iOS 26: See Your Full Call History With Any iPhone Contact

[Graphate]

(A) Telecommunication companies likely already have this basic data stored as CDR (depending on whether you’re using a phone number to call or FaceTime), and regularly respond to requests from agencies with matches. Whether it’s on device or not is irrelevant in terms of what a policing agency can obtain.

(B) I don’t get the impression this is data Apple had per se, rather it was always part of your devices stored meta data, now revealed through UI. And does anyone have records going back further than the age of their device? Is it transferred on backup or will it follow your device through even new device set up. All the same see (A) above.

I'd personally trust Apple to manage my call history, even if it involves collaboration with the authorities. They have an excellent track record of consumer protection. And as my late red-blooded grandfather used to say, "you ain't got nothing to worry about if you ain't got nothing to hide".

That’s true in brief stable places at times in history, but you can’t know: what is lawful today, will lawful tomorrow. Edmond Dontès makes the observation that patriotism and treason is a matter of dates.

[…] they are concerned about the underlying data which made the feature possible in the first place, and which has been hiding away on our iPhones for years without most people ever realizing it.

Consider this hypothetical: If law enforcement has obtained access to a suspected criminal's call history via this UX, that might -- and that's a big might -- be useful to them, if they know precisely what they're looking for. That is of course rarely the case. […]

More than this data is stored already by the telecoms companies, to echo @Apple-achian unless you’re involved in something criminal, you probably have nothing to worry about. Although, as an astute commenter pointed out some activities protected today might not be tomorrow.

 

[I7guy]

Excellent header image showing how difficult the new UI has made it to read anything

What is difficult to read. My “old” eyes can read the article just fine.

 

[Selena Agna]

What is difficult to read. My “old” eyes can read the article just fine.

Congrats on your great eyesight when you can read the date and time - unironically.


The contrast is amazingly bad though:

Barely passing 1.7 : 1, when you'd need at least 4.5 : 1 at this text size.


Liquid glass is anti-human garbage, but Alan Dye will give you a very lofty speech about how he's right and his critics are wrong. Something something concentricity.

Dude should have stuck to designing iPhone packaging, he's clearly out of his league with even the basics of UI design.

 

[I7guy]

View attachment 2565924

Congrats on your great eyesight when you can read the date and time - unironically.


The contrast is amazingly bad though:

View attachment 2565925

Barely passing 1.7 : 1, when you'd need at least 4.5 : 1 at this text size.


Liquid glass is anti-human garbage, but Alan Dye will give you a very lofty speech about how he's right and his critics are wrong. Something something concentricity.

Dude should have stuck to designing iPhone packaging, he's clearly out of his league with even the basics of UI design.

That’s my point, my eyesight isn’t great. People may not like the UI and that is their right, doesn’t make any of this hard to read.

 

[jz0309]

View attachment 2565924

Congrats on your great eyesight when you can read the date and time - unironically.


The contrast is amazingly bad though:

View attachment 2565925

Barely passing 1.7 : 1, when you'd need at least 4.5 : 1 at this text size.


Liquid glass is anti-human garbage, but Alan Dye will give you a very lofty speech about how he's right and his critics are wrong. Something something concentricity.

Dude should have stuck to designing iPhone packaging, he's clearly out of his league with even the basics of UI design.

screenshots are reduced in quality, thus I will agree that this screenshot is harder to read.
But, looking at the screen on my phone - no problems reading everything.

Have you installed iOS 26 yet to make up your own mind? or just reading online? My eyesight is not great and I do not have ny readability issues on iPhone, watch, iPad, Mac all running "Liquid Glass"

 

[zarmanto]

More than this data is stored already by the telecoms companies, to echo @Apple-achian unless you’re involved in something criminal, you probably have nothing to worry about. Although, as an astute commenter pointed out some activities protected today might not be tomorrow.

This is true -- and according to The Google, the legal bar for accessing data stored on a personal phone -- where there should be a reasonable expectation of privacy -- is actually higher than the bar for accessing data held by a third party, such as your telecom provider. So, according to the letter of the law, this absolutely shouldn't be a concern for law abiding citizens.

The "tin foil hat" argument that I referred to is based upon a not entirely uncommon belief that the government routinely collects such information using some form of extralegal means, rather than bothering with search warrants. I'm not suggesting that I believe that myself... but rather, I'm pointing out that there are people who do, and that this is plausibly why some people might be concerned by this new revelation* of just how much historical data is actually retained on their phones. As evidence of this kind of concern, I would point to the several people who responded to this thread with some variant of "How do I delete the history?"

* As a mostly inconsequential sidenote: those of us who pay at least a little bit of attention to such things already knew that this data was being stored.

 

[Selena Agna]

That’s my point, my eyesight isn’t great. People may not like the UI and that is their right, doesn’t make any of this hard to read.

screenshots are reduced in quality, thus I will agree that this screenshot is harder to read.
But, looking at the screen on my phone - no problems reading everything.

Have you installed iOS 26 yet to make up your own mind? or just reading online? My eyesight is not great and I do not have any readability issues on iPhone, watch, iPad, Mac all running "Liquid Glass"

I'm not talking about how aesthetically pleasing Liquid Glass is or isn't.

This is all just about the bare minimum requirements any designer should have to text - legibility.
You can measure this in a lot of different dimensions, one of them being contrast.

There is no reason for the contrast of any UI text to be this low.
So, why does Alan Dye insist on doing this? What purpose does this serve?

 

[jz0309]

I'm not talking about how aesthetically pleasing Liquid Glass is or isn't.

This is all just about the bare minimum requirements any designer should have to text - legibility.
You can measure this in a lot of different dimensions, one of them being contrast.

There is no reason for the contrast of any UI text to be this low.
So, why does Alan Dye insist on doing this? What purpose does this serve?

you didn't read my response: I have zero readability/legibility issues with the 26 release.

My eyesight is not great and I do not have ny readability issues on iPhone, watch, iPad, Mac all running "Liquid Glass"

 

[I7guy]

I'm not talking about how aesthetically pleasing Liquid Glass is or isn't.

This is all just about the bare minimum requirements any designer should have to text - legibility.
You can measure this in a lot of different dimensions, one of them being contrast.

There is no reason for the contrast of any UI text to be this low.
So, why does Alan Dye insist on doing this? What purpose does this serve?

Two people, two opinions on the same topic. Very unusual. /s I only speak for myself.

 

[Selena Agna]

As I said this is very nice for you two, that you don't have any issues with reading that text.

But it still does not explain why any designer would have text at a 1.7 : 1 contrast ratio.
Like, what does Apple gain from that?
Have it at 4.5 : 1 and everybody could read it.

 

[I7guy]

As I said this is very nice for you two, that you don't have any issues with reading that text.

But it still does not explain why any designer would have text at a 1.7 : 1 contrast ratio.
Like, what does Apple gain from that?
Have it at 4.5 : 1 and everybody could read it.

To find out apples rational, you can ask Apple. All saying is everybody has their opinion on it, no different than anything else Apple.