Recently, Apple unveiled iOS 26, a significant update that brings a stunning new design, intelligent user experiences, and numerous enhancements for everyday users. The new design offers a lively and engaging experience throughout the entire ecosystem while maintaining the distinctive familiarity of iOS. Integrated across the system, Apple Intelligence continues to enhance capabilities. The updates for the Phone and Messaging apps help users maintain essential connections while avoiding unwanted interruptions from unexpected calls. iOS 26 also introduces many new features in CarPlay, Apple Music, the Home Screen, and Wallet, alongside Apple Games, a new platform that allows players to curate their gaming experiences more effectively.
“iOS 26 shines with a beautifully crafted new design and meaningful enhancements for everyday features, making the iPhone increasingly beneficial,” shared Craig Federighi, Apple’s Senior Vice President of Software Engineering. “Experiences should feel lively and personal, from the Home Screen to the Messaging and Phone apps, helping users focus on what matters most to them. Meanwhile, the new powerful features of Apple Intelligence are integrated throughout the system, enabling users to complete tasks more easily than ever.”
Stunning New Design
The new design helps apps and software experiences feel more vibrant and engaging while still providing the traditional familiar feel of iOS. This design is crafted from Liquid Glass, a new material that reflects light and creates an immersive spatial experience, allowing users to concentrate more on content while controlling features, navigation, app icons, utilities, and other functions in a visually appealing manner. The new design includes both the Home Screen and the Lock Screen, helping these displays feel more personal and lively. Liquid Glass also offers many customization options for app icons and utilities, including transparent interfaces that enhance the overall aesthetic.
On the Lock Screen, dynamic widgets adapt to the available space in the image, and the frame structures help create a more vibrant experience that feels 3D when the user moves the iPhone. The updated design elements also bring a fresh experience to apps. The Camera widget is simplified, allowing users to focus on the moment they want to capture while also keeping the app interface updated with dedicated tabs for Library and Albums. In Safari, the interface for web pages will be more immersive and scroll down to the bottom of the screen, letting users view more content while keeping access to common tasks like refreshing and searching.
The new API updates provide developers access to Liquid Glass materials and elements that help apps present content more vividly and engagingly.
New Features Powered by Apple Intelligence
Apple Intelligence enhances the iPhone experience and helps users complete tasks more easily than ever, while also introducing new ways for users to communicate and perform various actions with visible content on-screen. The Live Translation feature is now integrated into Messaging, FaceTime, and Phone, enabling users to communicate in multiple languages, translating text and audio in real-time.
Built on the Apple Intelligence platform, intelligent recognition expands to the iPhone screen, allowing users to search and interact with any content they are viewing within apps. Users can ask ChatGPT questions to learn more about the content they are viewing on-screen, as well as search on Google, Etsy, or other supported apps for images and products. The intelligent recognition also detects the time the user is spending on an event and suggests additional relevant events to add to the calendar, automatically gathering important information like dates, times, and locations.
Genmoji and Image Playground bring users many new ways to express themselves, including the integration of emoticons that evoke strong feelings, allowing the creation of entirely new emoticons.
The keyboard now is more powerful and intelligent than ever before. Users can access smart actions, with the keyboard fully integrated into Apple Intelligence, as well as see specific actions tailored for features like QuickType and Image Playground.
With Apple Intelligence, users can automatically detect and summarize information from order confirmations sent via email by sellers, helping users view complete details of their orders and payment notifications in one place, even for purchases that don’t use Apple Pay.
Additionally, the new Home Screen interface allows for direct access, letting users easily utilize the Home Screen layout on devices in the context of Apple Intelligence, helping developers gain direct access to a robust intelligent system that not only operates quickly but also focuses on user privacy and can be used offline, utilizing AI reasoning capabilities.
Features to Maintain Connectivity and Reduce Distractions
As a core feature that creates the iPhone experience, the Phone app here will benefit from the most significant updates, consolidating information from the Contacts, Favorites, and Recent tabs into one place. The Call Screening feature, built on the Phone app’s capabilities, helps filter distractions by gathering information about the caller and providing necessary details for users to decide whether to answer the call.
Users can now choose to filter incoming messages from specific senders, helping manage their attention more effectively while keeping those who are important visible on their recent calls list in the Messaging app. Messages from specific senders will appear in a dedicated section where users can mark a phone number as favorite or ignore it. These messages will be muted until the user taps to unmute them.
iOS 26 also brings numerous enhancements for video calls, including customizable backgrounds and the ability to create polls. With Apple Intelligence, the Messaging app can identify and suggest creating polls when needed, while users can also create unique backgrounds suitable for their video calls using Image Playground.
