Probably depends on your use-cases, but for me, on 26.2, I still find these daily annoyances:
1. Search in Mail. When you click the Search bar (which is is on the top right) the search bar immediately moves to the top left, and disappears. I am almost used to it now. This is on iPadOS. I use the dark theme, and the Search box is not visible when it moves. When you actually type something, it reappears. Then when you press enter, it moves back to the right hand side! Just maddening.
2. Preview. Again on iPadOS. What a catastrophic app this is. You try to open an image file from Files. It brings up the Preview app. But not showing your file. Nope, instead it starts doing that iOS painful thing where it shows half a page of a file manager-like window, and half a page of an application summary. And in Preview's case, also a magnifier. So you can magnify what was on your screen. Wanting not to do this, but to open the image file I clicked that invoked this insanity, I look for an option to do so. There is none. The only option is to swipe up and close Preview. Taking you back to Files.
What was the point? Weirdly, if you repeat this process, including swiping away of Preview, it will then open the image file! If you get this far, you will be rewarded with no way to close the image, so you'll swipe up again to close Preview. If you have a few images to check, you can imagine how fun this process is. What was Apple thinking? Why release a broken app? It "just worked" in iOS 18 and earlier.
3. The camera. On iPhoneOS this time. 30% of the time I attempt to open the camera from the icon on the lockscreen, all I get is a black screen and the little green dot suggesting the camera is operating. It isn't. The only way to fix it is to "log in" and open the camera app. I don't recall this being broken before. Something I use every day, and it's broken. Why Apple, why?
4. Inverted display. I use this daily for bright websites. Now, if you have a dark theme, all the menus on common apps like Safari become invisible when you invert the display. Again, something that worked just fine in previous versions of iOS is now broken. For what purpose? To give me a translucent URL bar? I don't care about that, it adds nothing to my experience, but not being able to see application menus makes the app useless. Again, I ask myself, why?
5. Apple Fitness. It's great that they added the ability to track a workout via Apple Fitness. Even better, you can pair a cheap old BT HR monitor, and get all the stats you might get from wearing an Apple Watch, including integrating the data into Apple Health, without having to buy an Apple Watch. And yet, Apple somehow blew this app too. For many activities, the GPS does not engage for about 15 minutes. I have been 5Km down the road before it started accumulating distance before. This is repeatable. Cycling is particularly bad, walking seems more reliable. But as there is no indication of GPS lock, you won't know untll you've travelled some distance. It makes what could have been a really useful app, hopeless.
Did anyone ever test this? Just once? I don't live in a "GPS challenging" environment. Any of the other fitness apps like Strava or Wahoo work just fine, on the same phone, clearly using the same GPS. It's just a faulty implementation by Apple, with their own software, on their own OS, on their own hardware. Why, Apple?
6. Is it a tick or an "X"?
All over iOS26 I come across a large and discordant tick symbol to dismiss something. But elsewhere, it is the familiar X. Pick a lane.
I am sure I am not the first to point out these things, and not the first to reconsider my future "relationship" with Apple products because of this wanton disregard for the user experience. This used to be what made me stick to Apple. It wasn't the flashiest, but the user experience was excellent. Now it's all flash, and a terrible daily user experience. And for what purpose? Translucent, hard to read search boxes? What's the value here?
Why break everything just to make the OS look like a schoolboy's Linux distro with all the GUI tweaks turned up to the max, just because he could? What next, Compiz-like rotating cubes as we switch apps? It's horrible, and Apple should be ashamed for releasing this. It's truly changed how I think about Apple and their priorities. Throwing away all that immense goodwill they had earned through disciplined UI design over the years. People have stuck with them, even as their phones fell further and further behind in functionality, because the user experience was excellent.
Now, with iOS26, they've jettisoned any pretence to prioritise user experience. It's all eye-candy, and bad eye-candy at that. Eye-candy that makes the OS less easy to use. And for what? To distinguish the 2025 phones with a new look? The software equivalent of changing the grille on the next model-year cars to give a new look to a rapidly-dating line up and the impression of progress?
