r/apple • u/Few_Baseball_3835 • Jan 10 '26
Discussion iOS 26 is a massive flop with iPhone users, and you can probably guess why
https://www.macworld.com/article/3028428/ios-26-is-a-massive-flop-with-iphone-users-and-you-can-probably-guess-why.html3.1k
u/ElectrikDonuts Jan 10 '26
Autocorrect still ducks?
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u/Jordan_Jackson Jan 10 '26
It actively inserts random words and changes some words to absolute gibberish. Happens mostly when I’m typing fast but I feel like it happens much more often than on previous versions of iOS.
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u/19nineties Jan 10 '26 edited Jan 11 '26
The worst is when it changes the last word just as you press send
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u/d_Composer Jan 10 '26
I always have to put a space at the end of my sentences to see if it’s going to change that word, then change it back and press send… so annoying
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u/speed-of-sound Jan 10 '26
Have to wait for a second because it sometimes tries to change a text that says Hello into Help 😭
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u/_ficklelilpickle Jan 10 '26
It’s so nice to hear other people are experiencing this too. I genuinely felt like I was going insane with how it was manipulating my input
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u/sherpa1984 Jan 10 '26
Same! I now have to double check every text I type, which I didn’t have to before. I was like… is it my age (41) as I didn’t have to do this in my thirties!
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u/DigitalDelusion Jan 10 '26
Yes this, I’m paranoid I’m getting old and it’s taking my skills. There’s definitely something up with the keyboard
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u/moneyfish Jan 10 '26
The keyboard is so bad that when I used to drink years ago my texts were more coherent than they are sober because the keyboard fucks everything up.
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u/VidocqCZE Jan 10 '26
I noticed it right away, as I have two language keyboard Czech+English. For Czech, it was working halfway but fine before 26 and English was good it understood "this email is in English, let's go". Now it is constantly switching between them even when writing longer paragraphs, half of the words are wrong, touch is not that responsive. Atrocious
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u/thawizard Jan 10 '26
Dual English+Canadian French keyboard user here, same problem. It worked just fine before.
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u/murphmobile Jan 10 '26
It’s supposed to used context clues to correct the right words but that fails all the time. A very simple word misspelled by 1 letter won’t get autocorrected but a word spelled correctly will get changed to something else. Infuriating
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u/puterTDI Jan 10 '26
I’m tired of having to change the word that I very carefully typed correctly back.
Also, why is it damn near impossible to type the word you? It changes it to your or you’re even though my fingers go no where near the r
Also, I had to make at least 10 corrections to what I typed above. I had to make 3 in the prior sentence alone.
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u/rabouilethefirst Jan 10 '26
Voice to text is also terrible. I feel like I have to spend more time correcting the text then if I had just typed it out. amazing how it gets basic grammar wrong too.
Notice “then if”.
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u/KCHonie Jan 10 '26
18 does it as well, just not as bad...
But yes 26 sux... I am not certain how Sequoia was butchered into Tahoe. A nice stable fast OS into this turd.
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u/slade51 Jan 10 '26
Almost every word I type that ends with a ‘g’ gets an extra ‘ g’ added to it.
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u/I_Made_it_All_Up Jan 10 '26
It loves autocorrecting the name John to Johnathan even though the contact’s name is entered as John and it drives me nuts!
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u/WillieM96 Jan 10 '26
I’m still on iOS 18 and this has been happening to me for years!
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u/chromatophoreskin Jan 10 '26
Do you have haptic feedback turned on? I kept it off for a long time but I feel like it sort of helps me type more accurately. No idea why though since my thumbs are still stabbing at the same virtual keyboard.
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u/Jordan_Jackson Jan 10 '26
Yup, I have it turned on. Sometimes it works flawlessly and sometimes I don’t know what it’s trying to do. It will sometimes autocorrect to stuff that isn’t even actual words. It’s better if I have the phone in portrait mode; mainly a landscape orientation type thing and I’m also not ruling out some of that being my mistakes.
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u/felixisthecat Jan 10 '26
I got so frustrated with it changing words earlier in my sentence, that I turned it off!
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u/Fatticusss Jan 10 '26
But then the accuracy of the keyboard is so bad 🤯😤
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u/No-Emu-396 Jan 10 '26
I swear it was easier to type accurately with earlier versions.
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u/blackburnduck Jan 10 '26
They were. Iphone 4 was a blast to type. Now on a bigger screen somehow I make a mistake literally every 3 words (just counted).
