iOS Today 768: iOS 26 Overview
Host: Rosemary Orchard
Co-Host/Guest: Dan Moren (Six Colors)
Release Date: September 4, 2025
Main Theme:
A deep dive into iOS 26’s new interface, features, and user experiences, with a focus on key changes like the Liquid Glass UI, redesigned apps, improvements to Phone and Apple Wallet, music transitions, and the burgeoning role of AI in Shortcuts.
Episode Overview
In this episode, with Micah Sargent away camping, guest Dan Moren joins Rosemary Orchard for a lively exploration of iOS 26. The conversation centers on usability and adaptation to Apple’s sweeping UI changes, practical testing of new features, and predictions for upcoming Apple hardware. The hosts provide honest, hands-on feedback from their real-life usage—balancing praise, constructive criticism, and humor throughout.
1. Liquid Glass & UI Overhaul
Timestamps:
- [03:25] Introduction to Liquid Glass
- [04:28] App navigation challenges
- [05:52] Control Center changes
Key Points:
- Liquid Glass represents a significant visual shift—dynamic, semi-transparent, with animated widgets and moving reflections.
- Legibility and navigation have suffered in some places, especially during app updates, as routines are disrupted.
- Control Center has become more "frosted" for improved readability and more dynamic with gesture-based effects.
Memorable Quotes:
- Dan: “It’s kind of all over the place… I think there are still some issues in places with things like legibility… Sometimes more when you want the buttons to fade into the background as opposed to be like, ‘hey, look at this button that just changed up here.’” [03:25]
- Rosemary: “As apps update, I have lost my ability to navigate by just gut instinct.” [04:28]
2. App Redesigns & Usability
Safari
[06:44]
- Safari now features a three-dot menu in the corner, with key controls (like Share) tucked away, confusing experienced users.
- Users can revert to a bottom-tab layout for familiarity and efficiency.
- Long-presses on different UI elements yield different options; the new layout gives more screen space for browsing but can impede quick access.
Quotes:
- Rosemary: “For about a week after I first installed the beta I felt like my phone is broken whenever I open Safari.” [06:44]
- Dan: “If you press and hold on the URL bar in that compact mode, there is also a share button under there. Why it’s in both places I don’t know. It’s very weird…” [08:47]
Camera
[10:04]
- Portrait Mode is less accessible; hosts repeatedly swipe the wrong way.
- UI has been simplified for the majority, with fast-access options making photography easier for casual users.
- Third-party camera apps remain recommended for more advanced needs.
Quotes:
- Rosemary: “The one thing that I open camera for and go to frequently is portrait mode. And the one thing that is not displayed in this new wonderful UI is portrait mode by default… I keep swiping in the wrong direction…” [10:04]
- Dan: “…It’d be nice if they let you pin maybe another mode or two…But I appreciate that it’s less complicated. I think most people will be pretty happy with it.” [11:35]
3. Phone Call Improvements
[12:31]
- Call Screening: Automatically lets unknown callers explain themselves; helps screen out spam but can sometimes be awkward for legitimate calls.
- Hold Assist: Lets the system hold for you until a real person answers; works well with Apple support, less so with repetitive hold messages.
Quotes:
- Rosemary: “My doctor surgery likes to call me from unknown number… I can’t just blindly turn off block phone calls from unknown contacts… But I don’t want spam calls, and call screening… have genuinely been really useful…” [12:31]
- Dan: “Apple claims that they can dynamically figure out whether it’s a person or not. I’ve yet to see that actually true in my testing. I love the idea... but it’s got to work, otherwise people will just get frustrated.” [13:10]
- Rosemary: “I find it quite entertaining when it tricks the robot callers… to start doing their spiel.” [14:30]
4. Apple Wallet Package Tracking
[17:10]
- Packages can now be auto-detected from Mail and tracked in Apple Wallet.
- Updates sometimes lag behind third-party apps (e.g., Parcel).
- The system can be overly aggressive, picking up in-store pickups or other transactions as deliveries.
Quotes:
- Dan: “I ordered like a cake for my kid’s birthday back in July and it has it in there as like a delivery… I have definitely ordered a new shoulder bag and like, that immediately got like, put in and it showed me the order there…” [17:57]
5. Music: Auto Mix and Song Transitions
[19:42]
- Auto Mix aims to DJ your tracks, but is overly aggressive—sometimes skipping large portions of songs and creating jarring transitions.
