Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Ranked: The 10 Most Useful iOS 26 Features
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Interesting, this feature is not at all useful to me. But some of the others are.
I agree with this 100%. I set my phone to Do not Disturb whenever I’m listening to music or watching a video/show.
I get almost daily calls from “this is loan processing and your paperwork is complete” scammers and they’re the last people I want to talk to. On top of interrupting my music or video.
Is it a “Phone”? Sure it is. And I use mine as a phone a lot. But I pay the freight for this thing and I use it as I see fit, regardless of what it’s called.
If it’s to listen to music or watching movies or look at the internet-webs or whatever at a given moment then so be it.
Whatever it is, it should serve ME and make my life better in some way. Not annoy the bugcrap out of me.
So true. I remember buying an iphone for my technologically challenged mother in law and she was so excited because in no time she'd found her way round it and was getting use out of it. It made a huge difference to her in the last years of her life.
Now, even really experienced users have to search. They move things around for no reason whatsoever that I can see.
Passwords for example used to be under passwords.
Now are they under Autofill and passwords, Touch ID and Password or Privacy and security?
You can probably tell when you have it presented to you like that but if you are just going down a list searching, you probably have to try all three.
Passwords has always shown previous logins by the way. That's not a new thing
That’s a good idea but in the meantime it’s an easy thing to achieve in Shortcuts app
Attachments
Totally agree with the article saying Hold Assist is "Potentially Useful, But Disappointing". The "your call is important" updates could be filtered out by Apple Intelligence if it was truly intelligent.
A whole call centre navigation feature would be great too, sit through all the bumpf at the start, and navigate to the right place.
A whole call centre navigation feature would be great too, sit through all the bumpf at the start, and navigate to the right place.
Preview app does open pdf when you open them from the files app. You just have it disabled. Also it offers so much more in terms of managing a PDF file like adding and deleting pages. It’s not a disappointment at all! You just probably don’t have a use case for it.
Whoever developed the Preview app must have been asleep at the wheel. The interface is bafflingly bad and since it hijacks images you’re looking at in iCloud you can’t swipe between them. I actually deleted it and the Files app returns to how it functioned in iOS18 I wish they had options in the Preview settings as to what file types it handles by default.
Hoping call screening catches on soon. So far, it's confused a lot of people (doctor's office, customers, etc) and I always have to explain it to them when I answer the call when they're talking. It's basically just an iPhone version of an answering machine.
Too bad that the really useful feature - call screening is region locked (like so many Apple's features). And the lockscreen customizations (resizing the clock and moving the widgets) don't work with older wallpapers. It's a strange limitation - it works with own photos, works with new ios26 themes, but couldn't get it to work with the older Astronomy themes that still are my favourite.
Sure, if you you're not in a hurry an like making an additional tap everytime you enter an address after scrolling. Looks nice but decreases usability.
Last edited:
Really don't understand the argument that Image Playground and Genmoji is more useful than the battery averages calculations.
Ah, that's why I can't see call screening. Also, Live Translation - where's the setting for that?
The article is not clear at all about Hold Assist - isn’t it SUPPOSED to be activated/tripped when a “your call is very important to us” waiting song is on?
iOS 26 has somewhere around 200 new features and changes, some of which are more useful than others. We've highlighted some of the updates that we think provide the best quality of life improvements to the iPhone.
Spam Filtering
iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS 26 filter out spam text messages, so you'll no longer get alerts for fake toll payments, suspicious job offers, missed deliveries, tax refunds, and other common scams.
Spam phone calls and FaceTime calls also won't come through, and that includes spam voicemails. Everything spam or scam related that your Apple devices catch is filtered into a spam filter that you never have to look at.
Call Screening
When you get a call from an unknown number, Call Screening will ask the person for their name and reason for calling. That information is relayed to you so you can decide whether to pick up or not.
You can also ask for more information from a caller before you ever pick up. There's still an option to silence calls from unknown numbers entirely if you prefer.
Adjustable Lock Screen Widgets
Widgets on the Lock Screen can be placed at the bottom of the display, and are no longer limited to placement just below the clock. It's a small change, but it's useful if you want to see more of your wallpaper.