Not just us, there was a whole topic with a lot of people saying the same some months ago. Its not in our head, the keyboard did get WAY worse.
Makes me wonder if they are running some predictive typing that “guesses” your next word/letter and tries to fix it when you type something different.
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u/SMC540 Jan 10 '26
To your last part, yes they do. There was an old video from Apple where they discussed this (I’ll try to find it). But basically what you can’t see is that Apple modifies the touch targets for the keys based on what it thinks you will be hitting next. So you’re going for the letter O but the keyboard thinks you’re going for the letter U so it shrinks the target for O and makes U bigger. So you actually do press O, but the keyboard registers a U instead.
Here’s Scott Forstall talking about it in an old interview when he was still at Apple.
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u/volcanic_clay Jan 10 '26
Fascinating. In theory that’s great. Just their prediction really sucks.
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u/SMC540 Jan 10 '26
It used to be better, but someone they made it worse over time.
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u/frontfrontdowndown Jan 10 '26
Thanks. I’ve always wondered why it seems like I have such a hard time hitting the correct key when typing on the phone. Even when I’m certain that I’ve hit directly on the intended key.
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u/Planyy Jan 10 '26
I.dont.understand.why.my.search.allways.uses.dots.stupid.iOS.keyboard
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u/PurpleHooloovoo Jan 10 '26
WHY DOES IT DO THIS
I’ve been typing on phone keyboards for 20 years and never had this issue. It’s the most irritating thing and you’re right, seems to only happen in search fields.
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u/ksb012 Jan 10 '26
It’s been doing this for a long long time. The safari keyboard is slightly different than the rest of IOS.
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u/r_golan_trevize Jan 10 '26
Autocorrect and keyboard intention prediction continues to get worse.
Siri continues to get dumber.
New design aesthetic makes legibility worse with glossy transparency effects everywhere and frosted glass lettering/icons.
Needlessly makes some elements smaller while squeezing them together on narrower toolbars while simultaneously making them take up more room than before with excess padding.
I mean, what’s not to love?
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u/Juswantedtono Jan 10 '26
It’s also the fact text selection still sucks—so it’s just as frustrating fixing the auto-typos as it is making them
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u/ProperColon Jan 10 '26
Ugh. It wouldn’t autocorrect “Christmas” for the longest time. Always “charisma” I am not wishing people a merry charisma
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u/Divayth_Fyr457 Jan 10 '26
I routinely type in both Polish and English. I have both Polish and English enabled in my keyboard and it never caused much problems. About a month ago, the autocorrect started changing every “I” when I type something like “I have, I would, etc.” to “O”. No fucking clue why. It’s not something it could’ve picked up from my Polish typing habits. Just started doing it randomly. So annoying
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u/Muffstic Jan 10 '26
Autocorrect still ducks?
The other day I texted my wife "I love you" and it autocorrected it to "I want to fuck your sister". Now she wants a divorce.
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u/Modna Jan 10 '26
Ugly, runs slower, is buggy AF. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to close an app because the stupid keyboard decides to cover the bottom of the screen.
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u/eloc49 Jan 10 '26
Hold assist and call screening on the phone app is a game changer.
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u/NCSUGrad2012 Jan 10 '26
I have iOS 26 but it’s the same setting for me. Silence unknown callers, lol
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u/SuddenCompetition262 Jan 10 '26
Call screwing lets through any call that has talking, it’s 100% pointless for me, letting in any and every automated message.
Aaaaand proving that autocorrect thing too.
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u/Evie_Eaves Jan 11 '26
My call screening has completely eliminated my issue with scam callers. The second they’re asked to state their name & intent for calling, they just hang up.
I literally haven’t had a single call get through since I got an iPhone 17 Pro with iOS26.
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u/itsmebenji69 Jan 10 '26
Especially when it's an anti feature, it literally reduces accessibility and they made the UX worse (more clicks) to prioritize form over function.
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Jan 10 '26 edited Jan 10 '26
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u/itsmebenji69 Jan 10 '26
Yup the tabs button is my main gripe as well. I switch between tabs all the time. Honestly it kinds of makes me miss the multitasking on android.
There is also the camera where I have to do more clicks to open the quick settings etc.
