(Almost) A Year With iOS 26

[iLuddite]

As we await the first iOS 27 developer beta I thought it might be fun to have a place to reflect on the last (approximate) year with iOS 26. Overall, how has your experience been with Liquid Glass as a user and/or developer? Any outstanding gripes or specific changes you'd like to see come 27?

For me it's glaring visual niggles—like broken Safari address bar padding or a sometimes partially-obstructed page in Music (see attached)—that have persisted through almost every iOS 26 iteration (and, yes: like others I have submitted [sometimes multiple] bug reports). And then there's longstanding and perhaps more widespread issues like app icon redrawing and inherent design missteps such as certain interface elements remaining glassily translucent behind Reduce Transparency's opaque top layer.

What has improved? What has remained the same or worsened? Feel free to include watchOS/macOS/iPadOS/tvOS/visionOS 26 experiences.

 

[HouseLannister]

iPadOS remains the most broken for me. Safari address bar flickers from black to white. Resizing the windows messes up the top navigation and menu bar elements, causing overlapping elements or items to just become non-responsive to touch. Buttons in multiple apps often have a weird effect on hover that makes it obvious that the glass is a skin on top of the old GUI. It still feels unfinished and creates daily annoyances.

watchOS is much more basic and delivers a much more consistent experience. It's... fine. I don't think they did enough with the cards/widgets/whatever-they-are-called to make them match the Liquid Glass. The Liquid Glass watch faces are all awful. But they didn't ruin it, so yay(?)

iOS is mostly fine with just a solid black wallpaper and dark mode icons. I still hate the edge highlight on all the icons and widgets. And the bottom search bar still gets lost in the visual clutter too often. But far less visual glitches than iPadOS.

I feel overall that Liquid Glass should have been an option. The iOS 18 look should have gone even more flat and basic looking. The green and blue everywhere should have been heavily desaturated to make the OS look less Windows XP with the painfully bright colors everywhere. Then there should be a Theme/Skin/Launcher setting area. Make Liquid Glass enabled by default if you must, but have an easy off switch that goes super minimalist with the theming. Let 3rd parties create custom launchers and icon packs and sell them in the App Store. Basically, give users the "Apple Way" but also more control and customization options.

From a development perspective, I think overall app innovation has slowed greatly this year as everyone tries to make their apps more glassy rather than do anything meaningful. Also, the 2-year pause on AI innovation hasn't helped any. Too many apps in a holding pattern. iOS 27 is going to fix some things, but the changes to multitasking for folding phones and the addition of AI will create months and months of work for every app developer and it probably won't be until iOS 28 or later that we feel caught up to our Android brethren.

 

[I7guy]

My experience with iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 has been good across 4 devices. I really like iPadOS 26 and Liquid Glass on my new IPP M5.

iOS 26.5 did finally notice a minor issue with the compact tab bar in safari. But all in all like iOS 26 and iPadOS 26.

iPadOS 26 is superior to ipdos18 multitasking. Much more intuitive. Apps that didn’t play nicely with multitasking on iPadOS 18, will now multi-task. The windowed concept borrowed from MacOS makes the transition somewhat seamless.

Have iOS 26 on Apple Watch, Apple TV, HomePod and of course Tahoe on my Mac neo. Tahoe is polished on my Neo. The ability to sidecar an iPad is awesome.

Overall a good experience and little to complain about.

 

[DankeBrutus]

iOS - I was using the public beta on my iPhone 14 Plus, later regretted not going back to iOS 18, then bought an iPhone 17 so like it or not I'm on iOS 26. In a lot of ways the language used by Apple to describe iOS 26 ended up being an exaggeration. iOS 26 is not a fundamental shift from iOS 18, it is more akin to the move from iOS 11 to 12 than iOS 6 to 7. The way you use the iPhone has not changed, it just received a new coat of paint. This new coat of paint can look really good sometimes and other times it is a visual mess. I've found that as more time has passed developers have figured out how to make the Liquid Glass elements look good. I have found that Quiche Browser has utilized LG really well. In other apps like Music I find myself frustrated by the UX. LG takes up so much space at the bottom of the iPhone screen and there is no way I can see to force the app to open to my library as opposed to AM home, so when I want to browse my library I usually need to tap twice instead of once due to how aggressive the UI auto-minimizing is. LG just has a ton of wasted space. The large checkmark and X buttons use a lot more vertical space than the older "Done/Confirm" and "Cancel" buttons and therefore require a lot more padding in the UI. Even with a Max-sized iPhone screen real estate is limited and wasted space is noticeable.

