I absolutely loathe iOS 26

[WarmWinterHat]

I have iOS 26 installed on my work-issued iPhone, which is my first time using it. It runs fine, despite being a four year old SE, but man.... I don't need, want, or like, the moving/shifting borders around the icons and widgets. They are distracting and don't help with usability.

On my personal 16 pro, I have widgets that blend in with my plain black wallpaper and have no borders, so I'm holding off until there is (hopefully) an option to disable the effect.

Reduce transparency ruined the buttons in the fitness app:

 

[Maloney~888]

Running the same

I put it on my Iphone 12 (work) and Iphone 16P and they seem to run about the same surprisingly

Running the same well or pants? Asking for a friend.

 

[HouseLannister]

Reduce transparency ruined the buttons in the fitness app:

Yeah. Reduce transparency causes new issues. It is a workaround for those with visual impairments and everyone needs to stop recommending it as a catch-all fix.

 

[dani666]

I was expecting to have a strong reaction but I don't. I don't hate it, I don't love it. It's fine. I really don't understand the wailing and gnashing of teeth, unless it is causing an actual accessibility issue for you, and the provided toggles don't do enough. I do think it was largely a waste of effort, really, but as plenty of others have said, designers need something to do and you're not going to stop fashions and tastes changing. It's mostly a big shrug from me.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

I was expecting to have a strong reaction but I don't. I don't hate it, I don't love it. It's fine. I really don't understand the wailing and gnashing of teeth

I don't understand it either. I thought it looked nice and I didn't notice many of the complaints like the moving halo around the icons. I never saw that and I went as far as rotate the phone to see if the icon edge moved as I rotated the phone.

I went back to iOS 18 because my iPhone 13 works fine and I also like the look of iOS 18 and the tinted icons. But I wonder if performance is going to take a hit as iOS 26 progresses, followed by iOS 27/28, as I saw a few things that stood out as performance issues?

 

[brentsg]

I’m glad I found this thread. I don’t visit much anymore, but Google sent me.

I also loathe iOS 26. I’ve spent a good bit of this afternoon trying to do things that make 26 look like the previous version, to little success. I’ve started shopping for an alternate tablet and phone. Yes, it will be work to tame, but also possible.

Cannot believe “Select” on their iPad email client is hidden behind another button press. I do this off and on all damn day.

 

[Madame Defarge]

It’s very cartoony. The bubbles and floaty icons.

I'm not a fan of the 'kiddie' look. It should be something that people opt into, rather than have to put up with.

 

[Madame Defarge]

iOS 26 is a big update from iOS 18. You need a lot of patience and understanding. Continue to tweak the settings to your likings. If you see something you don't like do a search and ask how can I change this to this on iPhone with iOS 26. Apple is constantly moving the puck forward. Products that they plan to launch in the near future will need to will work better with these new adjustments. The 20th anniversary iPhone is going to be big...

A lot of people I know aren't tech savvy and will fine it difficult to make any changes that make the iOS more user friendly. Steve Jobs, with the help of the graphic designer Jon Ivy, understood that simplicity is best, both visually and practically. I've been quietly steaming about all the junk Tim Cook &Co have been adding on to the OS for some time. From what I've seen, iOS 26 is a design disaster.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

I'm not a fan of the 'kiddie' look. It should be something that people opt into, rather than have to put up with.

In theory yes, I agree. In the real world, that won't work. Why? It won't work for several reasons. The iPhone is to Apple what the PlayStation brand is to Sony. It's their bread and butter. Once the smartphone market matured and became saturated you have to standout in the crowded space. Apple has widened the net so it will please some and upset others.

Apple appears to be catering to the younger generation who are their future customers. They will probably like all the Bling of iOS 26. The last reason why they won't or can't let you opt in or out is because they are designing a unified look that stretches across all their platforms. So whatever Apple device you are using, it should all look pretty much the same. Again, some will be happy and others won't. But if developers are designing for the new look of iOS 26 and 40% don't want that look then the unified look fails and so does all the money wasted in developing the new look and developers will be upset for all the time they wasted in designing something new.

So the choice is, stay on iOS 18 or move up to iOS 26.

 

[brentsg]

A lot of people I know aren't tech savvy and will fine it difficult to make any changes that make the iOS more user friendly. Steve Jobs, with the help of the graphic designer Jon Ivy, understood that simplicity is best, both visually and practically. I've been quietly steaming about all the junk Tim Cook &Co have been adding on to the OS for some time. From what I've seen, iOS 26 is a design disaster.