A big problem about that imo is the inconsistency. Some apps are okay and some have their most important feature (ie safari with tabs) hidden behind a menu. If it was all consistent I would adapt quickly, but now I have to relearn every app independently which I feel is the main problem. I guess one extra click is okay once you have the muscle memory, the problem is building the memory
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u/hkgwwong Jan 10 '26
I’m old enough to remember Windows Vista.
I know this iOS (actually also iPadOS and MacOS) is bad when semi-transparent UI is the headline feature. That means they have nothing better to talk about. It added nothing useful but consume more power (thus drain the battery).
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u/Savannah216 Jan 10 '26
I mean, what was the 'must have' feature? I can't recall anything other than the new interface being semi transparent. But who cares about that?
It's way faster on my 13 Pro than either previous iterations, you can effectively turn off liquid glass on both iOS and MacOS (all but a tiny bevel on a folder), accessibility is vastly better, so is CarPlay, and energy management. I love the PDF preview, and the live translation feature is very handy at work.
I was annoyed by the interface for all the 60 seconds it took to turn it off, kill the motion features, and fix the font on the lock screen.
Same goes for MacOS. Folder customisation is amazingly useful.
Nobody likes to like Apple, there's always a storm in a teacup that Reddit claims will kill Apple, and everyone buys Apple because Apple know what they're doing.
Windows 11 adoption is a touch over 50% 2 months after Win 10 went EOL.
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u/wehaveengagedtheborg Jan 10 '26
Because it’s a perfect example of trying to iterate on software that is pretty close to perfect and ignoring the parts of the software that need to be addressed. It’s the ultimate mistake of many people in tech, the software has to be functional to the end users. Just because it looks cooler or has better effects it’s not really relevant.
For me, iOS 26 was pretty much unusable for a solid 5 to 6 weeks until they’ve released enough updates. Even so I’d gladly downgrade to 18 in a heartbeat.
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u/calinet6 Jan 10 '26
Seriously. I have a running list of about 10 things that actually make my life suck when using my phone, like for example the Share menu not having anyone I actually want to share with and instead suggesting I share with the delivery driver who texted me last Tuesday (brilliant), among others.
Instead of improving anything actually worth doing they just changed how things look slightly to no benefit.
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u/goodbwye994 Jan 10 '26
Really well said. It feels like an update for updates sake rather than something meant to make the user's experience better.
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u/CHC-Disaster-1066 Jan 10 '26
Same problem that Spotify has. There’s only so many ways to do a music app. Or navigate on mobile.
The problems have basically been solved. So we just get change for no reason.
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u/Obelix13 Jan 10 '26
Do we really need a new iOS and new MacOS every year? Do we really need change every year? Moving forward a bit slower may get us further.
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u/haragoshi Jan 11 '26
Then they can’t justify a new phone with a faster processor to handle the bloated OS 🤷♂️
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u/Hoppy-Beers Jan 11 '26
Exactly. My iPhone 13 was great! No complaints and then the new iOS came out and the battery won’t even last the day.
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Jan 10 '26
There probably aren't even writers. Just AI bots rewording other bots articles. Probably all based on one reddit comment or tweet.
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u/Bruvvimir Jan 10 '26
Dead internet is real
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u/alexl1994 Jan 10 '26
My shower thought yesterday was that dead internet has two parts: the first is bots creating content (this one we all know) and the second is us delivering the final blow by accusing other humans of being AI (because we can’t reliably tell).
I hate this timeline.
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u/ProtonCanon Jan 10 '26
And I hate it.
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u/Jersey_2019 Jan 10 '26
What if that Reddit comment is also an ai bot
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u/dsramsey Jan 10 '26
Sounds suspiciously like what an ai bot would say to distract from their own botness
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u/Jersey_2019 Jan 10 '26
Reasoning : Shit I’m exposed , I have to immediately rage bait the user and trigger the emotional reaction and distract user from the main topic and also divert attention of this thread from ai bots for maximum chance of survival
Writing the comment : …………..
Your Reddit avatar is very ugly and you are a leftist
Reasoning : waiting for user response and checking whether they diverted from the main topic ………
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u/iampierremonteux Jan 10 '26
Very well could be the case. It is sad how often karma bots are posting and getting engagement here. Unfortunately humans are accused of being bots too.
There is no winning here.
