Thus, Apple has just kept its annual WWDC conference where it announces all the new software for next year. And the company has proudly announced the next version of iOS for the iPhone, iOS 26. If you have an iPhone model more recent than XS, you can update iOS 26 for free later this year.
But the current version number of iOS is iOS 18. So what happened to iOS 19? Why did Apple go at 26 years?
The simple reason is that the version numbers of the operating system are based on marketing rather than hard science, and Apple can name its platforms what it wants.
Apple took this opportunity to align the version number of the iPhone operating system with the current calendar year. But the current year 2025, and is not 2026 not next year? Yes, but the lifespan of the new operating system will mainly lie in 2026. iOS 26 will be in beta of the developer this summer and will only be launched in public in September 2025.
IOS 26 will then be the current operating system until September 2026, when we assume that iOS 27 is ready. But that means that for nine of the twelve months of the life of iOS 26, it will be the 2026 operating system.
This is why Apple decided to number iOS after the figures for the coming year. For consistency, the company also moves all its other platforms to the numbering program 26. This means that they will all become:
- iOS 19 -> iOS 26
- iPados 19 -> iPados 26
- Watchos 11 -> Watchos 26
- MacOS 15 -> MacOS 26
- Visionos 3 -> Visionos 26
- TVOS 19 -> TVOS 26
This certainly facilitates everything to keep everything straight in your memory. The big question is whether Apple will follow and will rename the version of the iPhone model to also follow the calendar. Currently, we are on the iPhone 16 and the iPhone 17 range is coming this fall. Thus, Apple could call it the iPhone 26 rather than the iPhone 17.
But that seems less likely because the iphone brand is so dominant. Harmony with the software version is not enough for a justification to upset the name scheme of the iPhone. In addition, Apple likes to sell iPhones for several years.
While the versions of the operating system are obsolete annual and customers can update free, iPhone customers could buy the iPhone 2026 like nine three years later. For example, even if the iPhone 16 is the new current model, Apple always sells the iPhone 15 via its website and operators store the new inventory of iPhone 14 and iPhone 13, even.
Apple could unleash and make it the iPhone 26, but right now, the rating of odds is that it will continue to increment one and we will see the iPhone 17 officially execute iOS 26 in September.