I don’t want to plant the idea that my mom and similar folks will dislike this, but I dread them upgrading. It will quickly become my problem. Same with my wife, really.

 

[Tubamajuba]

No, I brought up DEI because Apple’s sudden systemic decline directly correlates with a managerial and structural overhaul guided by that ideological shift.

You assumed it was a typo not because it was unclear but because you lack the bandwidth to track how bureaucratic “vibes-first” orthodoxy destroyed the design and production culture of competency. Your humble brag as deflection from acknowledging that what you’re defending is the product of a regime shift in recruitment, standards, and accountability.

You’re watching the effects of coercive hiring pipelines optimized for ideological compliance over functional excellence and the result is a monoculture of underqualified appointees shipping half-baked UX pretensions as if they were gospel.

This isn’t “a few refinements needed.” This is:

• Mission-critical features non-functional.

• Core OS mechanics rewritten for no reason.

• Usability replaced with design theater to appease fragility instead of enabling mastery.

It shouldn’t be taboo to discuss how a trillion-dollar company went from shipping best-in-class interfaces to force-feeding broken products to a legacy user base they now treat as an obstacle.


The customers didn’t change.

Apple did.

And until you can acknowledge the ideological capture behind that transformation, you’re not defending progress you’re enabling regression as an evolution that’s destined for failure.

Gotcha, nothing you say matters because you think DEI has anything to do with the quality of iOS 26.

 

[I7guy]

No, I brought up DEI because Apple’s sudden systemic decline directly correlates with a managerial and structural overhaul guided by that ideological shift.

You assumed it was a typo not because it was unclear but because you lack the bandwidth to track how bureaucratic “vibes-first” orthodoxy destroyed the design and production culture of competency. Your humble brag as deflection from acknowledging that what you’re defending is the product of a regime shift in recruitment, standards, and accountability.

You’re watching the effects of coercive hiring pipelines optimized for ideological compliance over functional excellence and the result is a monoculture of underqualified appointees shipping half-baked UX pretensions as if they were gospel.

This isn’t “a few refinements needed.” This is:

• Mission-critical features non-functional.

• Core OS mechanics rewritten for no reason.

• Usability replaced with design theater to appease fragility instead of enabling mastery.

It shouldn’t be taboo to discuss how a trillion-dollar company went from shipping best-in-class interfaces to force-feeding broken products to a legacy user base they now treat as an obstacle.


The customers didn’t change.

Apple did.

And until you can acknowledge the ideological capture behind that transformation, you’re not defending progress you’re enabling regression as an evolution that’s destined for failure.

You’re a little late to the “Apple is doomed party”, especially with rumors of the iPhone 17 flying off shelves.

 

[I7guy]

I don’t want to plant the idea that my mom and similar folks will dislike this, but I dread them upgrading. It will quickly become my problem. Same with my wife, really.

Upgrade anxiety is not new. I’ve been reading about it for years. There is always some new functionality the upgrader has to push through.

And somehow it happens.

 

[al2813]

Apple appears to be catering to the younger generation who are their future customers. They will probably like all the Bling of iOS 26.

My soon-to-be 18 years old son qualifies to be part of that "younger generation". He lives inside Tik Tok, games etc. etc. (less these days as he is starting med school). He is exasperated of IOS26. Doesn't like the UI and desperately wants to downgrade (no can do). It sucks the life of his iPhone 15 battery, plus it runs slower on his phone (could not verify that). I am still holding to IOS18, and hoping they release a quick fix before I install IOS26. I've been owning iPhones in succession since iPhone 3GS, and this is the first time I am seriously considering switching to Samsung. Unfortunately, I own everything Apple, so a hard move....

 

[Maloney~888]

Well having said I’ll wait until 26.1 I took the plunge and installed 26 on my 15 Pro last night. So far so good. I’m liking what I’ve seen so far. No heat on my phone, snappy enough and just getting used to the differences as I find my way round the new iOS. Battery observation, I’ll reserve judgement until the weekend when it should have settled down indexing.