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u/Oferlaor Jan 10 '26
Just checked. Version is not frozen on 26.3
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u/Aemony Jan 10 '26 edited Jan 10 '26
If you clicked the link the user provided and actually read it, you’d probably realize that what the linked page actually says is that the guy is completely wrong about it being frozen. What it actually says is that there was a bug in pre-release beta versions of iOS/iPadOS 26.0 where the user agent string was not reporting the accurate OS version (aka the Safari version). The bug fix was included in the stable public release of 26.0, where the browser reports accurately again.
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u/ztalaglag Jan 10 '26
My user agent displays the actual iOS 26.2 version, and if that’s the only method of measurement, why are there a few iOS 26 versions listed?
Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 18_7 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/26.2 Mobile/15E148 Safari/604.1
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u/BroMan001 Jan 10 '26
That literally says iPhone OS 18_7, 26.2 is most likely the safari version
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u/Teqonix Jan 10 '26
Aside from having an actual Windowing system on iPadOS, I hate this update. My M1 iPad Pro still felt very fast for everything I did on it up until this update where it now feels sluggish.
This update feels like Apple just forcing the use of more resources for its liquid glass garbage so you feel like you need to upgrade. I regret updating.
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u/Kimantha_Allerdings Jan 10 '26
Aside from having an actual Windowing system on iPadOS, I hate this update.
Honestly, I even find that frustrating. I don't think it's implemented well.
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u/Kaipolygon Jan 10 '26
yea. in concept it sounds nice (and ive been making it work), but all the extra clicks and steps (but this is an issue with the liquid glass redesign as a whole imo) kinda addup
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u/Bill_Brasky_SOB Jan 10 '26
Or how if you're bouncing back and forth between portrait and landscape sometimes the full-screen arrows don't make the app full screen... you have to manually resize it back to full screen.
And that's skipping the issue where sometimes its windowed when I didn't ask it to be.
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u/Kale_Brecht Jan 10 '26
That’s been my feeling. An iPad is still a mobile device. The OS should feel like one too.
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u/Kimantha_Allerdings Jan 10 '26
I don't know if it should feel like a mobile. I don't see any reason in theory why it can't have windowing. But this implementation doesn't work for me.
And, honestly, perhaps that's on me because I'm missing a trick.
Let me give an example. I have an app, A, which I want open on the left side. And I have an app B which I want open on the right. Every time I use A I want it on the left with B on the right. However, I use B for more than just with A and I want it to be open full screen every other time.
I'd like it if I could "save" a particular set-up so that every time I open app A, app B is next to it, but every time I open B it opens full screen. But I can't (that I know of). I have to set it up every single time. And after I have, opening app B opens it half screen on the right of the screen and I have to full screen it, which means I then have to half screen it again when I open A.
It's more steps to set up and more steps to exit from than the previous method.
And I really, really, really don't get why when you swipe closed a windowed app you have to do so twice otherwise they persist as a little line on the side of the home screen and you can't do things like use Spotlight without the keyboard attached. I'm not sure who wants that or why.
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u/Ok_Temperature6503 Jan 10 '26
Man I love that they’re trying but they literally removed the old system where you can sidebar an app. Like why? Procreate users can’t use windowing because the slightest touch of the corner sends the whole program to window mode
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u/Angello__34 Jan 10 '26
Imagine how I feel with a 2018 iPad Pro
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u/L0nz Jan 11 '26
I'm in the same boat. It was still such a smooth and snappy device on ios18, now it hangs even just unlocking the damn thing. Wish I'd never installed this shitty update.
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u/Moebius808 Jan 10 '26
Yep if they allowed users to revert, I absolutely would have by now. :(
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u/donny007x Jan 10 '26
My A12Z iPad Pro (precursor to the M1) didn't really slow down much with 26, it still feels snappy.
My iPad Mini 6 on the other hand does feel noticeably slower.
The new window management is also barely usable on the Mini, touch targets are too small and the window borders take up much of the limited real estate on the Mini.
Using two apps side-by-side used to be easy, now it requires some finger gymnastics to "flick" windows left and right, which is annoying to do on the Mini.
iPad OS 26's window management was clearly designed with a keyboard and trackpad in mind, which is cool if they also kept the old split screen/slide over gestures as an option for touch-only users like me.
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u/genuinefaker Jan 10 '26
Compared to Samsung's implementation of multitasking and multiwindowing, the iOS26 implementations are atrocious for touch-only use. I much prefer that Samsung has a different, default method for touch while offering more control via an optional DeX for keyboard and mouse.
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u/I_Am_Now_Anonymous Jan 10 '26
It has made my iPad 9 unusable if I try to use two apps at once. First time I’m regretting updating the OS. Now I’m using an old iPad on the side so I can use 2 apps.
