6 days ago
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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 getting its tabs back! More significant are the updates to iPadOS, which will now support windowed apps that are resizable and can be tiled, bringing it closer to a desktop computing experience people have been waiting for.
We'll run through the top new features in both operating systems. Here's what you need to know.
Is Your iPhone or iPad Compatible
Every year, Apple tends to cut off a few older devices from downloading the latest iOS or iPadOS version. The reason is supposedly due to hardware age (Apple typically supports iPhones and iPads for 6 to 7 years.)
iPhones from 2019 and newer—the iPhone 11 and up, including the iPhone SE (2nd Gen)—will support iOS 26. The iPhones that received iOS 18 but are now cut off from the latest version are the iPhone XR and iPhone XS series from 2018. If you're unsure about your iPhone model, head to Settings > General > About and look at the model name.
iPads are a little more complicated as the naming scheme fluctuates. Apple recently retired the “generations” and is now using the chipset to denote the model. You can figure out what model your
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