An updated iOS provides updated possibilities, and there are many to explore in iOS 26, the update of the Apple iPhone software has previewed this week at WWDC 2025. But as for any update, certain new iOS features are distinguished by the rest.
I have been covering the iPhone for a long time to know that it is almost impossible to get a complete reading on a software update until you spent time with it. It is simply not possible at the moment, even if you can download the beta version of the developer iOS 26. Although it can give you a taste of what happens later this year when the full exit arrives, any beta version at this early stage is necessarily a little rough on the edges.
However, on the basis of what Apple has shown so far, there are certainly features that I am looking forward to exploring during the beta process. Interestingly, none has much to do with the overhaul of the liquid glass interface which is at the center of the whole update of Apple software this year.
Partly, it is a reflection of the nature of the software interfaces. Watch the fixed images and the braking videos don’t tell you about a new interface; You cannot have an idea of how the interface is proving using the software yourself. And really, if Apple does its work correctly, the use of software influenced by liquid glass should not be so shocking from the interface that you have used in the past decade.
Instead, iOS 26 additions that have attracted my attention are those looking to improve existing features. For me, these are the changes that – if they deliver what they promise – will improve the experience of using your iPhone.
Call and SMS projection
No joke – if I get less than three robocals a day on my iPhone where a robotic voice promises a tax relief, a loaks consolidation or another summary scam, I wonder if something is wrong with the communication grid. I even received one of these phone calls while I listened to the Keynote WWDC 2025, shortly after Apple’s presentation where Craig Federighi spoke of the steps that Apple took to help filter the robocals.
Currently, I am making frequent and ruthless use of the live voicemail function where I send an unknown caller directly to voicemail and while waiting for transcription to the screen to confirm that it is a call for a snake oil seller that I can ignore in complete safety. But iOS 26 promises to manage this step for me with its new call screening feature.
With calls for calls, your phone answers unknown callers on your behalf – no need to press a button as you do with live voicemail. The appellant then shares the name and reason for their call, and the phone rings presenting this information on the screen. You can then decide to take the call or not.
If it works as announced, calls for calls should reduce the amount of hassle you need to keep spam calls remotely. Ideally, the robocals will be completely ignored because they will not be able to follow the prompts to state their name and their business if they launch directly into their Spiel.
The projection does not stop with the telephone application. Messages in iOS 26 also add screening tools that allow you to ban unknown shippers to a separate tab away from conversations with people you know and in whom you trust. You can then browse this list as you wish and decide which messages belong to the main application of the application and which can be banished in the country of wind and ghosts. Recent calls in telephone applications and FaceTime will win a similar filtering tool.
Surveys in group cats
I find myself in a number of group cats – a group of friends in my region, some friends with whom I produce a podcast, even with members of my immediate family. And sometimes, we have to decide things like when we meet for drinks or at what time we will record our next episode of Podcast or what kind of taking us that each of us hopes to appreciate that evening. This usually triggers a lot of back and forth in discussions, where everyone weighs with their opinion, and it seems that it takes much more time to reach a consensus than it should.
This is why my ears stung when Apple started talking about the survey function that arrives at group cats in messages. He appears to add a little order to the chaos which can reign every time everyone in the group wants to weigh with an opinion.
Surveys in messages seem exactly how you imagine. You publish a list of options, and the people of your group cat voted, with their cat avatar appearing next to the option they have selected. And don’t worry that someone felt despised that their choice has never even been taken into account – there is an addition tool where anyone can insert their own option in the survey. Vox Populi, Vox Dei.
Consciousness on the screen for visual intelligence
The objective of any disc is to make them aware of data on your screen so that it can act, whether it is looking for more information on a particular object or add details to your calendar. In fact, this is one of the big heists with Siri’s overhaul at the moment, while Apple is trying to make his digital assistant smarter.
But although Siri’s overhaul is not ready before 2026, the awareness of the context arrives on iOS 26 in another sense, thanks to the updated functionalities of visual intelligence, the tool fueled by AI which transformed the camera of your iPhone into a research tool.
With iOS 26, these visual intelligence features extend to screenshots. Now, when you are in a social media application or a website and you see something on the screen that attracts your attention, take a screenshot, invoke visual intelligence and let the tool search for more information on this object or particular. If there is information on the date, time and location, you also have a button that can convert all this into a calendar entrance.
It is not awareness of the complete context, because it still requires a certain intervention on your part. But the new capacities make visual intelligence a more useful tool that does not completely depend on the camera of the iPhone.
Music pinned
Not all changes in an operating system should be dramatic to be useful. Sometimes it’s just a small fit that makes all the difference.
This is what I imagine that the new pin functionality in Apple Music will add. In iOS 26, you can pin read lists, albums or artists, and they will appear at the top of the musical application library.
It is such a simple feature that Apple does not even refer to his IOS 26 preview page, mentioning that adding by passing during the WWDC Keynote. And yet, this is the first thing that I will turn just before I start a training session and that I have to invoke a specific song to get excited. (“My favorite mutiny” by the coup, if you were wondering.)
Best boarding goes into the wallet
Having digital pass available in the Wallet app certainly makes travel more practical, because you don’t have to worry about following paper tickets. Flash your iPhone at the door and you are free to get on board.
But iOS 26 will make these boarding passes more useful rather than simply practical. Apple promises access to airport cards with your boarding pass, and you can also use the search monitoring tools to locate your luggage (probably using an Airtag). The shipping pass will also be linked to live activities, which will allow you to share your status of flight arrival with others, whether they come to pick you up at the airport or if they just want to know that you have landed safely.
More control over rehearsal
I am not above hitting the rehearsal button when the alarm of alarm clock that I adjusted on my iPhone takes place every morning. But perhaps it would not bother me to adjust how long I am allowed to sleep before the alarm rings again. It will be a possibility in iOS 26.
Apple says that it makes a modification of the clock application where you can adjust repetition times on alarms, which would certainly add greater flexibility than you have now. (In iOS 18, you cannot activate or deactivate the rehearsal function – The 9 -minute rehearsal time is set in the stone.) In fact, you can adjust the snooze on the alarms between 1 and 15 minutes, depending on the quantity of additional closure that you want to train.
Visits in places in cards
I like to explore new places and discover restaurants, tourist sites and other points of interest that I can share with others or come back to myself. The problem comes from the recall of the name or the exact location, although a functionality arrives on the cards in the iOS 26 figures to remove part of this conjecture.
The places visited act as a kind of storage safe wherever you go using cards, with locations connected by category (restaurants, natural sites and other places you have encountered during your travels) and by the city. With the places visited, I no longer have to remember the street or the specific name of this Taco in which I ate in Los Angeles which is a few pies of California Science Center – it should be there in the cards.
It is not clear at this stage if the places visited will simply record the locations where you have obtained routes or if you can enter the MAP application and report a location in which you are. But that will be part of the pleasure of taking iOS 26 for a test test and seeing how exactly all these new features work.
