Transcription
Apple just released iOS 26, and there are more than 400 new features to explore. But in this video, I'm going to show you the 10 first features that you need to try out on your iPhone right away.
And it all starts with the lock screen and customizing your lock screen with a spatial scene. This is a new feature in iOS 26, and it works in the Photos app, but more importantly on the lock screen. It gives you this really cool kind of parallax 3D effect. As you move your phone, the photo moves with it. And the liquid glass time right there refracts with the background. And you can create a spatial scene out of any photo, but of course, it will work better when there's a subject like a person or a pet. Here's an example of it right here. And you will have to tap on this icon right here to enable the spatial scene. And you could see that everything moves. You could also move the timer, the clock behind it to kind of put it behind the subject. And it just looks so good.
And you might want to also try out moving your widgets down to the bottom as well. Even if you don't have a bigger clock, you can move your widgets down to the bottom of the screen if you prefer it down there instead of the top. So, customize your lock screen with a spatial scene and make sure you have a Lustra wallpaper on your home screen, which is my wallpaper pack built from the ground up for iOS 26 and liquid glass. You get more than 90 wallpapers, and they all look absolutely incredible with the liquid glass design. So, be sure to check that out. It's linked down in the description below.
The next thing you need to do on iOS 26 is try out the animated album artwork on the lock screen. So, you could see that when you have your regular lock screen wallpaper right here, if you tap on the music that you're playing, the artwork right there, it will show the animated album artwork now in full screen, and you can see the time and the date up top in a small new font now. So, this looks amazing on the lock screen, and you can even see it with the always-on display as well.
And staying with the music theme, you also need to try out Automix in Apple Music. So, what this does is it uses machine learning. As you can see, it says mixing, and it kind of mixes into the next song with this really cool animation as it transitions to the next song. It's essentially like a portable DJ in your pocket because what it does is it uses machine learning to detect when is the best time to end a song and transition it into the next, and also at what point into the next song. It's not just a simple crossfade. It uses machine learning to skip over certain parts to get into like the beat of the next song. And if you go into Settings and then go into your Music settings and go down, you will see that under Song Transitions, you want to make sure you have Automix enabled. And it says, "Songs transition at the perfect moment based on analysis of the key and tempo of the music."
Now, something fundamental has changed with iOS 26, and that has to do with screenshots because they are completely new now, and this is something you need to try pretty much right away and get familiar with. So, if you take a screenshot, you will see that now it is a full-page screenshot, and it basically allows you to mark up and edit that screenshot right here without having to tap on the thumbnail down in the bottom. However, if we go into our Settings and then into General and then down here to Screen Capture, this is a brand-new section now. So, I have a whole section in Settings now dedicated to screenshot options. So, if you want to go back to the way it was before, you could turn that off. And of course, it will show you the iOS 18 style where you just tap on it and then you can mark it up. However, if you have an Apple Intelligence device, we now have visual intelligence built in. So, it's almost more useful to have full-screen previews enabled now. That way, you could circle something to search because this is a new feature as well. So, if you find like a plant or a food or an animal that you're curious what it is, you could always just screenshot it, circle it, and then you could swipe up to see the results from Google, and it will show you what that is. But if it doesn't, you also have the option to ask ChatGPT. So, if you ask right here, you could ask a question asking about whatever you see on the screen, and it will give you an answer.
But also in this section, we have CarPlay screenshot. So, you can now disable CarPlay screenshots. So, if you take a screenshot on your phone while connected to CarPlay, it will not show you the screenshot of the CarPlay interface, just your iPhone. And then also, you can now shoot HDR screenshots. So, if you want super high-res screenshots, you can now change that from SDR to HDR. Oh, and something else you need to try out is the magnifier when you're going to mark up. So, you can see we have the loop right here, and that allows us to have a magnifying glass on our screenshots, which can be really useful in some situations.
Now, this one is pretty obvious, but I have to mention it, and that is getting familiar with the liquid glass design because everything has changed. The icons have changed. The Control Center has changed. Your notification center bubbles and all the UI elements throughout are now clear and they refract from the light in the back. Everything just looks different and fresh now, including if you go into your Settings and go into something that has toggles, you can see the liquid glass on the toggle right there along with the sliders. So, now when you slide something over, you can see it's much more fluid. The animations are so much more bouncy, and you get that little liquid feeling of that slider. And one of the best parts about this are the navigation bars at the bottom as you scroll over colorful backgrounds. So, you could see how the light just refracts off of it. It just looks so good, especially in the App Store. And of course, the clear, and of course, the classic when you pull down your notification center, you can see the icons and everything in the background kind of just melting. The way it just interacts with everything in the background is just quite amazing.