iPadOS - I miss iPadOS 18. The new windowing system is neat but I ultimately find myself wishing I had the iPadOS multitasking back. I have unintentionally pulled fullscreen apps into a windowed mode many times. The menu bar is neat but there is no option to make it visible at all times so I constantly forget it is there. Pulling down from the middle of the screen for the menu bar can and will do what I previously mentioned and move a fullscreen app into a windowed mode. This wouldn't be a problem if there was an option to make it so you can only activate the windowed mode by pulling up from the bottom-right corner but that option does not exist. That gesture also interferes with Quick Note. Slide Over has returned to iPadOS 26 but it is a shell of it's former self. You can only use it in the Windowing or Stage Manager modes and it is only useable with one app at a time. I feel like with iPadOS 18 Apple had great multitasking that fit within the confines of the iPad has a platform and with 26 they gave it the Old Yeller treatment.

WatchOS - Basically no differences. I don't know if my S7 Watch is too old for some LG visuals or something but I've found that LG has hardly touched the Watch platform. The biggest change I've noticed is the PIN screen.

tvOS - My Apple TV 4K is too old for LG visuals so tvOS 26 has not visually changed much at all. I haven't found usability to be affected at all from the previous version.

macOS - I haven't installed macOS 26 on either of my Macs. I tried it out in a VM a couple of times. Wasted space was a problem like with iOS 26 in apps like Finder. I simply haven't used it enough for day-to-day usage though to say much beyond that. For me my Macs absolutely must work, I find a breakage in my workflow on the Mac is much more annoying than on the iPhone. I'm sure that if I had updated I'd just be used to Tahoe at this point but I have my MBP and mini on the Sequoia beta so I stop being bothered to upgrade. I'm waiting to see how macOS 27 looks in June before I decide to move forward or not.

 

[flybub]

I’ve aired out enough dirty laundry on here about 26 and I still don’t like it. The same bugs in 26.5 are the same bugs that were in OG 26 release. I have to believe 26 has put a knick in the armor at Apple. It’s a terrible release with not much of a direction. It seemed like a small attempt to save face when they knew Apple Intelligence would be a failure. Quit releasing decimal updates with nothing but new wallpaper. That should tell you all you need to know about Apple and their direction. There are good things about the iPhone. I really do like faceID and Apple Pay. I find where I live more places accept Apple Pay than Google Pay and I did have a time here and there Google Pay wouldn’t launch. So I do appreciate Apple Pay being reliable. Notes and Reminders are nice as well, better than the core apps on Android, but of course there are tons of notes and reminder apps out there. Can’t leave out the hardware. Apple does know how to build a phone, I’ll give them that for sure.

Watch, meh. I bought the series 10 when I bought my 16 pro and it was ok I guess. I never noticed much of a difference with 26 on there. After 8 months or so I wasn’t sold on the watch so I sold it. I don’t need to be that “connected” to my phone and the endless notifications. It never really served a purpose for me and I prefer to have an analog watch on my wrist.

I have a company issued iPad for work and due to security protocols they made us update those to 26. I can’t say I use it much because it’s not a productive device. Cool if you want to watch a movie or play a game, that’s kinda all it’s good for. But for getting things done it’s a complete waste of a device. As someone else said, the multi tasking is terrible. 18 was a much better use of that. Every 3rd or 4th attempt I return to the Home Screen my icons disappear. I usually could wait a few seconds and they would come back, now I have to turn off the screen and turn it back on. That is a big complaint to our IT department and they don’t have an answer for us. It’s pretty bad when the director of ops is calling our iPads generic junk, lol.

This all being said, I came from 16 years of Android so this is what I compare it to. Honestly iOS doesn’t hold a candle to the pixel 7 pro I came from or the 26 ultra my wife is on. Many people say the OS’s are more similar now than they’ve ever been. I find this very very far from the truth. If all you use your phone for is to numb your brain on TikTok or instagram, then yes, they would be similar because you could do that on any device. If you use your phone to make your living on the go you would know these operating systems are not on that similar. I’m glad I gave the iPhone a shot, but this will be the last Apple device I buy for a good long while.

 

[Brettka7]

iPadOS 26 has been a dream for me. Other than flat styling, I can’t imagine how people prefer iOS 18 functionality. iPadOS 26 feels like a tiny MacBook now. My only big complaint is too much padding and a loss of transparency in many app sidebars instead of gaining additional transparency/blur.

iOS 26 hasn’t been as enjoyable. I have more visual bugs on my phone than iPad. My Safari search bar text disappears every time I use private browsing, and I use that 24/7 to avoid tracking, annoying autofill, and targeted ads where possible. Glass components are just milky enough to be ugly in a lot of areas. Text can be harder to read on clear glass when on my phone.

