Still on iOS 18? Here’s why it’s finally time to upgrade to iOS 26

iOS 26 has been a controversial release, mainly due to the Liquid Glass UI spread across the entire system. While Apple has yet to share official numbers, third-party reports suggest adoption is significantly lower than usual.

If you’ve been avoiding iOS 26, you might want to reconsider. The operating system has already received several updates that fix early bugs, improve battery life, and give users more control over the aesthetics of Liquid Glass. Most importantly, it includes critical security fixes that you wouldn’t be able to apply otherwise.

Flexible liquid glass

People generally tend to be averse to change, especially when it affects their daily devices. While, arguably, there’s nothing inherently wrong with Liquid Glass’s appearance and behavior, there’s no denying that it can be a jarring experience at first. Luckily, your eyes eventually adapt and this should become your new normal in no time.

If you find Liquid Glass too transparent, you can adjust its opacity by going to Settings > Display and brightness > Liquid glass. You have the default Clear look that emphasizes new design language and an alternative Tinted option that adds more contrast to improve readability.

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Choose it Tinted However, this option will not completely kill the liquid glazing in the system. To further increase the opacity and contrast, you can go to Settings > Accessibility > Display and text sizeand switch Increase the contrast. This will give the glassy elements a more solid look that, to some extent, resembles iOS 18.

Stable performance and battery life

It is widely believed that new versions of iOS cause iPhone battery drain and slowdowns. While this may be true at first, it doesn’t tell the whole story. When you install a major version, your iPhone reindexes data and runs relevant processes in the background that consume battery power. However, these tasks usually end after a few days, after which your battery life will return to normal. So while you may notice atypical battery drain right after the update, it is rarely irreversible.

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That’s not to say that some people use their iPhone more than usual after a feature update to explore all the new additions and tools. This also contributes to power consumption and the perception of shorter battery life.

As for performance, it is also not expected to experience significant long-term success. Apple restricts power-hungry features that require fast processors to newer iPhones. This minimizes lag and ensures that older models running the latest OS version still run smoothly.

New features

Although Liquid Glass is the biggest introduction in iOS 26, the operating system update adds many other non-aesthetic features that improve the mobile computing experience. You have tools that answer the phone on your behalf, get answers from callers, translate live speeches, and filter spam. Messaging has also been improved with chat backgrounds, polls, inline translations, and more.

Beyond communication, you get favorite directions in Apple Maps, an all-new Games app that makes it easier to discover new songs and events in the app, AI-powered lyric translations and AutoMix transitions in Apple Music, and much more. By staying on iOS 18, you’re missing out on a ton of smart features that only increase with each new update.

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Upcoming Benefits of AI

If these upgrades don’t mean much to you, this one might. With the upcoming iOS 26.4 update, Apple would finally introduce Siri 2.0. The virtual assistant will use Google Gemini’s superior infrastructure to provide detailed information and perform tasks more reliably. It will also allow you to control supported first-party and third-party apps using your voice and effortlessly extract data from old conversations. Since the current Siri consistently struggles to process basic commands, you won’t want to ignore its most notable upgrade later this year.

Security fixes

Beyond user changes, iOS updates tend to fix security vulnerabilities that prevent hackers from accessing or monitoring your iPhone data. Historically, Apple released security patches to all users, including those sticking to an older version of the operating system. However, this is no longer the case.

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For example, iOS 18.7.3 was released exclusively on the iPhone XR, Keeping your iPhone running iOS 18 will prevent it from receiving certain security updates in a timely manner, making it more vulnerable to exploitation.

To update your iPhone to iOS 26, go to Settings > General > Software updateand hit it Update now button. Accept the terms of service after reading them and make sure your iPhone is connected to a power source until the installation is complete.