Oh, and you might also want to customize your home screen to have these clear icons. So, if you go into Customize, you can now choose between light and dark clear icons. These go really well with my Lustra wallpaper pack. So, of course, you will have like 90 wallpapers to choose from, but these will look really good on all of those wallpapers because it was built with liquid glass in mind. But, of course, if you don't like that, you could also do tinted icons or back to regular or dark icons.
Now, something else you need to explore right away is the battery section in Settings because this has gotten a massive revamp. And this is actually one of my favorite features in iOS 26 because it seems small, but it helps you understand your battery so much better. So, if you go into Settings and go into Battery, first off, up top, we have a big change where it shows your percentage right there along with the last time it was charged and at what time. And then under here, under Daily Usage, it gives you a lot more intel, a lot more information about how you're using your phone and how it compares to previous days or the previous week. You have your average, and it shows how above or below average you are for specific applications and activities. And if you go into View All Battery Usage, you can get really deep with this. So, if I go into Journal, for example, I could see a chart dedicated just to Journal, and I could see exactly how much time was spent on screen and in the background, and also, you know, over the past week, how much was I using Journal compared to today? And you can see this for the Home and Lock Screen as well, along with the always-on display. So, it gives you a lot of information and just really helps you better understand where your battery is actually going.
Now, also in this section, if we go down to the bottom, we have Power Mode. And we now have a brand-new Adaptive Power Mode along with a notification setting to turn on if you want to be notified when Adaptive Power turns on. So, it says, "When your battery usage is higher than usual, iPhone can extend your battery life by making performance adjustments such as lowering display brightness, allowing some activities to take longer, or turning on Low Power Mode at 20%." So, that is definitely something you should try out at least just to see if it helps you with your usage. Oh, and how can I forget? You also need to try out Battery Intelligence, which is when you go to the lock screen, it will now show you up top how long it takes until you reach your set percentage.
There's also a few features in the Phone application that you need to try out right away. So, number one is the overall redesign of the Phone app. So, everything is now unified. You could also pin your top contacts, your favorites up top for easy access to them. But most importantly, if you go to the Filter option over here on the right and then go to Manage Filtering, this will take you into your settings for the Phone app and it will take you right to the unknown callers call filtering. But also, if you go above that, we have Screen Unknown Callers. This is the feature that you need to try out right away. And I would recommend having this set to "Ask reason for calling." So, what this does is if somebody calls you from an unsaved number, if you don't have their contact information saved, it will ask them. It will use, you know, an automated voice to ask them why they're calling, and you will be able to see in real time as they are talking and what they're saying before you decide to pick up or not.
And the other big one you need to try out is Hold Assist Detection. So, make sure that is turned on. And this will automatically detect when you're placed on hold. So, you can step away from the phone and do something else. And your iPhone will then notify you when you're not going to be on hold anymore, for when it's time to pick up. And this is what that would look like. It gives you a green button down there that says "Pick Up" once it's ready.
Now, something else you need to do right away on iOS 26 is check out the Messages application and the big changes that we get in Messages. So, number one, we now have backgrounds or wallpapers on a per-conversation basis. And these can also be animated. So, if we go into the contact information, we have a new tab here called Backgrounds. So, this allows you to change the background to any of these, you know, preset ones right here where you can change between different styles, or you could create one with Image Playground using Apple Intelligence, or you could use a photo that's in your photo library. So, this one's pretty cool. This is an Apple Intelligence one. We'll go ahead and do that. And once you've created it, it will set this background as you can see right there. And it will give you some other options as well. And then when you select that and go back, you could see that that is now the background for that conversation. And this works in solo chats or in group chats.
And then also in group chats, you can create polls. So, if you go to the plus right there and then go to Polls, this is where you can choose a poll. If you want to ask people in the group chats a question and they answer in the poll, you can do that, and it will show the results in real time along with who voted, and you could also add a choice if you would like to. I would also just get familiar with the contact information page for the group chats where it shows everybody in the chats because this is also much better now. You could see your info here, your backgrounds, all the photos shared. It's now easier. It's more unified, and you can go side to side instead of just scrolling all the way down.
