from me for iOS 26, but I will admit I’m a little uncertain about some of the changes Apple has added to the Messages app. I like my messaging apps to be clean and clutter-free, and Messages is going in the opposite direction with the latest software update.
Chats can now have custom backgrounds that get in the way of text legibility – fair enough, I can ignore the feature, but that might not be the case with everyone else in my group chats – and to make matters worse, these backdrops can be AI-generated too.
Speaking of AI and Apple Intelligence, you’ll now see prompts inside conversations when Messages thinks you might want to create a poll. I’m all for polls inside chats because they can be very helpful, but I’d rather AI stayed out of the way until it was specifically called upon, rather than trying to second-guess my next move.
Everything considered, I think iOS 26 is going to be well-received by the majority of users when it makes its way out to the masses. While there may be some initial pushback to Liquid Glass, I think it’s definitely an improvement – I just hope I’ll be able to disable custom backgrounds in Messages in iOS 26.1.
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