It plays into the adjustable time size too, because if you have your wallpaper set to change regularly, the time and widget position can change dynamically to accommodate the artwork or image.
Disappearing Navigation Bars
When you scroll in Safari, Apple Music, Apple News, Podcasts, and more, the tab bar will shrink down to be smaller, so you can see more of the content that you're looking at.
It's especially useful in Safari, where you'll just see a tiny bar with the site URL or search term, with no extra controls in the way. Tapping the tab bar or scrolling back up returns the controls. Navigation bars that collapse down are one of the best Liquid Glass changes, and it's the kind of intuitive thing that feels like it should have always existed.
On-Screen Visual Intelligence
You can use Visual Intelligence with content on your display, which is more useful than Visual Intelligence activated through the Camera. Just take a screenshot and tap it to get to the on-device Visual Intelligence controls.
You can summarize what's in your screenshot, translate it, or have it read aloud. You can also ask ChatGPT questions about it or search for an item on Google, Etsy, and other sites.
What Visual Intelligence does can be accomplished in other ways since there's web-based summary and translate features and the option to simply search for items with Google Images or open ChatGPT, but it saves time once you get used to grabbing a screenshot and tapping into Visual Intelligence.
Voicemail Summaries
Apple Intelligence can summarize your voicemails and provide transcripts so you can see what someone had to say without having to listen to a voicemail.
Copying Messages Text
There is FINALLY an option to copy just part of a text in the Messages app rather than the whole thing. If you've ever needed to copy a phone number, address, URL, or something similar from a message but couldn't single out exactly what you wanted, you'll appreciate this small but useful feature.
Long press on a text and tap "Select" to get drag and drop controls, then tap on copy. It's not the most intuitive flow, but at least the option exists.
Customize Snooze Duration
You can now choose a snooze duration between 1 minute and 15 minutes when setting an alarm in the Clock app, so you're no longer limited to a nine minute snooze period.
Unfortunately, this change was accompanied by a design change that makes the snooze button enormous, so you might be more prone to sleepily snoozing longer than expected.
Messages Live Translation
Live Translation is a little niche if you're not regularly chatting with people who speak another language, but it comes in handy. You can turn on Live Translation for any conversation and get real-time translations for texts that aren't in your language.
It works well, but it is limited to English (U.S., UK), French (France), German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish (Spain), and Chinese (simplified), so there isn't support for every language you might encounter.
There are also Live Translation features for Phone and FaceTime. FaceTime uses translated live captions, and the Phone app uses an AI voice, which is a little bit weirder than text-based translation.
Message Backgrounds
Technically not the most useful feature, but it's on the list because Apple is finally embracing more customization. You can choose a custom background for any single person or group conversation, but keep in mind that the background is displayed for everyone.
More useful Messages features include filtering options, support for polls, typing indica... Click here to read rest of article
Article Link: Ranked: The 10 Most Useful iOS 26 Features
So what is the problem?
Should be under "Apple intelligence", assuming your language and region is supported (the list is short).
Useful?
They are only useful if they work.
For example, I have missed a number of important medical messages and calls pertaining to my mum who’s end of life because that spam filtering improvement was enabled by default. I didn’t ask for it to be switched on. So there’s two issues there one it’s incorrectly identified medical organisations as spam. And I didn’t get the timely intervention from those medical professionals that we needed.
And the voicemail transcriptions are insanely wrong. Apple Intelligence is such a poor product. I think that transcription thing is a fundamental issue in this operating system. When I have recorded meetings using voice notes often the transcriptions are gibberish. I’ve already noted over several versions of the operating system how poor speech to text is generally. It’s not improved.
They are only useful if they work.
For example, I have missed a number of important medical messages and calls pertaining to my mum who’s end of life because that spam filtering improvement was enabled by default. I didn’t ask for it to be switched on. So there’s two issues there one it’s incorrectly identified medical organisations as spam. And I didn’t get the timely intervention from those medical professionals that we needed.
And the voicemail transcriptions are insanely wrong. Apple Intelligence is such a poor product. I think that transcription thing is a fundamental issue in this operating system. When I have recorded meetings using voice notes often the transcriptions are gibberish. I’ve already noted over several versions of the operating system how poor speech to text is generally. It’s not improved.