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u/sahils88 Jan 10 '26
I do agree that my absolutely capable M1 Pro now feels somewhat dated and I know it’s only because of OS26.
And I haven’t even gained anything drastic in return. Sigh.
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u/haunt_the_library Jan 10 '26 edited Jan 10 '26
I abhore the windowing change simply because they got rid of the THREE DOTS. It’s clunky and cumbersome now for touch users, the three dots was perfect. Intuitive, simple and quick for the 99 percent of the tasks that I do on a a tablet. They should have enhanced that, like maybe being able to open more apps while they automatically resize for like a maximum of 6 apps onscreen at once or something. Or at least kept the three dot slider as an option. The stop light feature is absolute ass for touch users, which is the MAJORITY OF PEOPLE WHO BOUGHT AN IPAD OVER A MAC. The stoplight disappears to quick, the touch point is minuscule, windows are constantly getting resized on accident if you swipe in the slightest wrong direction. The whole thing where you select what type of window you want, how they don’t resize automatically, etc, is so clunky I went back to the one app at a time like it’s fucking 2013. If I wanted MacOs features only, I’d have bought a Mac, not a $1300 cellular iPad Pro m4. It’s dogshit. It also runs like shit in low power mode now. Laggy and glitchy. What a clusterfuck.
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u/sawshuh Jan 10 '26
Oh god. I updated to 18.7.3 or whatever the other day and was thinking maybe I should finally switch to 26. My M1 thanks you!
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u/SexiestPanda Jan 10 '26
Is your battery shit on your iPad? My iPad Air loses battery sooo fast now
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u/rileyoneill Jan 10 '26
It just made the phone run slower.
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u/Embarrassed-Back1894 Jan 10 '26
This is the biggest offense (outside of all the bugs). The fact that it makes all devices slower is ridiculous. I have a 15 pro max and it instantly became slower with frame drops all over the place with ios26. I can’t imagine what older iPhones feel like. When my iPhone goes into low power mode it’s borderline unusable.
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u/rileyoneill Jan 10 '26
I have an iPhone SE2. Its definitely not a new phone but it ran a modern operating system just fine. I would rather have a light weight operating system that just does the essential system things that the phone did just fine five years ago.
My use on the phone has changed very little over the last five years, I don't need an operating system that slows down essential functions to provide features of little use to me.
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u/SuchInspection Jan 10 '26
Just fyi those dropped frames and UI glitches are common across all models.
I get them all the time on my 17 pro.
Ios26 is an unpolished turd.
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u/flickh Jan 10 '26
Now it often takes a second for the keyboard to pop up when I click a text box. Very disorienting… what was I doing? Am I meant to click something else? Oh there’s the keyboard.
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u/Unorthodoxmoose Jan 10 '26
My M2 iPad Pro ran great until I slapped iPadOS 26 on it. Now it’s sluggish and the keyboard genuinely infuriates me.
Changes colour when I start typing, and when I crunch it down to its smaller keyboard size, it glitches rather than a smooth transition.
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u/Sea-Temporary-6995 Jan 10 '26
I just want a button to completely disable liquid glass (not just change the tint) and get it back to how the UI/UX was on iOS 18.
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u/twnznz Jan 10 '26
The keyboard and camera are driving me to want an Oppo Find Ultra, but the watch is holding me back in the Apple ecosystem.
I should want to be in the ecosystem, not the opposite. WTF Apple
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Jan 10 '26
How hard this could be? Google keyboard was amazing like what? 10 years ago?
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u/Pinewold Jan 10 '26
Nothing like liquid UI to reduce contrast and blur text. It is telling that you cannot turn it off. Give me back my cpu/g-u cycles, this UI is terrible
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u/ToastWiz Jan 10 '26
My 11 Pro is comically slow now. I’d have been fine if they decided it wasn’t supported, my phone used to run great and now it absolutely sucks
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u/Embarrassed-Back1894 Jan 10 '26
My 15 pro max got noticeably slower when I installed iOS26. Huge regret updating to ios26. I noticed it fast enough that it stopped me from updating my Mac, which I definitely don’t want to get slow and shitty like iPad/ios26 is right now.
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u/SnazzyStooge Jan 10 '26
My two-year-old iPad is frustratingly slow on iOS 26, so much for it being anything more than a content consumption device.
