The First Eight Settings to Change After Installing IOS 26
Apple’s iOS 26 is out today, and with it comes a bunch of little changes and improvements to how your iPhone works. The catch? Many of them are optional, so you’ll need to enable them before you can reap the benefits. Here are the settings you should enable after updating your iPhone to the latest version of Apple’s operating system. Note that some of these require an iPhone 15 Pro or later because they rely on Apple Intelligence.
Adaptive Battery Mode
If you’re like me, you can never decide whether to put your phone into low power mode. If you have an iPhone 15 Pro or newer, your iPhone can make the decision for you.
Apple’s new Adaptive Power mode uses Apple Intelligence to intelligently detect when your battery is draining more than usual, and makes small adjustments to bring it back under control. These might include dimming your display slightly or slowing down less important tasks, like those running in the background or those that are particularly intensive. Then, once your phone has been running steadily for a while, it will begin to bring things back to normal. Think of it as a less aggressive “low power” mode that only affects certain processes and can make adjustments based on more than just your phone’s remaining charge. To try it out, just go to Settings > Battery > Power mode . Just be sure to turn it off if you find that the tradeoffs aren’t worth the extra battery life.
Enable call filtering
To be honest, I almost never answer calls. Instead, I usually choose to wait until the call ends and then call back if it’s someone I know or if the message is important enough. This usually works fine for me, but I admit that sometimes I feel a little guilty about leaving callers in the lurch, especially if it turns out they had a good reason for calling me. That’s where Apple’s new Call Screening feature comes in.
This doesn’t require Apple Intelligence, so it will work on any iPhone running iOS 26. Just open Settings , then under Apps, tap Phone and look for the Filter Unknown Numbers option.
You’ll have three options. The Never option will work the same as before: calls will ring for a while before going to the Recents list. But now you have two additional options.
First up is Silence , which turns off the ringer for calls from unsaved numbers, forwards them to voicemail, and shows them in your recents list. Basically, this just saves you from having to wait for the caller to stop answering before you can figure out what they wanted.
But an even more interesting addition is the “Ask Why Call” feature. Select it, and your iPhone will accept calls from unsaved numbers, then ask the caller a few questions about the reason for the call. You’ll see a transcript of their answers on the screen, and can decide whether you want to answer.
It’s a neat trick, and it should make me feel a little more at ease with anyone trying to reach me on the phone. Honestly, I wish it worked in Contacts, too, but I can see why my family might not want to call me and get a robot secretary.
Try new ringtones
In iOS 26, Apple added a bunch of new default ringtones. Six of them are variations on the classic “Reflection” ringtone, but there’s also a new one called “Little Bird.” You can find them all in Settings > Sound & Haptics > Ringtone, or check out the built-in ringtones below to listen to them for yourself.
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Personally, I think “Bouyant” is my favorite, though my colleague Jake Peterson likes “Dreamer” the best . I’ll probably stick with my own ringtone, but if you don’t want to manually upload a ringtone, you now have more choices than ever.
Fix Liquid Glass
This next point is technically about disabling the feature, not enabling it, but I couldn’t ignore it. In iOS 26, Apple has redesigned its design to emphasize transparency, and not everyone is a fan of it. If you remember the transparent borders that Microsoft added to app windows in Windows Vista, this is very similar, but more aggressive. Essentially, instead of a solid background, many buttons and overlays will now appear transparent, allowing a blurry view of what’s underneath.
Luckily, there’s an existing accessibility control that essentially reverts your iPhone back to its former state . Just go to Settings > Accessibility > Screen & Text Size , then turn on Reduce Transparency . This will return the solid background to the entire iPhone, as you can see here . Notice how the play button no longer skips over the blurry album art? If you prefer a flatter, more contrasty look, this might be for you.
Custom Backgrounds in iMessage
This is just plain fun. You can now set custom backgrounds for conversations and group chats in iMessage for each chat. There are presets like Water and Sky , but you can also choose solid colors, a photo from your library, or, if you have an iPhone 15 Pro or later, create a background using Apple Intelligence.
To get started, open a chat, click its name at the top of the page, then select Backgrounds .
Note that the background you choose will be visible to everyone in the chat, but if you don’t like the background someone else has set, you don’t have to put up with it. Go to Settings > Apps > Messages and toggle Chat Background off to disable it.
News Alert Summary
If you have an iPhone 15 Pro or later, Apple is bringing back a previously removed feature in iOS 26: notification summaries for news and entertainment apps.
They initially appeared in the iOS 18.3 beta , but were quickly removed after Apple’s AI distorted some major BBC headlines, including one about United Healthcare shooting suspect Luigi Mangione.
Now Apple is confident enough to bring back those notification summaries, albeit with a new warning that reads, “Summaries may change the meaning of original headlines. Check the information.” If you’re okay with that, according to my colleagues at CNET , you don’t have to do much to enable them. Apple will actually greet you with a splash screen once you download the iOS 26 update that asks your preference for which apps get notification summaries. You’ll have three options, and you can choose as many as you like. All Other Apps will roll up notifications from non-social apps like Maps, while Communication & Social will add notification summaries for apps like TikTok and Mail. Those were already available. What’s new (again) is a News & Entertainment option that will add notification summaries for apps including the BBC or Netflix.
Just make your choice and you’re good to go. If you change your mind, you can customize your summaries in Settings > Notifications > Notification Summary . You can also customize notification summaries for each app here, something that’s not available on the splash screen since iOS 26.
Get Clear Icons in iOS 26
Let’s say you like Liquid Glass, but you don’t think it’s effective enough. In that case, maybe you should make the icons transparent so that the background shows through. I promise I won’t judge you.
To make app icons transparent in iOS 26, simply long-press the home screen background until the app icons start to jiggle. Then tap Edit in the top-left corner, then Customize . Then select Clear . You can also choose Clear Light or Clear Dark , with Dark mode giving a more muted look.
This will give your app icons a frosted glass look, similar to the new clock on the lock screen in iOS 26. Whatever you want.
(If you’re like me, you might be more excited about the new Tinted Light Mode option, which finally lets you set a custom color for your app icon graphics, along with a bright background. You can find it under the Tinted option next to the Clear option when choosing your app icon’s appearance.)
New ways to customize your lock screen
iOS 26 gives you more control over the look of your locked phone than ever before. To get started, lock your phone, then press the Power button, touch and hold the Lock screen, and select Customize .
First, you can now resize the clock by dragging one of its corners and pulling down, although this will only work with certain fonts.
Secondly, you can now have a widget block at the bottom of your lock screen, and you can also add an Apple Music search widget there if you want. When you start playing a track, you’ll notice that a large Now Playing interface appears with the album art.
Finally, there’s support for spatial scenes. When selecting a photo wallpaper, you can now tap the small mountain and sun icon to separate the subject from the background. Now, when you move your iPhone, the subject will move with it, standing out from the background. The clock can also move to fill the space in the photo, including slightly behind the subject, creating the illusion of depth. In addition, widgets can automatically move to the bottom of the screen if they’re located elsewhere to better frame the subject.
Other settings you can enable
There’s plenty more you can do to make iOS 26 truly yours. If the changes above aren’t enough, here are 36 more tweaks to help you get the most out of your iPhone’s new operating system.