I have faith iOS 27 is going to solve most of my complaints, if not all of them, partially thanks to the supposed glass slider. OS 26 devices certainly feel much more alive than previous gen, but I do feel Apple missed the mark of the “lickable” (I hate that term) UI components prior to iOS 7 flattening.

One thing I do hate and will probably always hate are the refractive borders on icons, widgets, and control center. I hope we can turn them off on iOS 27. IMO, glass borders should not be applied to any color component. It makes icons look blurry along with he green call button in the phone app.

 

[jz0309]

I've used all 26 xOS versions since release, and it's been working just fine for me, didn't once stop me from doing what I wanted to.
There are some annoyances but no showstoppers, again, speaking for myself only.

 

[ValerieDurden]

iOS 26 is absolutely dog poo, my main issue is the absolutely abysmal performance on a flagship phone my 17 Pro Max. Cheaper android phones perform better with far worse hardware. I made the wrong choice coming back to iPhone with the 17, should have just stayed with my Samsung which runs circles around this phone in os performance, was absolutely no lag whatsoever. Can’t wait to leave iOS, I have severe doubts iOS 27 will be anything more than more stupid features the vast majority will never use and ai bs we don’t need, performance will likely still be crap.

 

[SebCohen]

iPadOS remains the most broken for me. Safari address bar flickers from black to white. Resizing the windows messes up the top navigation and menu bar elements, causing overlapping elements or items to just become non-responsive to touch. Buttons in multiple apps often have a weird effect on hover that makes it obvious that the glass is a skin on top of the old GUI. It still feels unfinished and creates daily annoyances.

watchOS is much more basic and delivers a much more consistent experience. It's... fine. I don't think they did enough with the cards/widgets/whatever-they-are-called to make them match the Liquid Glass. The Liquid Glass watch faces are all awful. But they didn't ruin it, so yay(?)

iOS is mostly fine with just a solid black wallpaper and dark mode icons. I still hate the edge highlight on all the icons and widgets. And the bottom search bar still gets lost in the visual clutter too often. But far less visual glitches than iPadOS.

I feel overall that Liquid Glass should have been an option. The iOS 18 look should have gone even more flat and basic looking. The green and blue everywhere should have been heavily desaturated to make the OS look less Windows XP with the painfully bright colors everywhere. Then there should be a Theme/Skin/Launcher setting area. Make Liquid Glass enabled by default if you must, but have an easy off switch that goes super minimalist with the theming. Let 3rd parties create custom launchers and icon packs and sell them in the App Store. Basically, give users the "Apple Way" but also more control and customization options.

From a development perspective, I think overall app innovation has slowed greatly this year as everyone tries to make their apps more glassy rather than do anything meaningful. Also, the 2-year pause on AI innovation hasn't helped any. Too many apps in a holding pattern. iOS 27 is going to fix some things, but the changes to multitasking for folding phones and the addition of AI will create months and months of work for every app developer and it probably won't be until iOS 28 or later that we feel caught up to our Android brethren.

I think, honestly, you are a genius.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

iOS 26 in my experience has been fine.
Of course, there was the day one glitches and bugs, but we are on 26.5 now and exactly one year ago we were on 18.5 and they feel about the same.
The only thing that really bothers me is the fact that Apple can’t seem to decide what they want to do with search bars.
They’re on the bottom in music, TV, News and podcasts but on the top in the App Library, AppStore and Games.
Other than that, it runs just like how I would expect an X.5 version of iOS to run. No huge show stopping issues and I don’t really hear that many complaints about day-to-day functionality.

 

[I7guy]

I've used all 26 xOS versions since release, and it's been working just fine for me, didn't once stop me from doing what I wanted to.
There are some annoyances but no showstoppers, again, speaking for myself only.

I have one annoyance with the compact tab bar in Safari. Everything else is fine, performance, battery life etc. I even like Liquid Glass.

 

[ProbablyDylan]

They still haven't fixed the keyboard. I know they said they did but they didn't.

 

[Matsamoto]

iPadOS 26 is superior to ipdos18 multitasking. Much more intuitive.

No it’s not.

 

[I7guy]

No it’s not.

And it works better as well. In my opinion.

 

[01cowherd]

Any outstanding gripes or specific changes you'd like to see come 27?

Many. The freshest in my mind is for them to fix the lock screen. Sometimes it goes to sleep when I’m interacting with my device. I’ve had my iPad turn the display off while I’m entering my passcode. How does Apple even mess it up that badly? There’s so many little, “random”, issues like that.

