iOS 26 is here, and with it comes a new Liquid Glass design, interface overhauls for apps like Safari and Music, and support for the new iPhone 17 family of devices.
You can install the update right now via Settings > General > Software Update. Let’s take a look at a few features that are a little harder to miss.
Some features require an Apple Intelligence capable device, like the iPhone 15 Pro, or any iPhone 16 or 17 device (including the 16e and new iPhone Air). We’ve noted which ones these are below.
1
Make Liquid Glass Opaque
Liquid Glass is Apple’s new design language, and it’s coming to everything including the Mac, Apple Watch, and even Apple TV. The new look is striking, with transparent elements that react like glass would with whatever is behind them. The effect is impressive on first glance, but some people might prefer a simpler look.
You can turn off the new Liquid Glass effects via Apple’s accessibility settings. Just head to Settings > Accessibility > Vision > Reduce Transparency. This will make Liquid Glass elements like Safari’s URL bar and pop-up notifications appear opaque instead. You’ll still get some light and color bleed, but it’ll look a lot more like iOS 18 did.
This isn’t a “new” setting, having existed in previous versions of iOS, but it does significantly dull the Liquid Glass look. It may also improve performance on older devices, though I haven’t tested iOS 26 on anything older than an iPhone 13 Pro (which is perfectly smooth).
2
Resizable Time on Lock Screen
As part of the interface overhaul, Apple has made a few tweaks to the lock screen. The first one that’s worth noting is the ability to resize the digital clock. While this should happen automatically for many background images, it didn’t work that way for my imported iOS 18 lock screens. Fortunately, you can adjust this yourself.
Go to your lock screen, then tap and hold a black space to reveal the lock screen picker. From here, you can hit “Customize” on an existing lock screen, at which point you’ll be able to “grab” the corner of the time and drag it. Release when you’re happy with the way it interacts with your lock screen. This is as big as the time will get, but it will stretch back down to size when you’re scrolling through your notifications.
3
Time to Charge
Your iPhone now gives you an estimate of how long it will take to charge your device to 80% and 100%. This should appear on the lock screen, above the time, whenever you plug your iPhone in or set it on a wireless charger. Alternatively, you’ll get a more detailed breakdown under Settings > Battery. You’ll also see how your usage is trending compared with your standard usage in the area below.
Notice that your iPhone won’t take as long to hit 80% as it will to reach 100%. This is due to the limitations of lithium-ion batteries, which can charge quickly when the cell is empty, but require slower (and eventually trickle) charging as the level goes up.
4
Adaptive Power Mode
Adaptive Power Mode is an AI-powered energy feature that is designed to extend your iPhone’s runtime. On Apple Intelligence-capable iPhones, the feature is constantly monitoring your power consumption based on what you’re currently doing and making changes. Your iPhone may dim screen brightness, pause background processes, or even reduce performance in the moment to save power.
You can toggle Adaptive Power (as well as feature-specific notifications) on or off under Settings > Battery > Power Mode.
5
Spatialize Any Photo
Here’s a fun one. iOS 26 includes the option of creating a 3D effect with any photo in your library in a single tap using the Spatial Scene button. To do this, open the Photos app, find an image, then hit the small “Spatial Scene” button that appears in the top-right corner of the screen.
Your iPhone will take a moment to analyze the image, after which you can move your device around to explore in faux 3D. Though this is a bit of software trickery, it’s still fun to play around with.
6
Spatial Scenes on Your Lock Screen
Perhaps the real reason Apple included this feature, however, is the ability to use it on your lock screen. You can toggle the effect on whenever you import a photo into a new lock screen. You can do this via the gallery by going to the lock screen, tapping and holding, then using the “+” button to create a new screen and choosing “Photos.” Alternatively, you can simply browse your Photos library and hit the “Share” button followed by “Use as Wallpaper” (which is far faster, in my experience).
Once you’ve done this, you’ll see the same “Spatial Scene” button appear in the lock screen editor. Tap on it to enable the effect. You can still pan and zoom around to reposition your wallpaper.
This effect doesn’t seem to work on older iOS 18 lock screens, unless you reimport the image and create a new one.
7
Real-Time Apple Music Translation
Apple has made a bit of a song and dance about its new Live Translation feature, which works on devices that are compatible with Apple Intelligence. This feature allows for on-device, AI-powered translation which works offline for supported languages (the list of which is likely to expand over time).
Somewhere else you’ll find this feature is Apple Music, where you can use it to translate lyrics or see relevant pronunciation. To use it, tap on the Lyrics overview in the Now Playing screen, then tap the Translate icon, after which you’ll see options to “Show pronunciation” or “Show translation.” You can use these to sing along or understand what the song is about.
8
Snooze Duration in Clock
Perhaps the most arbitrary iOS “rule” for the longest time has been the nine-minute snooze. In iOS 26, this is finally changing and you can set a snooze duration of your choosing, which is now alarm-dependent. To do this, open the Clock app, tap the Alarms tab, and then tap on the alarm you want to set. You’ll see a new “Snooze Duration” button at the bottom of the list.
You can also do this for the Wake Up alarm, which is enabled as part of Apple’s sleep monitoring feature.
9
Full Screen Album Art
While you’re listening to Apple Music, you can now tap on the album picture within the Now Playing widget to toggle full-screen album art. What’s more, you’ll be able to see full-screen animated album art for supported albums, which takes up the entire screen rather than just showing the album art in the center.
Some of these are great, all of them use some form of animation, while others are a little uninspired. It’s not only new releases that offer this feature, many labels have updated older releases (particularly anniversary reissues) with animated album covers.
10
Custom Ringtones from Files
The process of creating a custom ringtone for your iPhone used to be a long and drawn-out one, but that’s no longer the case. Now you can literally just download an MP3 or a WAV file from the web using Safari, save it to Files, and then deploy it as a ringtone or text alert, among others—the way it should have been all along.
To do this, locate your WAV or MP3 in Apple’s Files app, tap and hold it, then choose the “Share” button followed by “Use as Ringtone.”
