iOS 26.1 - Laggy and terrible!

[Chomp81]

I’m writing to share my recent experience using my iPhone 16 PM while travelling. The camera button, which used to be great for quick shots, has become a nightmare. It’s laggy unresponsive and useless.

I ended up resorting to the old method of swiping on my Home Screen.

Another issue is the Photo Shuffle wallpaper. It used to change seamlessly every hour but now you can see the bugs every time I pick up my phone. It takes a second to transition from a black screen to the photo and it’s very laggy.

Overall, I’m very disappointed with iOS 26.

 

[I7guy]

I have an iPhone 15 and see none of the those issues. I’m sure others will jump in and comment.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Please keep the reports coming.

I appreciate all these, to continue to validate my decision to remain on iOS 18 at this time.

 

[Apple_Robert]

I haven’t seen any lagging since install day. The next day all has been smooth.

 

[now i see it]

I think something "bad" sometimes happens on any iPhone upgrading to anything on any version of IOS.
Example: I recently upgraded my older 6S Plus from iOS 15.8.4 to 15.8.5. These end of the line .01 updates are likely minor bug fixes with no risk.. right?
Wrong.
This inconsequential update noticeably slowed down the phone doing everything. Phone was snappy before, and now there's a very noticeable delay before anything happens.

 

[Helmsley]

I have an iPhone 15 and see none of the those issues. I’m sure others will jump in and comment.

iPhone 15 here too. It's lovely and slick and battery life is great.

 

[papbot]

I’m writing to share my recent experience using my iPhone 16 PM while travelling. The camera button, which used to be great for quick shots, has become a nightmare. It’s laggy unresponsive and useless.

The others don’t realize you’re talking about the bottom side camera control button, which I assume you are. I had the 16PM and now the 17PM, and the button was definitely laggy at first on 26, and 26.1. I played around quite a bit with the relevant settings: single click (I had that set to double click on the 16PM because in ios 18 it was too easy to trigger it unintentionally), on the accessibility screen everything is set to default, again, on my 16PM on ios 18 I had those set to firmer and slower settings. Currently, on the 17PM on 26.1, after settling on those settings and after a few restarts, that camera control button is much more responsive. I would say it’s about equal to what it was on the 16. But on ios 18, the 16PM was too responsive for me until I changed the default settings.

 

[SmOgER]

I’m writing to share my recent experience using my iPhone 16 PM while travelling. The camera button, which used to be great for quick shots, has become a nightmare. It’s laggy unresponsive and useless.

I ended up resorting to the old method of swiping on my Home Screen.

Another issue is the Photo Shuffle wallpaper. It used to change seamlessly every hour but now you can see the bugs every time I pick up my phone. It takes a second to transition from a black screen to the photo and it’s very laggy.

Overall, I’m very disappointed with iOS 26.

I've personally found 26.0.1 to be very smooth, but I had similar issues with 26.1, albeit to a lesser extent. Joined beta channel to bump it to 26.2 and it seems better. Just FYI.