We're only a few days away Apple's iPhone 17 event, which the company has dubbed "awe dropping" and scheduled for Tuesday, September 9. If all goes as expected, we should get to download iOS 26 and iPad 26 about a week later.
Coming with those OS updates are substantial updates to your iPhone and iPad's operating systems. You may have already heard about "Liquid Glass," which (intentional or not) is sort of like Apple's take on the old Windows Vista design language. That's the most notable change, but we spent two weeks test-driving many of the other features included in the update — you can check out our hands-on iOS 26 preview for more impressions, or you can try the software out yourself by downloading and installing the latest public beta. The public beta is a more stable iteration of the update than the developer version, which recently hit the beta 9 waypoint and offers a few more flashy features not yet available in the public version. (Though it's worth remembering that there's a degree of risk involved with installing any form of beta software.)
Not sure if you want to upgrade your smartphone or tablet this year? No worries, we'll help you find out if your devices will be able to run iOS 26.
Advertisement Advertisement
While Apple didn't nix any iPhones from its eligibility list last year, that's not the case for 2025, as a few models are getting the axe this time around. All iPhone 8 models and the iPhone X were the last to receive the boot in 2023, and this year iPhones released in 2018 will be left behind. If your device is have ineligible, you won't be able to download iOS 26 when it becomes available this fall.
You can find a full list of which iPhones and iPads will support iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 below. To see everything that's coming with the latest OS updates, you can check out our big rundown of what to expect.
These three iOS 18 iPhones won't be compatible with iOS 26
Unlike last year, several iPhone models won't be eligible to download the newest iOS when it makes its debut in September. This trio of models first released in 2018 won't be coming to the iOS 26 party:
iPhone XR
iPhone XS
... continue reading