iOS 26 official version is released. Over 20 new features worth trying after the upgrade

After more than three months and nine developer preview versions of testing, Apple officially released the official versions of iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26 Tahoe, and watchOS 26 early on September 16th. Among them, iOS 26 brings a brand - new Liquid Glass design language, improves system software such as "Phone" and "Messages", and introduces a number of detailed improvements.

Sspai has compiled the new features and characteristics worth paying attention to in the new system for you. Whether you want to know what new features are available after upgrading to the new system or are still hesitating whether to upgrade, this article can help you. Of course, before upgrading to the new system, don't forget to back up your iPhone data through Apple devices/Finder or iCloud.

If you want to know whether your device can be upgraded to the new system, you can check on the official iOS 26 website. According to the information provided by the Apple official website, iOS 26 supports the iPhone 11 (2019) series and subsequent products:

New Design

This year, Apple is determined to unify the UI styles across various platforms, referring to the visionOS system, which is relatively unfamiliar to most people.

In order to project the UI elements in the Apple Vision Pro in front of the user's eyes and integrate them into the real - world scene, visionOS uses a large amount of semi - transparent glass design, which can reflect or refract the light and shadow in the real world to achieve a better AR display effect. Therefore, this major iOS version update is the most significant change to the overall UI style since iOS 7.

In iOS 26, Apple boldly introduces the visionOS - like style to the iPhone. The core is Liquid Glass, a material that can reflect or refract the light from the surrounding environment, creating a dynamic and responsive interface element.

Lock Screen

As the "face" of a system, the lock screen continues to receive special attention from Apple in iOS 26. In the new version, the size of the time component can be manually changed.

Apple has also added a feature to the time component that allows it to automatically change according to the content of the wallpaper. For example, if you set the wallpaper to random photos, you can observe that the clock component changes every time the wallpaper is replaced, including the font weight, width, and height, which will be adjusted according to the wallpaper content.

In addition, when a notification appears on the lock screen, the background wallpaper will also darken.

Apple uses AI technology to achieve 3D effects for ordinary photos in iOS 26. This function is called "Spatial Scene". In addition to using this function in the Photos app, we can also enable the "Spatial Scene" for photo wallpapers on the lock screen. Any photo can have a 3D effect with one click, making the lock - screen image look more vivid. Currently, this function can only be enabled on iPhone 12 and newer devices.

Lock - screen widgets now support being placed at the bottom of the screen, no longer restricted to the position below the clock. The default system wallpapers in iOS 26 have added four color schemes: shadow, sky, halo, and twilight. They support the corresponding dark mode, and the color schemes can also change over time.

If you are an Apple Music user, you must have noticed that the covers of many new albums are short dynamic videos, allowing us to feel more of the singer's ingenuity while enjoying the music. In the lock screen of iOS 26, when we are playing a song from Apple Music, the lock - screen interface will display the album cover animation in full - screen, acting as a temporary lock - screen wallpaper and also changing dynamically.

Although Apple claimed at the release that the music animation wallpaper function supports all media applications, other third - party applications still need to be developed and adapted.

Home Screen

After unlocking and entering the home screen, we can immediately see the application of Liquid Glass on the home screen.

First, for the app icons, all system app icons have been redrawn and applied with the Liquid Glass style, and the icons of third - party apps have also been automatically stroked by iOS 26, giving them a floating visual effect.

In the home - screen customization interface, Apple has added an option of "Transparent Color" in iOS 26, allowing all app icons to use a semi - transparent glass material, and users can choose between light and dark styles.

Second, for app folders, whether in the shrunk state or the enlarged state after being clicked, they have a very straightforward and pure semi - transparent glass effect. Especially in the enlarged state, the refraction effect of the folder on the background can be easily observed.

As part of the home screen, widgets are no exception. Currently, a large number of widgets from native apps such as Contacts, Battery, Home, and Find have adopted the semi - transparent glass material in the Liquid Glass style. It is believed that many third - party apps will follow this feature later.

Safari

Safari on iOS 26 features an "immersive" browsing experience. In the new version, Apple has removed the traditional navigation bar of Safari and replaced it with three floating buttons. From left to right, they are back, address, and menu. The minimalist design combined with the semi - transparent material allows for a larger web - page display area. That's not all. When we scroll the web page down, all three buttons will automatically hide, and only a shrunk address button will be displayed. Only when we click on this address button or scroll the page up will the three normal - sized buttons reappear.

Camera

Although we saw John Prosser present a concept map of the camera app in the WWDC25 preview article, and the style was already very similar, we didn't expect Apple to be more radical. In the camera app of iOS 26, the entire UI and interaction have been reconstructed.

All UI elements, including buttons and menu interfaces, adopt the Liquid Glass style, and the shooting menu has been simplified to only the two most frequently used operations: video and photo. Only when we slide the shooting button left or right will other shooting modes such as time - lapse, slow - motion, cinematic, portrait, spatial, and panorama appear.

The shooting function interface is integrated into a unified interface. We can trigger the corresponding function interface in three ways: clicking the button in the upper - right corner of the camera app, swiping up, or tapping the shooting button. Clicking the button in the upper - left corner allows us to change parameters such as resolution, format, and frame rate.

Photos

After the major overhaul of the Photos app in iOS 18, the UI interface of the Photos app in iOS 26 has returned to a familiar look. Although the design style uses the Liquid Glass design, Apple has brought back the independent tab designs of "Albums" and "Collections" in the Photos app.

The "Albums" include all photos, which can be filtered or the display and sorting options can be changed through the filter button in the upper - right corner; the "Collections" include functions such as all memories, photo albums, people and pets, shared photo albums, recent days, trips, media types, and more items, which can help us better organize and share photos.

Bottom Bar

In iOS 26, there is a change that is easily overlooked: the bottom bar that started with the iPhone X has become less noticeable. When we open any app, the bottom bar will briefly appear for about 2 seconds and then automatically disappear. Only when you touch the bottom of the screen again will the bar reappear, allowing users to continue operations such as returning to the home screen or opening the multi - tasking center.

New Features

Apple Intelligence

Although most of the new features of Apple Intelligence are still unavailable to users of the Chinese - mainland - version iPhones, as the highlight of this WWDC25, I still decided to introduce it in the first part of the new features.

One of the most practical uses of AI for ordinary people is translation. Apple has enhanced the real - time translation ability in iOS 26 and integrated it into its own communication tools such as Messages, FaceTime, and Calls. Taking the Messages app as an example, when both parties send messages, the text will be automatically translated into the language used by the other party, effectively reducing the communication cost between people speaking different languages. Currently, the real - time translation function in communication tools only supports English, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish, and only on iPhone 15 Pro and newer devices.

The visual intelligence function, which was previously launched on iPhone 15 Pro and newer devices, now supports the analysis and processing of the content on the iPhone screen in iOS 26. The operation method is a bit complicated. You need to take a screenshot first, and then click the "Ask" or "Image Search" button below in the screenshot interface for further operations, such as searching for the content of the picture, asking relevant questions, or creating reminders based on the content in the screenshot. In contrast, Google Gemini has a higher operation efficiency. You can long - press the bottom of the screen at any time to call up Google Gemini and perform further operations on the screen content.