Tag: Featured

Apple released the second beta of iOS 26.1 and iPadOS 26.1, introducing useful changes to alarms, multitasking on the iPad, and more. There are also subtle tweaks to some of the Liquid Glass design elements as Apple continues to refine iOS 26.

Alarms and Timers

Alarms set using the Clock app now have a slide to stop button rather than a tap to stop button on the Lock Screen. To snooze an alarm, you can tap, but to turn it off from the Lock Screen, you need to use a slide gesture.

The change makes it much harder to dismiss an alarm when you’re trying to tap on the snooze button. Slide to Stop is also used for timers.

Background Security Improvements

The Privacy and Security section of the Settings app now has a toggle to automatically download and install security improvements. It’s a revamp of the prior Rapid Security Responses feature.

Fitness App

You can now create custom workouts in the Fitness app on iPhone. There are options for selecting workout type, estimated Active Calories, effort, duration, and start time.

Settings App

Apple changed the alignment of icons and text in the Settings app. All settings with headers that feature text now have that text aligned to the left instead of center aligned.

This includes General, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Cellular, Personal Hotspot, Accessibility, and more.

Display Settings

The Display section of the Settings app now has iOS 26-themed wallpaper instead of iOS 18 wallpaper.

Home Screen Folders

When you tap into a folder on the Home Screen, the name of the folder at the top is left aligned instead of center aligned.

iPadOS 26.1 Slide Over

With iPadOS 26.1 beta 2, Apple reintroduced Slide Over. Slide Over works alongside the window-based iPadOS 26 multitasking functionality, so you can have multiple windows open and still swipe over to quickly access a Slide Over app.

You can only have one Slide Over app at a time in iPadOS 26.1, and you can use the feature by tapping on the green window resizing button and
toggling on Enter Slide Over.

External Microphones on iPad

There’s now an option to adjust input gain on the ‌iPad‌ when using an external microphone.

Liquid Glass

The light refraction effect around apps is now more subtle with darker icon colors and background colors.

Wallpaper

When setting a wallpaper on the Lock Screen, instructions like Pinch to Crop show up momentarily and then disappear, rather than being shown all the time.

Display Accessibility

Under the Display and Text Size section in the Accessibility settings, there is a new “Display Borders” toggle. It adds a border to all buttons, and replaces the prior “Button Shapes” setting.

Calendar

The Calendar app change that showed events with a full color background in iOS 26.1 beta 1 has been removed.

Photos App

The interface for managing multiple photos that you’ve selected has been tweaked slightly. Play as Slideshow, Favorite, and Hide are now at the top of the menu.

More Features

Know of something new in iOS 26.1 that we missed? Let us know in the comments below.

Apple has made several updates to the Apple Music app in iOS 26, and it has AutoMix, which has become one of the most popular additions. ‌Apple Music‌ also features the Liquid Glass redesign like the rest of Apple’s apps, along with new translation features and other quality of life improvements.

AutoMix

AutoMix is an upgrade to the crossfade feature in ‌Apple Music‌, and it is designed to provide more seamless song transitions. It transitions from one song to another as the song that’s playing ends, using time stretching and beat matching for an undetectable shift.

Apple says that AutoMix is meant to work like a DJ, with songs transitioning at the “perfect moment” based on an on-device analysis of the key and tempo of the music.

AutoMix can be enabled when opening up the ‌Apple Music‌ app for the first time after installing ‌iOS 26‌.

The feature isn’t perfect and it works better with some genres than others, but it is a work in progress that Apple is improving over time. AutoMix is not an Apple Intelligence feature, but it does require an ‌Apple Music‌ subscription.

Lyric Translation

If you’re listening to a song in a different language, you can now open up the lyrics and get a real-time translation so you know what it’s about. The translated lyrics are displayed alongside the original lyrics.

Lyric Pronunciation

For songs in another language, you can also get a phonetic pronunciation guide for singing them aloud, which is useful when taking advantage of the ‌Apple Music‌ Sing karaoke feature.

Pinned Favorites

There’s now an option to pin up to six playlists, albums, artists, or songs to the top of the ‌Apple Music‌ library.

Playlist Folders

Playlists can be organized into folders in the iOS ‌Apple Music‌ app, a feature that has previously been limited to the Mac.

There are new Home Screen widgets that show your pinned ‌Apple Music‌ content. There’s a medium-sized widget and a larger widget for pins, along with a new large Live Radio widget.