 

[Abazigal]

Basically 2 issues with iPadOS.

1) Not a fan of the new multitasking paradigm. I opined earlier on that I wasn't going to be a fan of overlapping, re-sizeable windows and I was right. An annoying quirk is when I use shortcuts to open 2 apps in split-screen mode (eg: Notability and Youtube) and the Youtube app doesn't show up because it's hiding behind another app in full-screen mode. Managing windows just feels more cumbersome on a touchscreen than it ought to be.

2) There seems to be this disconnect in design in the safari app when it is in fullscreen mode (using iPad design language) and in split screen mode (where it reverts to iOS design language). Like I am using a totally different app when I resize it.

Otherwise, iOS is iOS, Liquid Glass doesn't change that, and everything is still working for me as they should. I don't quite get the hate over it, but maybe I just haven't looked hard enough in this aspect.

 

[mblm85]

iOS 26 gets an unenthusiastic 'it's fine' mark from me.

I have a 15. Several of the new features have been good for me, especially call screening, Hold Assist, etc. in the Phone app.

It's just that they've been covered by a crust of unfinished Liquid Glass, rushed out because they needed to give us something, and Apple Intelligence was still in a coma.

Too many bugs.

But it's fine. It's ok. I've coped.

 

[Matsamoto]

And it works better as well. In my opinion.

Ok. For you it works better.
For me it don’t.
I used to enable split view a lot before on iOS 18 on my iPad, but now in iOS 26 I stopped using it.
For enabling split view in iOS 26 takes more steps and more time, so it’s not more intuitive.

 

[SebCohen]

iOS 26 in my experience has been fine.
Of course, there was the day one glitches and bugs, but we are on 26.5 now and exactly one year ago we were on 18.5 and they feel about the same.
The only thing that really bothers me is the fact that Apple can’t seem to decide what they want to do with search bars.
They’re on the bottom in music, TV, News and podcasts but on the top in the App Library, AppStore and Games.
Other than that, it runs just like how I would expect an X.5 version of iOS to run. No huge show stopping issues and I don’t really hear that many complaints about day-to-day functionality.

Soooo what you’re really actually saying is, Apple should keep every new iOS in beta until they reach at least .5 before they release it as a official new 1. release?

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

Soooo what you’re really actually saying is, Apple should keep every new iOS in beta until they reach at least .5 before they release it as a official new 1. release?

No, because the majority of the day one issues would still exist no matter how long they took to release it.
Look at Leopard, it was in beta testing for over a year, was released 30 months after the previous version, and yet still launched with tons of bugs and issues. Apple didn’t even introduce an option to disable the leopard transparent menu bar until 10.5.2, and that particular feature was first introduced in the beta nine months previous.
The fundamental fact is that the small amount of people running the beta cannot provide the type of feedback that the hundreds of millions of people running the public release can.
And by the way for about the last five years, Apple doesn’t even start showing the latest version of iOS as the default upgrade path until about version X.2 or X.3.

 

[I7guy]

Ok. For you it works better.
For me it don’t.
I used to enable split view a lot before on iOS 18 on my iPad, but now in iOS 26 I stopped using it.
For enabling split view in iOS 26 takes more steps and more time, so it’s not more intuitive.

Multitasking in ipados 26 works better than ipados18. I have, for example, one app that refuses to multi-task in ipados 18 but multitasks fine in ipados 26. And to me splitview works fine. Sure on extra swipe against the right or left, but overall more flexibility.

 

[dblissmn]

26.5 seems noticeably better to me than before; it finally gets us back to the smoothness of the previous full version on my Pro Max 13. Even the one remaining unfinished bit, the Liquid Glass, has improved a little.

 

[azn319]

i hate both iOS 26 and macOS 26

 

[ValerieDurden]

26.5 seems noticeably better to me than before; it finally gets us back to the smoothness of the previous full version on my Pro Max 13. Even the one remaining unfinished bit, the Liquid Glass, has improved a little.

Laggy on my 17 Pro Max.

 

[flybub]

Had lots of stutters and app crashes over the last couple months in my 16 pro. Finally got fed up and did a factory reset and started from scratch over the holiday weekend. Didn’t fix a darn thing. I gave it a few hours to finish indexing and doing its thing. The stutters in the animations are a little better, but still there. I still have the issue of returning to the Home Screen to invisible icons and widgets with only the the labels showing. And it certainly didn’t make the disaster of a keyboard any better. So frustrating.