Not impressed, Apple. You didn't improve the look. You broke the car.
1. Search in Mail. When you click the Search bar (which is is on the top right) the search bar immediately moves to the top left, and disappears. I am almost used to it now. This is on iPadOS. I use the dark theme, and the Search box is not visible when it moves. When you actually type something, it reappears. Then when you press enter, it moves back to the right hand side! Just maddening.
2. Preview. Again on iPadOS. What a catastrophic app this is. You try to open an image file from Files. It brings up the Preview app. But not showing your file. Nope, instead it starts doing that iOS painful thing where it shows half a page of a file manager-like window, and half a page of an application summary. And in Preview's case, also a magnifier. So you can magnify what was on your screen. Wanting not to do this, but to open the image file I clicked that invoked this insanity, I look for an option to do so. There is none. The only option is to swipe up and close Preview. Taking you back to Files.
What was the point? Weirdly, if you repeat this process, including swiping away of Preview, it will then open the image file! If you get this far, you will be rewarded with no way to close the image, so you'll swipe up again to close Preview. If you have a few images to check, you can imagine how fun this process is. What was Apple thinking? Why release a broken app? It "just worked" in iOS 18 and earlier.
3. The camera. On iPhoneOS this time. 30% of the time I attempt to open the camera from the icon on the lockscreen, all I get is a black screen and the little green dot suggesting the camera is operating. It isn't. The only way to fix it is to "log in" and open the camera app. I don't recall this being broken before. Something I use every day, and it's broken. Why Apple, why?
4. Inverted display. I use this daily for bright websites. Now, if you have a dark theme, all the menus on common apps like Safari become invisible when you invert the display. Again, something that worked just fine in previous versions of iOS is now broken. For what purpose? To give me a translucent URL bar? I don't care about that, it adds nothing to my experience, but not being able to see application menus makes the app useless. Again, I ask myself, why?
5. Apple Fitness. It's great that they added the ability to track a workout via Apple Fitness. Even better, you can pair a cheap old BT HR monitor, and get all the stats you might get from wearing an Apple Watch, including integrating the data into Apple Health, without having to buy an Apple Watch. And yet, Apple somehow blew this app too. For many activities, the GPS does not engage for about 15 minutes. I have been 5Km down the road before it started accumulating distance before. This is repeatable. Cycling is particularly bad, walking seems more reliable. But as there is no indication of GPS lock, you won't know untll you've travelled some distance. It makes what could have been a really useful app, hopeless.
Did anyone ever test this? Just once? I don't live in a "GPS challenging" environment. Any of the other fitness apps like Strava or Wahoo work just fine, on the same phone, clearly using the same GPS. It's just a faulty implementation by Apple, with their own software, on their own OS, on their own hardware. Why, Apple?
6. Is it a tick or an "X"?
All over iOS26 I come across a large and discordant tick symbol to dismiss something. But elsewhere, it is the familiar X. Pick a lane.
I am sure I am not the first to point out these things, and not the first to reconsider my future "relationship" with Apple products because of this wanton disregard for the user experience. This used to be what made me stick to Apple. It wasn't the flashiest, but the user experience was excellent. Now it's all flash, and a terrible daily user experience. And for what purpose? Translucent, hard to read search boxes? What's the value here?
Why break everything just to make the OS look like a schoolboy's Linux distro with all the GUI tweaks turned up to the max, just because he could? What next, Compiz-like rotating cubes as we switch apps? It's horrible, and Apple should be ashamed for releasing this. It's truly changed how I think about Apple and their priorities. Throwing away all that immense goodwill they had earned through disciplined UI design over the years. People have stuck with them, even as their phones fell further and further behind in functionality, because the user experience was excellent.
Now, with iOS26, they've jettisoned any pretence to prioritise user experience. It's all eye-candy, and bad eye-candy at that. Eye-candy that makes the OS less easy to use. And for what? To distinguish the 2025 phones with a new look? The software equivalent of changing the grille on the next model-year cars to give a new look to a rapidly-dating line up and the impression of progress?
Not impressed, Apple. You didn't improve the look. You broke the car.