Improvements for CarPlay
CarPlay is a feature that helps users operate their iPhones safely and intelligently while driving, with over 600 million uses every day. With iOS 26, this feature will be enhanced to include more updated content, making the display increasingly beautiful and user-friendly. The stunning new design includes a dedicated view for incoming calls, allowing users to see who is calling without losing sight of important information like upcoming appointments. iOS 26 also brings Tapbacks and the ability to pin conversations within the Messaging app on CarPlay, while the smart features and Direct Interaction allow users to always stay informed without losing focus on the road. These updated features will also be available on CarPlay Ultra, integrating the best features of both iPhone and car together to create the most immersive experience, deeply integrated on every screen.
Updated Content for Apple Music, Wallet, and Maps
The Lyrics Translation feature in the Apple Music app helps users understand the lyrics of their favorite songs, while the Lyrics Pronunciation feature allows everyone to sing along in any language. The AutoMix feature utilizes intelligent technology to seamlessly transition from one song to another like a real DJ, using technology to adjust timing and beats to create a seamless listening experience.
The Visited Places feature on the Wallet app helps users keep track of places they have been. Users can choose to let the iPhone detect when they are near places like restaurants or stores and view all relevant information about their Visited Places in the Wallet app. The Visited Places feature is secure and encrypted, and Apple cannot access it. Additionally, the iPhone now can use intelligent reasoning to better understand the everyday routes of the user, presenting preferred routes when at home or traveling to work, as well as notifying users if there are any delays and suggesting alternative routes.
Updated Wallet features help everyday activities become more convenient than ever. Users can choose to pay using various payment methods within the Wallet app, or earn rewards points when shopping directly using Apple Pay on their iPhone. The new design in the Wallet app allows users to view and share real-time updates on their flight activities. This feature also helps travelers access the most relevant information about themselves, such as using the Wallet app to find airports, utilizing the Search feature to look up important items, and reporting lost luggage while also enjoying many other features.
Other Features in iOS 26:
- Apple Games is a new app that curates all gaming experiences from various platforms, allowing players to discover their favorite titles, find new games to play, and share joyful moments with friends. Players can also see news about their latest games to keep up with important updates and events. The Games app is also the best way to experience Apple Arcade, providing access to over 200 award-winning games that are highly rated for the whole family.
- AirPods are now smarter than ever with new features for AirPods 4 and AirPods Pro 2. Based on the benefits of the Noise Control feature, the enhanced microphone quality helps users with iPhones, iPads, and Macs record audio content with better sound quality and enjoy clearer calls. Users can also use the camera to snap photos or start video recordings on their iPhone or iPad using AirPods.
- Now, parents can easily create or transfer their children into Family Accounts, utilizing parental controls to ensure safety for their kids. Enhancements for Family Sharing, Safe Sharing, and App Store include parental approval for shared requests, allowing sensitive content within FaceTime calls and photos in Shared Albums, as well as letting parents restrict apps based on age ratings in Family Sharing.
- The web browsing experience in Safari is becoming increasingly personalized with advanced fingerprint security for every browsing session.
- Powerful accessibility features include Accessibility Reader, providing unique experiences across the entire ecosystem, and Braille Access, a full interface designed for iPhone devices connected to Braille displays. Updated features for Direct Speech Recognition, Background Sound, Personal Voice, and many other features further enhance the accessibility capabilities across the entire Apple ecosystem.
All these features will be available to experience starting today in the Apple Developer Program at developer.apple.com and the public beta version will be available next month via beta.apple.com/vi. The free software features will launch this fall in the upcoming software update for iPhone 11 and above. Apple Intelligence features will require supported devices, including all versions of iPhone 16, iPhone 15 Pro, iPhone 15 Pro Max, iPad mini (A17 Pro), iPad versions, and Macs with M1 and above, supporting Apple Intelligence, Siri, and device-specific languages configured to support: English, French, German, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and Mandarin (simplified). Many additional languages will be added by the end of the year: Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Portuguese (Portugal), Swedish, Thai, Ukrainian, simplified Chinese, and Vietnamese. For more information, please visit apple.com/vn/apple-intelligence. Some features may change. Some features may not support certain languages or regions, and the availability may vary due to local laws and regulations. For more information about region availability, please visit apple.com/vn.