Now, also, you do have automatic translate in here. So, if you want to automatically translate messages from one language into another, you can do that right here. So, if I choose Spanish, for example, now it will automatically translate from Spanish to English. Or I can change that. So, if somebody sends me a message in Spanish, you can see this is what it looks like. It will now automatically translate it in that same little text block right there. And you could change it right here as well. If you want to stop it, or if you want it to only show it in English, not show the translation, you could do that as well.
Something else you should try out right away is Mix Emoji. So, if you go to your emoji keyboard and then go to Genmoji right here, we now have suggestions at the bottom, which include emojis. You can also tap right here if you want to choose any emoji. And check this out. We can combine different emojis to create one. So, we combine all four of these emojis. It's going to create a Mix Emoji that we could actually use in the chat. So, obviously not a great one right there, but I could tap on the check mark, and then I can send that to everybody as an actual emoji.
Here's something else I would try out right away. That is the camera redesign and also the Photos app redesign. So, the camera app is pretty easy to get familiar with, but it's definitely something you should try out because you can now kind of scroll at the bottom for the different modes right here, and you have a different look. It's a lot more simplistic now than it was before. But also up top, you could see that when you tap on like your ProRes, your, you know, frame rate and everything like that, it's all in its own little menu right now, instead of having to tap on it consecutively. You can also tap up here to see different options down below.
But even better, if you go into the camera settings right here and then you scroll down, we have a new section called Indicators where you can make the camera app look even more clean. So, if you don't use flash, for example, or if you don't use something else up there, you can now remove that. So, if we go into Indicators and then go to Flash and turn that off, and now we go back in here, you can see that flash is now missing from up top. So, it's a little bit cleaner. We can also turn off Live Photo. And there we go. Live Photo is now missing. And if we want to turn off Action Mode, that will now be missing. And now it's a lot cleaner up top.
And if you have a device with camera control, we have some changes in camera control that you might want to change. So, if you go into here and then go into Customize, this is where you can reorder and disable certain controls for the Control Center. So, definitely something to try out if you have a newer device with that button. Oh, and also in the camera settings, if you have a dirty camera lens and it's, you know, causing you to not get as good of images, there is a new setting now inside of our camera settings called Lens Cleaning Hints. So, what this does is it will give you a suggestion. It will bring down a little banner that says, "You might want to clean your lens," of course, to improve image quality of your photo or video.
You should also check out the Photos application pretty quickly after installing iOS 26, especially if you were somebody who did not like the design in iOS 18. And that's because now we have our Library at the bottom. But we also have a separate section now for Collections. So, instead of having to swipe down and continue going down, it was all kind of one page. Now we have two separate tabs where we have our Collections in a separate tab. And your Library will now always just show your latest photos. And that's it.
And then the final thing you need to try out right away with iOS 26 is going to be in Podcasts. So, I know it seems boring, but hear me out. So, Podcasts now has custom settings and also Enhanced Dialogue, which is something I use every single time I listen to a podcast now thanks to iOS 26. So, when you're in the now playing screen of a podcast and you tap on the playback speed, you now have more granular control over the playback. So, you can actually hold and swipe to get a custom, you know, playback speed based on the host and how they talk. But also up top, we now have Enhanced Dialogue, which helps enhance the dialogue. If there's background music, if there's other sounds, other people talking, it will make the narrator's voice just sound really clear and good. So, now when you have that set to the way that you would like, we now get a popup that says, "Save custom settings for this show." And I could tap on the plus right there. And you can see that now it says, "Using custom show settings." So, now every time I listen to a new episode of this podcast, it will remember my settings in terms of the playback speed and if I had Enhanced Dialogue on or off, and that will be the new default. And of course, you can reset to default right there as well if you want to reset that setting. And you can also access those settings from the main show page. So, if you tap on the three dots and then go into Settings and go all the way down to the bottom, that's where you can change the custom settings for this show, and if you want to revert back to default.
So, those are just 10 of the hundreds of features that you need to try out right away with iOS 26. So, if you want to see every single new feature and change in this update, check out my 450-plus new features movie on iOS 26. That video is linked up in the cards and down in the description below. Also, if you want to know the first settings that you need to change specifically, not just features, the first settings you need to change in iOS 26, that video will also be linked above and down in the description below. But nonetheless, I hope this video helped you get started off on the right foot with iOS 26 and it wasn't as overwhelming as my 2-hour video on iOS 26. So, if you guys enjoyed it, as always, give it a thumbs up. Also, make sure to subscribe for more iOS 26 videos. But anyways, guys, thanks for watching, and I'll see you.