Apple Again Rumored to Announce iOS 26 Next Month

[tominco]

but iOS23 was such a stable operating system with seemingly endless battery life, and nearly perfect cell reception.

 

[nat510]

Are we getting more new Emoji with ios 26 instead of 19?

 

[awshucks]

That's a Y2.1K problem

Nah, Apple may not even be a company by then

 

[MacsRgr8]

Love to see it written as:

 OS XXVI

 

[0049190]

Are they going to change the hardware numbers as well? The iPhone 26 & iPad 26

 

[trajen]

While they’re at it, Apple should drop the numbers from iPhone and simply call it iPhone (2026), iPhone Pro (2026), etc.

 

[mxrider88]

Real philosophers there.. instead of focusing on fixing the mess they made with the operating systems, they waste brain power to come up with this nonsense. I bet they’ll present this as a revolution because they can “think different”.

It’s probably called ‘26 because that’s when you’ll get the first half baked useful feature that they promise you at WWDC in June. Until then we get a few rainbow wallpapers and some new bugs I guess.

I miss Steve. And Forstal.

 

[maxoakland]

Why on earth would they do this?

 

[mxrider88]

Why on earth would they do this?

Because the marketing team runs the company unfortunately

 

[testcard]

Just as well we aren’t using the Julian Calendar otherwise it would be iOS 78.

 

[Jeeve Stubbs]

There should be a law against that kind of naming deception. If you start selling your product in 2025, then it's a 2025 product, not 2026. That's it, that's all. Otherwise, what would prevent a company from calling "2026" a product that comes out in May 2025, or even December 2024 while we're at it? That's very possible in a competitive environment where everyone tries to release its new product before the others to get a head start.

 

[CmdrLaForge]

Makes things easier for me

 

[Cameront9]

I'm more ok with the change now than I was last night but I still want to know if these means that MacOS will no longer have a unique name. If not that's sad.

 

[Cameront9]

There should be a law against that kind of naming deception. If you start selling your product in 2025, then it's a 2025 product, not 2026. That's it, that's all. Otherwise, what would prevent a company from calling "2026" a product that came out in May 2025, or even December 2024 while we're at it?

FY26 starts in September. When the software will be released.

No different than car models.

 

[picpicmac]

Just as well we aren’t using the Julian Calendar otherwise it would be iOS 78.

Maybe Apple should switch to the Jewish (5784) or Chinese (4724) calendars... after all, the bigger the number the better!

 

[zapmymac]

Re-arranging deck chairs…

The issue is not with “names” 😵‍💫

 

[Stromos]

There should be a law against that kind of naming deception. If you start selling your product in 2025, then it's a 2025 product, not 2026. That's it, that's all. Otherwise, what would prevent a company from calling "2026" a product that comes out in May 2025, or even December 2024 while we're at it? That's very possible in a competitive environment where everyone tries to release its new product before the others to get a head start.

If you don’t understand lots of things are based on the first full year they are available (for the whole year). That 76 Chevy came out in Q4 75. Lots of music where the year it hit the charts is the year people care about but it came out the year before etc.

You don’t go to a concept car show and go complain that you see it today it’s a 2025 and the car won’t be mainstream until 2027.

If every year my phone is running a OS for 9 months then that’s the year I ran that os.

 

[Starfia]

Are we… sure there won't be any apostrophes involved here?

 

[FoxyKaye]

A list of rebrands that come to mind after skimming the previous four pages of comments:

* Coke -> New Coke -> Coke Classic -> Coke
* RadioShack -> The Shack (but I still can't buy single transistors there like we once could)
* Every version of the Pepsi logo
* Sierra Mist -> Starry
* Netflix -> Quikster
* Apple Computer -> Apple

I don't even know if I have a point beyond amusement at the hyper-fixation on transitioning to years as a linear denotation of OS versions. Frankly, I'm tired of trying to remember which "Big Cats" arrived in what order, and using a California geography lesson to try and keep track of OS releases. It makes no sense to me that there isn't version continuity between all my devices' OSes, and honestly, the days of operating systems being something that warrant their own marketing are waning in my opinion.

 

[fgladu]

God, they became even more boring... This is so Microsoft!
They need to bring back actual creative people.
They went from amazing to better than the competition.

 

[frownface]

does apple have an irrational fear of the number 9 or something?

 

[sakurarain]

let's make it in a simple way, then no need to change every year.

• iOS ∞
• iPadOS ∞
• macOS ∞
• watchOS ∞
• tvOS ∞
• visionOS ∞

 

[MakaniKai]

Why on earth would they do this?

Because most of us don't want to have to consult The Spreadsheet™ for whether we're on the latest version:

OS	Version
iOS	19
iPadOS	19
macOS	16
watchOS	12
tvOS	19
visionOS	3

Instead you can just go "hey what year is it? Oh, 2026? Then I should be on version 26!" for virtually any Apple product.

There are zero downsides to this that I can see. I seriously feel like people just hate any change in their life at all and feel the need to complain about it.

 

[Mat Jam Car]

Would have made more sense to call it iPhoneOS 26.

 

[Robert.Walter]

And next year people won't be confused when their iPhone 26 is updated to iOS 27? And why does it have an A19 Pro chip in it instead of an A26?

Why do you think that the chips won’t also be calandarized to help keep better track of them?