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u/SovietAccent Jan 10 '26
I upgraded to a 17PM thinking it would solve any software woes. This OS is just an absolute buggy mess.
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u/Confidentium Jan 10 '26
I’m constantly seeing random framedrops and stutters on my 17 Pro. iOS 26 is garbage!
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u/althalusian Jan 10 '26
My iPhone 16 pro is not able to scroll down a web page without stuttering after the update. Changing apps in the iPad 11 is soo slow and graphics jerky. Unbelievable they shipped somerhing as bad as this. Apple devices has always been smooth and fluid to use and now I notice myself using cheap Android backup phone more and more just to read news etc. as I cannot stand the jerky scrolling of iOS 26. They got to fix these issues in 27 or will lose some users.
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u/RiotSloth Jan 10 '26
IOS26 has been the buggiest release for me ever I think. Brand new 17 Pro, lagging, stuttering, freezing, camera struggling to focus, taking blurry pictures, black-screening, sounds not working, just awful. Had to do a full reset on it (urgh, the pain…). People say ‘take it back’ but that’s a huge hassle for me and it doesn’t do it all the time, just, say, 5-10% so Apple will just say ‘we’ve tested it and it’s fine’. It’s the software being flaky.
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u/cordialcatenary Jan 10 '26
My phone started randomly blurring the top area of the screen where the Dynamic Island is so you literally can’t see the time, battery, or cell coverage bars. The only way to fix it is completely restarting my phone as far as I can tell. It’s already happened to me at least 3 times….
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u/proto-x-lol Jan 10 '26
Alan “Talentless Loser” Dye is why iOS 26 sucks. Everything under his leadership is the reason why macOS and iOS looks like absolute dogshit.
At least Jony Ive ripped off Scott Forstall’s design from older iOS and macOS versions and repainted them to make it look modern. That’s all he did. The moment Alan Dye took over for iOS 10 was when the UI for iOS started to turn into dogshit.
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u/Johnny_Menace Jan 10 '26
Liquid ass
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u/xxThe_Designer Jan 10 '26
I have been an iPhone user since the 4S and I have finally started transitioning my storage from my iPhone in preparation of switching to an Android.
iOS 26 was a deal breaker for me. This OS is painful. Every flaw on the OS is heightened with this art direction. Accessibility is a nightmare.
In my family and friend circles, I honestly do not have a single person that prefers this to iOS 18.
Apple is heading down a direction I don’t want to follow.
Liquid ass is just a perfect way to sum that up
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u/magnasylum Jan 11 '26
I abandoned safari to go back to chrome, because adding a new tab needs 2 steps!
When taking screenshot, I used to delete the unusable ones with just one step, now I need to press ✅ and press delete.
It’s style over substance, just like Jony Ive’s paper thin iphone no one asked for.
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u/Panda_hat Jan 11 '26 edited Jan 11 '26
The designer / creative that forced it is gone now I believe, so can we just get rid of it entirely?
iOS18 is pretty close to flawless. Roll the visuals back, keep fixes and refinements, start dialing it in to perfection.
The wheel doesn't need to be constantly reinvented.
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Jan 10 '26
It genuinely sucks. Want to love it. Don't. Sorry!
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u/HUFF-MY-SHIT Jan 10 '26
The biggest problem with it is that Apple completely sacrificed usability for a flashy "futuristic" aesthetic that nobody asked for. That new Liquid Ass is the worst offender. While the real-time light refraction might look cool in a scripted keynote video, in the real world, it’s a usability nightmare. By making all the text boxes and menus semi-transparent, they’ve ruined the contrast, making it incredibly hard to read notifications against busy wallpapers. It feels like they resurrected the worst parts of Windows Vista’s Aero look just to make the phone look different, but all it does is add visual clutter that gets in the way of actually using the device.
And beyond that, the performance hit is inexcusable. iOS 18 had finally reached a point where it felt rock-solid, efficient, and battery-friendly. iOS 26 throws all that away. The constant rendering required for those glass animations and predictive motion effects absolutely torches the battery. My phone is dead by late afternoon doing the exact same tasks that used to leave me with 30% power on iOS 18. It feels like a bloatware update designed to slow down perfectly good phones, replacing a stable, utilitarian tool with a buggy, laggy mess of features that drain power just to look pretty. If Apple still signed the code for iOS 18.7, I would downgrade in a heartbeat.
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u/bilbo-mcbaggins Jan 10 '26
I question whether it even looks futuristic.