- No on-the-fly toggle in CarPlay; users forced to stop to adjust in settings.
- Works best for playlists with consistent genres.
Quotes:
- Rosemary: “I was losing up to 60 or even one case, 90 seconds of a track… I mostly listen to music in the car… I pulled over… and found the setting…” [21:00]
- Dan: “It’s a weird feature. It’s overly aggressive at times… I recognize songs and I have expectations for that… I kept catching that when… it’s like changing tempo a little bit, like it’s like…” [21:55]
- Dan: “I have a playlist for my kid that has everything from like kids songs to like Queen and classic rock songs or Crazy Train… it is whiplash at times to go from some of these to the others. And… trying to mix them together is perhaps a bridge too far.” [24:28]
6. Apple Event Predictions & Hardware Rumors
[25:57]
- New iPhones expected, possibly in four: regular, plus, pro, and pro max. Speculation about a new thin “Air” model.
- Possibility of new AirTags (better tracking, sound, battery), Apple Watch Series 11/Ultra 3 (minor improvements), and AirPods Pro 3 (potential for health sensors and live translation).
Quotes:
- Dan: “There’s some discussion that maybe the ultra wide band would be taken up a notch… may be able to enhance the battery in some life… improving the speaker just to help prevent with some of those anti stalking measures…” [29:18]
- Dan: “We expect to possibly see AirPods Pro 3… There have been some rumors of health sensors…or live translation feature…” [31:03]
- Rosemary: “A label maker is honestly genuinely one of those things that makes life a lot better…” [44:13]
7. Shortcuts’ New AI Model Actions
[35:53]
- Shortcuts app now supports three on-tap AI models: on-device, Apple private cloud, and ChatGPT.
- Useful for extracting structured info (e.g., from receipts), summarizing documents, or pattern matching.
- Less good at creative writing; hosts demonstrate with underwhelming haiku.
Quotes:
- Dan: “I built a rather long and complex shortcut that can take a PDF… and [an AI model can] find me this information: how much did it cost, who was the vendor, what was the date…” [36:09]
- Rosemary (joking about AI’s literary chops): “The haiku it gave me is: mic in hand, I talk; echoes of my random thoughts; listeners. Yawn. Nap.” [40:31]
8. App Cap Recs (Picks of the Week)
[41:50]
- Dan: Tribit Stormbox Micro 2 (portable Bluetooth speaker): “It has surprisingly great sound for something that’s only about this yay big… battery life is much better than the [Sonos] Roam’s… can be power paired to more than one device at once.” [43:15]
- Rosemary: Fomeo D30 Label Maker: “A label maker is… genuinely one of those things that makes life a lot better. I am going on a camping trip this weekend… I’m taking my label maker with me because anything that is in my camping kit, I’m just going to write a little label, stick it on the outside of the box…” [44:13]
Notable Tone & Moments
- The episode is relaxed, playful, and deeply practical—never shying from calling out annoyances.
- Rosemary and Dan both offer “real user” perspectives, anchoring technical changes in lived experience, especially around navigation and feature discoverability.
- There are multiple moments of wry humor regarding Apple’s sometimes-overzealous feature rollouts, the quirks of AI, and the unpredictability of cross-genre auto-mix.
Humorous Aside:
- Dan: “I have a playlist for my kid that has everything from like kids songs to like Queen… and like classic rock… it is whiplash at times…” [24:28]
- Rosemary, on label makers: “There is a label on the back of my label maker which tells me what this label maker is and which app it uses…” [44:13]
Conclusion
Rosemary and Dan provide a fun yet in-depth look at iOS 26 from both a personal and technical perspective. They navigate the new UI, adaptation curve for users, the promise and pitfalls of Apple’s AI integration, and the quirks of evolving default apps like Safari and Camera. The episode concludes on a practical note with useful product recommendations—and plenty of laughs along the way.
For more:
- Dan Moren (Six Colors, books, podcasts)
- Rosemary Orchard (apps, books, podcasts)
- Catch iOS Today live every Tuesday at 9am PT, or download on Thursdays via TWiT.
This summary intentionally skips ads, the introduction/outro, and non-content segments to focus exclusively on the episode’s core discussion and major insights.