5 iOS 26 features. Android users have already

Apple unveiled iOS 26 at WWDC 2025 in June, with the beta version available for download after the event. The stable version of iOS 26 will be available in a few weeks as a free update for all compatible iPhones, the iPhone 17 series being among the first phones to run the new operating system. Like each new mobile operating system, iOS 26 has several new features that competitors may want to adopt. It is the usual cat and mouse game that we have attended for years between Apple and Google, the two giants behind the most popular mobile operating systems.

While the two companies are inspired by each other, Android users have had access to several features that iPhone users will discover once they have installed iOS 26. The list includes dynamic wallpapers, support for visual intelligence, calls for calls and support assistance, spam detection and unknown projection of the sender, and support for the test in the messages, Facetime and telephone application.

IOS 26 undoubtedly offers the largest design of design of design from iOS 7. Fired in liquid glass, the new design brings translucent elements to each menu and button, giving the user interface a new layer of paint. One of the best places to present glass and light effects is the locking screen – thanks to new dynamic wallpapers.

After updating, users will experience new effects when defining their wallpapers. First of all, the San Francisco police displaying time will automatically change its size – depending on the elements in the background. The police will also adapt their size when the notifications arrive. In addition, the software uses AI to transform 2D images into 3D experiences. Well, Google Pixel phones received cinematographic wallpapers in June 2023, allowing users to transform their 2D images into 3D images. In addition, the new clock design with dynamic wallpapers strangely resembles Xiaomi’s implementation on Hyperos 2.0, which began to take place in early 2025.

Apple unveiled visual intelligence when the iPhone 16 was announced in 2024. It is an Apple Intelligence feature that allows you to point the camera on objects, monuments, animals, plants, etc., and ask questions about them. Users must press the camera control button or the action button to invoke visual intelligence. With iOS 26, Apple has expanded the capacities of visual intelligence by allowing you to search for the content of your screen. The functionality can recognize the products you see online and find similar items, add events to the Calendar application, find the breed of a dog or pass questions to chatgpt.

Google Lens – introduced in 2017 – is a first Google product that allows users to identify objects in the real world and interact with them. At the beginning of 2024, Google unveiled the circle to search for features that use Google Lens’ capabilities more to allow users to carry out research related to everything they see on their phone screen.

Apple has announced two important features that arrive on the telephone application with iOS 26 – Call screening and help maintain. Call screening automatically responds to calls from unknown numbers and asks the appellant to identify. The process occurs in the background and the telephone remains silent until the identification process is finished. It is only then that the iPhone rings and the user can decide to recover the call.

Hold Assist is another useful feature that should improve your call experience. It is useful when calling customer support or other call centers, as you don’t have to listen to a robot. The functionality retains the call until a live agent connects. The phone will ring then, so you know that a human is ready to talk to you. Google presented the functionality of the call screen in 2018, allowing Google Assistant to respond to unknown call calls. Hold for Me is an Android feature published in 2020, offering similar features to keep assistance.

With the telephone application, the messages on iOS also obtained two useful updates in iOS 26: spam detection and detection of unknown shippers. Spam detection uses disk filters to keep spam messages from the main messages from the main messages. Screening of the unknown sender will move all messages from an unknown number to a separate menu, so you can focus on the conversations you have with people who are important to you. The features will not block texts sensitive to time such as safety codes or notifications on specific events, such as your table being ready in a restaurant.

Google Messages already offers spam detection, with Google with functionality in 2018. At the end of 2024, Google announced a new scam detection feature for telephone calls which uses the processing of Nano Gemini available to identify potentially malicious calls. Apple has no alternative in iOS 26 to this more advanced anti-spam tool. Perhaps a similar feature could be deployed in the subsequent iterations of iOS 26.

Apple Intelligence on iOS 26 provides live translation capacities to three applications: messages, facetime and telephone. The functionality uses models built in apple that runs entirely on the device, so your data does not leave your device. The functionality is useful for translating the written text in the messages and the language spoken in the Approitime and Phone applications. In fact, it works even for voice notes sent via the messages application. Rumors say that live translation functionality will also be available on AirPods in the near future to translate conversations in real time.

Google has unveiled its live translated function with the Pixel 6 series in 2021. Functionality allows Android users to translate messages in various applications, including Google, WhatsApp and others messages. In addition, Google Assistant also offers interpreter fashion feature, allowing real -time translation between two parts. It works on calls as well as during real conversations.