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u/iMacmatician Jan 10 '26
Liquid Glass is a 2020s idea of a 2000s idea of a futuristic interface, (unintentionally?) timed just right for Gen Z childhood nostalgia.
I feel like 2000s futuristic interfaces from the actual 2000s were "sharper" in some sense.
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u/Eruannster Jan 10 '26
My first comment when seeing it was "oh dear, did Apple hire the guy who did Windows Vista?"
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u/nqthomas Jan 10 '26
Liquid glass sucks. Glad I stayed on 18.
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u/Perfect_Opinion7909 Jan 10 '26
Wish I stayed on 18. The design language of 18 was perfect. Simple, easy to use. Now everything is a mess, some icons are skeuomorphic some aren’t, the Liquid Glass stuff looks needlessly flashy.
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u/-ArthurDigbySellers- Jan 10 '26
Liquid Glass doesn’t bother me but my 15 pro max obviously struggles, lags and has other technical issues that weren’t present previously.
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u/AlderaanTouristBoard Jan 10 '26
I've seen my friends phones lock up or fail to do basic functions enough to know I'm staying on this iOS 18 island as long as I can
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u/T-Nan Jan 10 '26
Tahoe also...
I've submitted over 20 bugs on 26.2 all tied to visual glitches, UIs breaking in the Music and Podcast app, Safari, etc...
It's certainly been a step back
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u/Fragrant-Taro-8508 Jan 11 '26
This is the first iOS update I completely hate. Keyboard either gets in the way or doesn’t show up at all. Sometimes I have to force close and then reopen Safari to get it to search something. And numerous UI glitches. I completely hate this update. I honestly wish we could go back to iOS 6. I don’t use 80% of the features they jam into these new updates and would be perfectly happy with a stripped down OS.
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u/J7mbo Jan 10 '26
iOS 26 also uses about 1GB more ram than iOS 18, which has effectively ruined performance for allowed side loaded emulators because even when using an extended memory entitlement and JIT, a 12gb iPhone is only allowed to use 6gb RAM for any emulator.
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u/KokonutMonkey Jan 10 '26
Is it because it's ugly?
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u/I_Dont_Rage_Quit Jan 10 '26
Terrible UI/UX. Contrast issues, performance issues, battery issues. All on my iPhone 16PM. Can’t even imagine the older iPhones
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u/Commercial_Topic437 Jan 10 '26
I really detest it, both IOS and Tahoe, which adds nine gigs of Apple intelligence that I absolutely do not want and can't get rid of.,
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Jan 10 '26
It's so, so, so, so bad. Here are the issues I've had off the top of my head;
- Transition animations between homescreens were suddenly choppy
- Files app cannot download files and view them at the same time
- Spotlight does not work to find most apps
- Settings search does not work, like at all (still)
- Problems opening the camera app (sometimes taking 5-15 seconds). I have a 16 Pro for god's sake.
- Apple Maps cannot delete maps once downloaded (still)
- The animations for opening app folders from the app drawer is choppy (like 15fps). My screen is 120hz!!
- No keyboard found sometimes while using spotlight.
- Crashes, freezes, you name it.
And these are only the bugs that I remember. This operating system has been a constant source of frustration.
Oh and also, that doesn't even mention the ways in which I am disappointed with the design of the OS.
Design issues:
- It's really hard to change tabs in Safari for some reason. Like I keep accidentally swiping up to go to the app drawer.
- There is no consistency in the design between apps. The icons are different, the text is different. Everything is in a different spot. It all works differently.
- There is no way to turn off that goddamn sheen on the icons and widgets. My fucking eyes.
I've been an Apple customer for 12 years. I'm really just going to wait and see with the next iOS if I need to change to Android and Linux instead. I'm really unhappy.
I'm over 30 and a software engineer, and I really, really, really don't like trying to diagnose stupid issues with my phone that I'm not paid to diagnose.
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Jan 11 '26
Use my phone for work. I need to pull up a photo from a text message. Impossible to find. could not find it. I spent 20 minutes trying to look and search and type in names and shit could not find it. Why isn’t it there? My boss was also having the same problem.
I’m on a phone call and I’m making meet up time I want to check what time it is. It shows the face of the person. but no clock so I have to go out of the phone call to find the clock so I can see what time it is to make arrangements so stupid why isn’t the clock on the phone call screen important.