Animated Lock Screen Artwork

The Lock Screen now features full-screen animated art for the Now Playing widget while music is playing.

Karaoke Microphone

tvOS 26 and ‌iOS 26‌ turn the iPhone into a wireless microphone for karaoke on the Apple TV. When using ‌Apple Music‌ Sing, each participant can sing through their ‌iPhone‌, queue songs up, and send emoji reactions.

Read More

More on the features that are available in ‌iOS 26‌ can be found in our iOS 26 roundup. ‌iOS 26‌ will launch in September.

The Apple Maps app in iOS 26 includes some useful new features for keeping track of where you’ve been and getting alerts if there are any delays that will impact your daily commute. In this guide, we’ve rounded up a list of everything new with Maps.

Visited Places

‌Apple Maps‌ is able to keep track of the places that you’ve visited, either in your hometown or while traveling. It can track the restaurants, shops, parks, and landmarks that you go to, so you can look back and remember where you’ve been.

Google has long offered a timeline that automatically saves visits to places, and Apple’s new Visited Places option matches the functionality available in the Google Maps Timeline.

After you upgrade to ‌iOS 26‌, the Maps app pops up an alert letting you know about the new feature, so that you can opt in or opt out.

You can see your Visited Places by opening up the Maps app, tapping on your profile picture, tapping on Places, and then tapping into Visited Places. In this interface, the locations that you’ve visited are listed by month, plus there’s a search option.

There are options to change how long visits are kept (three months, one year, and forever), and to clear your current history. You can also remove locations one-by-one by tapping on them, and report incorrect location readings. When you clear your history, ‌Apple Maps‌ pops up an option that lets you clear everything or clear everything and turn off Visited Places entirely.

If you want to turn Visited Places off or enable it at a later date, you can do so by going to Settings > Apps > Maps > Location. From there, toggle off Visited Places. You can also access the toggle by going to Privacy and Security > Location Services > Maps.

Precise Location needs to be toggled on for Visited Places to work, and places that you’ve been are stored on-device. The information is not uploaded to Apple’s servers.

Preferred Routes

Using on-device intelligence, ‌Apple Maps‌ is able to learn the routes that you prefer to take to locations that you visit frequently, such as work, home, and school, and it keeps track of when you typically visit those places.

If there’s a road closure or traffic that’s going to impact your commute, the Maps app is able to alert you about the issue and offer up an alternative route so you can get there on time.

A Maps Suggestions Home Screen widget shows the same information if there are any route issues. This is an under-the-hood feature that only shows up when it’s needed, so if you have a short commute that doesn’t involve roads that frequently see traffic, you might not have it pop up.

You can turn it on or off by going to Settings > Maps > Location and toggling off the “Preferred Routes and Predicted Destinations” setting.

Liquid Glass Redesign

The Maps app has adopted Apple’s Liquid Glass redesign, and it brings some subtle interface changes. The search bar and navigation menu are translucent so you can see some of the Maps background behind it, and place icons are larger than before.

Icons have the layered glass look, and the various menus, cards, and buttons are more rounded than before. The Share Sheet has a popover design and it too is transparent.

The Library tab that was accessible when you tap your profile picture is now called Places, and it has improved spacing and a new Visited Places section.

Turn-by-turn directions are in a smaller pop-up bar rather than taking up the top of the Maps display, and time of arrival, length of travel, and distance are shown more prominently.

Voice Controls

The Voice Volume section in the Maps app is now Voice Controls, and there are added toggles for Muted, Alerts Only, or Unmuted so adjusting how turn-by-turn directions are communicated is more intuitive.

These controls did exist in iOS 18, but only as toggles that had no explanation on the right side of the display when turn-by-turn directions are in progress.

Place Information

When you tap into or type a location on the Maps app, the Call, Menu, and Website buttons are now more prominently listed at the top of the interface, as are the location’s hours and the order option if one is available. There’s now a floating button to get directions to a place, and it’s always available at the bottom right of the app.

Improved Incident Reports

It’s easier to report an incident like a crash with a new incident button that’s located on the right side of the iPhone when getting turn-by-turn directions, and more incident types have been added.

You can report a crash, speed check, traffic, roadwork, hazard, or road closure. In ‌iOS 18‌, options are limited to crash, speed check, and hazard.

Read More

We have a dedicated iOS 26 roundup that goes into detail on all of the new features that are available in the update.