Apple has presented its new operating system for the iPhone. The new iOS version is not called iOS 19, but iOS 26, so that the software name is consistent with the upcoming year.
Other Apple operating systems, such as macOS, iPadOS, tvOS and WatchOS, will also receive version 26. This breaks with Apple’s numbering until now. Actually, the iPhone was due for iOS 19 as a successor to the current iOS 18, but the company is skipping a number of numbers.
In this way, the company aligns the versions of its operating systems, in order to avoid confusion between devices. The iPhone is currently running iOS 18, but the Apple Watch software, for example, is now at version 11.
For iOS 26 (and the operating systems of its other devices), Apple is also renewing the appearance of the software. The company calls the design Liquid Glass, which in short comes down to more transparency and depth with glass-like buttons. That visual language is applied in all apps.
Apple-AI in Dutch
In iOS 26, the Dutch language will be added to Apple Intelligence. That is Apple’s artificial intelligence, with which you can, for example, create your own emojis or enable writing assistance. Apple AI has been available in the Netherlands since April, but only if your iPhone is set to a supported preferred language, such as English. Which AI functions will be available in Dutch with iOS 26 exactly is still unclear.
There will also be an update for Visual Intelligence, with which the iPhone provides context via AI for what you see. That previously worked with the Camera app, for example by pointing your iPhone at a text to translate it.
From now on you can also ask for more information about what is shown on the iPhone screen itself, for example if you see someone wearing shoes on social media and you want to know which model it is. This option works with ChatGPT. Google has incidentally been working on a similar function on Android for some time, there it is called Circle to Search.
Apple’s new software will be released this fall. A specific date has not yet been mentioned, but updates for operating systems usually appear in September.