Which iPhone is needed to run iOS 26 smoothly?

[Josephc1]

I have iphone13 w/ 128gb, the wife has iphone13 w/256gb. Both are doing great on ios26.0.1. Battery life seems about the same, maybe a bit better but certainly no worst. My MacBook air M2 and our iPad have all upgraded to the 26 os, no complaints.

 

[Eggtastic]

26 runs well on my 14PM and iPad Pro 4th gen, no new battery problems, in fact maybe a small improvement but I did a full reset and fresh install on both.
Putting 26 over iOS18 may be the cause of a lot of peoples problems.

Can you elaborate on that process? I have a 14 PM and was worried about the comments from others so wanted to avoid the issues.

 

[yukari]

I've been running iOS 26 since the very first beta on my 13 mini. Have had no issues other than usual beta issues.

 

[Genelec8341]

Can you elaborate on that process? I have a 14 PM and was worried about the comments from others so wanted

Settings>General>Transfer or Reset>Reset>Reset All Settings
Wait for the wipe to complete
Install iOS 26
Wait for indexing to complete before evaluating improvements or lack of.

I agree that it seems results seem to vary with mixed opinions; some people reporting worse performance but hasn't that always been the case when going to a full new release?

Have a look at your system data at the bottom of the list under Settings>General>Storage before and after the update. I would not be surprised if the users reporting worse performance had a lot of system data before the update and now have even more by dropping 26 on top of 18.xx

My phones System Data is at 6.2GB now after a few days, though I have most bells and almost all whistles turned off.

 

[racerhomie]

Get your Battery replaced. If it’s below 80% health the Voltage delivery won’t be consistent and you may notice performance drops. My iPhone 12 runs very smooth, even smoother than iOS 18.6 in some instances

 

[Mlrollin91]

I have iOS 26 on a 14 Pro, 15 Pro Max and 17 Pro Max. I see no noticeable difference between any of the devices. 14 Pro is working perfectly fine. 14 Pro and 15 Pro Max still have 100% battery health.

 

[Tdude96]

It runs just fine on my 13 Pro Max. It was a little choppy at first right after the install, but once it finished whatever background stuff it was doing it was smooth sailing.