 

[super chimp]

Apparently at least in the additional beta version 26.1 adds the ability to add even more contrast to iOS 26. Not sure from what others have said, that this is the solution that Apple seems to think it is.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I have iOS 26 installed on my work-issued iPhone, which is my first time using it. It runs fine, despite being a four year old SE, but man.... I don't need, want, or like, the moving/shifting borders around the icons and widgets. They are distracting and don't help with usability.

On my personal 16 pro, I have widgets that blend in with my plain black wallpaper and have no borders, so I'm holding off until there is (hopefully) an option to disable the effect.

Reduce transparency ruined the buttons in the fitness app:

View attachment 2556155

View attachment 2556156

Jesus that's awful.

They clearly don't test or GAF about any of the accessibility options, which is rather ironic and sad given the actual purpose of accessibility options.

 

[ThePinkChameleon]

I don’t want to plant the idea that my mom and similar folks will dislike this, but I dread them upgrading. It will quickly become my problem. Same with my wife, really.

I’m with you on that. I told both my parents to stay with iOS 18.7 because they are “older kids” in their early 80’s, my father is color blind and my moms vision isn’t great so iOS 26 is a no go for them. My husband upgraded and he’s not crazy about it, I told him I could downgrade him back to 18.6/2 but he said he’ll stick through it. My first impressions were I liked it a lot, I like the transparency, but at the same time I wanted to be able to revert back to the 18 way…then I saw last night that Apple stopped signing 18.6/2 so I was like whelp, there goes that lol. ( & we’re creeping up on our 60’s) So….i don’t hate it, but I’m not rolling over for it as much either. My 16 Pro also took a hit to the battery as well…which is my biggest gripe at this point. Prior to 26, at the end of the day I’d still have 30/40% left, now I’m dropping easily to 10/15% at the end of the day (damn glass icons am I right )But I get it with all the performance tweaks for the clears icons, everything else etc has to go somewhere oh well…it is what it is.

Hopefully, moving forward with updates Apple puts out will tweak things a bit to make it a little more appealing

 

[ThePinkChameleon]

I'm not a fan of the 'kiddie' look. It should be something that people opt into, rather than have to put up with.

I agree that there should be an option within settings to enable the glass look or to use iOS 18 styled icons…that would be the best option for a lot of people who want to upgrade but still have the 18 look. Will Apple intergrade that into future updates…who knows ? I don’t hate the glass clear look, but would I also want to toggle back to the 18 style sometimes, absolutely .

 

[HouseLannister]

I'm not a fan of the 'kiddie' look. It should be something that people opt into, rather than have to put up with.

iOS has always looked "kiddie" IMHO. The big blue and green buttons reminded me of Windows XP and Playskool. Wish it was a bit more professional-looking. Mostly monochrome with a single accent color you can pick across the OS. Somewhere between the Mac "pro" apps and Material 3 Expressive.

 

[turbineseaplane]

iOS has always looked "kiddie" IMHO. The big blue and green buttons reminded me of Windows XP and Playskool. Wish it was a bit more professional-looking. Mostly monochrome with a single accent color you can pick across the OS. Somewhere between the Mac "pro" apps and Material 3 Expressive.

Along these lines, I've always been amazed by professional people using a "Genmoji" of themselves on their contact card that they share with others.

It's like .. really?

You're a 52 year old lawyer and you have a cartoon avatar you shoot around to clients?

 

[Heat_Fan89]

If you thought about upgrading and your little inner voiced whispered "Don't Do It" but you did anyway and now want to go back? Oh oh.

Apple stops signing iOS 18.6.2, blocking downgrades from iOS 26 - 9to5Mac

If you’ve been unhappy with iOS 26, and had been thinking about downgrading, you missed your chance. Here’s why.

9to5mac.com

 

[edvj]

Along these lines, I've always been amazed by professional people using a "Genmoji" of themselves on their contact card that they share with others.

It's like .. really?

You're a 52 year old lawyer and you have a cartoon avatar you shoot to around to clients?

 

[turbineseaplane]

View attachment 2557046

Well played! 🤣

 

[glambutnerdy]

I'm conflicted... I love the easier multitasking and extra features on my iPad and on that I feel like it's a step up. On the other hand, iPhone wise those stupid icon animations, new app layouts are annoying as hell. As a look overall-- it isn't doing much for me, and I am very much a frutiger aero gal. Maybe I've just gotten too used to the flat design. The contrast of my new liquid glass Apple products vs Windows laptop isn't very cohesive and aesthetic anymore. So now I'll probably have to renovate everything. Yay.