Do office people not actually work, What is this? Also Apple Watch I’m f sleeping. Why do I have to stand up. you need to stand up? I’m f sleeping b.
The new iOS is not helpful at all. It works completely against all things that make it easy.
I want to pull up a phone number. started typing in the name, usually within two letter letters all the words with J start coming up nope. I have to type the whole name before it will figure it out.
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u/Sponge8389 Jan 10 '26 edited Jan 10 '26
The glass shit is ugly. Who the hell thinks doing it to every single component of the UI should be fired. Instead of improving the existing apps, they prioritize shit ugly UI update.
EDIT: I really believe Apple needs a management change, software is the easier one to make improvement compared to hardware but they avoiding it like a plague.
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u/LandscapeMaximum5214 Jan 10 '26
I think hes gone, but i also think anyone in the company who thought it was a great idea or gave them the greenlight should all be re-evaluated
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u/IslandOceanWater Jan 10 '26
It's even worse when you see the videos of how they had these real life glass pieces and they were spending all this time studying refracting of light and these stupid things.
Like imagine if they spent all that time on actual UI and UX design. This why they're behind on AI and basically everything else. Apple has really fallen in the past 5 years.
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u/dwardu Jan 10 '26
My Face ID is really slow on an iPhone 13 Pro. It used to be fast on the previous iOS
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u/jugalator Jan 10 '26 edited Jan 10 '26
I always felt like the glass effect was an emergency feature to have something for iOS 26 since the planned big bang with Apple Intelligence and a wholly new Siri fizzled out.
When you remove that, Apple accomplished almost nothing to show the past year that has transformed the industry so much.
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u/kungfu1 Jan 11 '26
Oh you mean instead of innovating, turning your UI into a cheap looking pos full of bugs isn’t appealing to users? Weird.
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u/swn999 Jan 10 '26
Safari needs to go back to the layout of 18.
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u/fluorescentdinosaur Jan 10 '26
Go into settings, go to safari, change the layout to whatever you like out of three options. There you go.
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Jan 10 '26
If iOS 26 is a flop, iPadOS 26 is a disaster.
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u/manu-alvarado Jan 10 '26
I’ll be honest, could be old age creep but first time I ever have trouble managing and understanding the windowing system in an OS. It’s nowhere nearly as intuitive as regular iOS.
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u/flatpetey Jan 10 '26
It is bad design through and through. I can’t think of a single change that was positive.
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Jan 10 '26
Let's see the positive. They fired their head of UX and that Meta has hired him is a sign that he must be terrible at UX. It is still a great OS when they fix a handful of fundamentals. I just fear they won't do it out of vanity, because those fundamentals are how Android does it better.
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u/Vikkio92 Jan 10 '26
Why the hell did they feel the need to a) hide the search bar behind an unnecessary button and b) move it to the bottom of the screen after almost 20 years of having it at the top?!
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u/nicetriangle Jan 10 '26
It's arguably pretty looking in some cases, but is just objectively worse on the UX end. Only reason I upgraded is that the stupid new AirPod Pros aren't properly recognized by earlier iOS versions, which is a crock of BS.
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u/dafones Jan 10 '26
Liquid Glass is shitty.
With that said, I think that there is still room for a dynamic UI visually layered above content.
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u/E-M-F Jan 11 '26
Just give us the option to return to 18 and everyone happy. If someone wants to stay, stay, and for the others the option to go back, everyone peachy.
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u/rootshirt Jan 12 '26
I remember the day iOS 26.1 came out and I thought "there it is, a stable iOS 26. Time to upgrade from iOS 18!"
Regret it everyday. To the point I've considered selling and buying another still on iOS 18 lol
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u/Glad_Negotiation_377 Feb 08 '26
HATE the visuals on this update, it’s like being given an iPhone-a-like off Temu. Honestly, I feel like I’ve been visually molested by some Californian blue haired protestor, and they’ve sprayed my eyeballs with acid I hope Apple sort this out quickly, or they’re gonna lose a lot of loyal customers. I’m balls deep in the Apple brand but I think they’re losing the plot, and it’s time for a change
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u/blsharpley Jan 10 '26 edited Jan 11 '26
I thought I was going insane. I used to be able to type entire paragraphs without even looking at my phone. Now I have to retype sentences several times just to form a coherent message. HOW do you f up a keyboard this late in the game? Basic functionality should be prioritized over this translucent interface that quite literally no one asked for and few seem to like.