WWDC2025 - iOS26....

Installed the Public Beta on a 16 Plus this morning.

It’s been surprisingly stable for a Beta release. I expected to have trouble with app crashes and buggy UI elements, but so far the experience is good. I’m not going to tempt fate and assume it’s likely to continue as is, as this is just in Beta at the moment and the next release could break something that right now is working.

I was mainly concerned about the fact that I have several Authenticator apps for various purposes, and Apple previously has never done a good job of keeping the tokens after an update. So, before I updated, I did a backup to iCloud, and an encrypted backup on Windows 11 laptop with Apple Devices software, just in case the update process went catastrophically wrong and I needed to do a reset and/or recovery.

It’s been mentioned in the thread already but I feel it needs to be reiterated - the new Liquid Glass (more like frosted or translucent glass) default iOS 26 skin is as fugly IRL as it is in the various review videos on YouTube. That being said, it’s mitigated somewhat by the ability to turn on Dark Mode (I recommend it, over the Light style Glacier Mint or Tinted UI). I like the way the navigation chevrons have been enlarged, not too keen on the elongated pill shaped toggle switches - they look oversized, but that’s obviously by design to make them look like droplets when sliding back and forth. The separators and message preview in iMessage are a nice little feature, as is the new layout of the Phone app. The Photos app is no longer a convoluted mess, which is nice. There’s no particular killer feature at the moment that’s worth updating for IMO. It’s more like a fresh coat of paint and a few touch ups here and there than anything that’d make it a recommended update from a functional point of view.

There’s no noticeable drain or improvement in battery life, though I had updated all apps before I did the OS update. I’d imagine doing app updates afterwards might tax the processor and cause the phone to get a bit toasty, haven’t experienced that yet (as it’s a Beta, it could be that it just hasn’t happened yet). There’s probably been a few under-the-hood tweaks as I haven’t noticed any lag that’s been observed elsewhere online or freezing when customising lock screens (the stretchy clock feature is novel for about 10 seconds, I don’t think I’ll be getting used to it).

I’d imagine the later a device is, the less likely it is to experience issues. I’d say on something like even the 12, iOS 26 even when skinnied down would struggle in places.

Installed Public Beta 2 yesterday evening, nothing much in the way of changes, just the new bouncy animation on the PIN login screen and the minor change in the camera app navigation.

Been using Beta 1 for a couple of days now and I had expected some improvements in Siri or better integration with the AI features, but it seems pretty much the same as what we got in iOS 18 so far. I’m thinking Apple might announce new features for iOS 26 on the upcoming iPhone 17 instead and what we have on the 16 or older will be about it.