Apple’s iOS 26 update is full of brilliant features that catch your eye and enhance your iPhone. But beyond the headline changes like the Liquid Glass redesign, iOS 26 is teeming with lesser-known improvements that easily fly under the radar.
Here, we’ve highlighted a few of our favorite hidden changes in the iOS 26 update. We’ll show you how they work and where you can find them, so you’re able to get started straight away and level up your iOS experience.
Customize the Camera Control
Apple’s Camera Control is a quick way to open the Camera app and start snapping, and it comes with a bunch of quick controls that are accessible with a swipe or a tap. But if you’re finding it doesn’t quite work for you – or you want to change how it works – then iOS 26 has brought some welcome adjustments.
Apple
Now, you can change the order that Camera Control features appear, which means you can make your most commonly accessed controls much easier to find. To do this, open the Settings app and go to Camera > Camera Control, then tap Customize under the Controls header. You can now reorder the controls as you like, disable light presses and swipes, and enable a cleaner preview screen when using the Camera Control.
Say goodbye to ruined photos
There’s nothing worse than capturing a once-in-a-lifetime moment with your camera, then getting home and realizing your pictures are ruined thanks to a smudged-up camera lens. Given how often we use our iPhones, that kind of risk is never too far away. Luckily, iOS 26 has a fix.
In the latest iOS update, you will now get warnings if the software determines that your iPhone camera lens is greasy or smudged. When that happens, you’ll see an on-screen alert suggesting that you clean your lens to prevent unwanted effects blighting your images. Just find a soft cloth and gently rub the lens to remove any smears before you shoot.
Event details in Photos
When you point your camera at a poster advertising a concert or sporting event, you can use Visual Intelligence to look up the event’s details. But you can also do this from within the Photos app and use it to find details on events you’ve already taken pictures of.
Just open an image in the Photos app, then tap the Info button or swipe upwards to reveal more details. There, you’ll be able to look up the gig’s date or find other upcoming shows, for example, or find up-to-date scores for the sporting match in question. You can even listen to songs from any artists featured in the image, too.
Ease the commuting woes
If you commute to and from work, there have probably been plenty of times when you’ve wished you could avoid the traffic and find a better route. Thanks to some choice upgrades to the Maps app in iOS 26, now you can.
Apple
Maps features several useful commuting improvements in the latest version of the iOS operating system. For example, your iPhone will now automatically learn your preferred routes to and from significant locations, then send you notifications offering alternative routes if the traffic looks bad before you set off. The Maps widget will display a preview of your journey from your Home screen, while the Weather app can also chip in by sending severe weather warnings for your favorite locations. It’s all designed to help you beat the traffic and travel in peace.
AutoMix it up
Ever dreamed of being a DJ? Apple Music can’t make that a reality just yet, but it can help you mix and match your tunes with a little more ease in iOS 26. With AutoMix in your arsenal, your tracks will merge smoothly into each other with minimal effort on your part. Apple says the feature “seamlessly transitions from one song into the next, using time stretching and beat matching to deliver an even more seamless listening experience.”
Apple
To use AutoMix, you’ll first need to be an Apple Music subscriber. If you are, open the Settings app and go to Apps > Apple Music > Song Transitions, ensure the Song Transitions toggle is enabled, then select AutoMix. Next, open Apple Music, tap the MiniPlayer at the bottom of your screen, tap the Up Next button, then turn on the AutoMix toggle.
Note that AutoMix won’t work if you’re playing songs sequentially in an album, the genres or tempos of the two tracks are too dissimilar, the songs have been manually uploaded from your music library, or your songs have been bought and downloaded from the iTunes Store.
Hear podcast voices clearly
Sometimes, it can be a struggle to hear dialogue in your favorite podcasts. If that sounds familiar, iOS 26’s Enhance Dialogue feature will be music to your ears. It uses machine learning to differentiate speech from background sounds, ensuring words are never again lost in the noise. What’s more, you can even save this setting on a per-show basis in the Podcasts app.
Apple
To enable Enhance Dialogue, open the Podcasts app and start playing a show episode. Pull up the Now Playing window, tap the 1x speed button, then tap Enhance Dialogue from the menu that appears. Now you can enjoy clearer dialogue on every podcast you listen to.
Supercharge your reminders
One of the benefits of Apple Intelligence is that it can make clever suggestions based on what you’re doing at any given time. That can be seen in the case of smart reminders—here, Apple Intelligence reviews an email, website, note, or any other text it comes across, then pulls out relevant tasks or grocery list items. You can then share that text to Reminders to create a new task or shopping list, complete with intelligent formatting and suggested ingredients.
There’s a new Reminders control made for both the Control Center and the Action button, too, giving you a quick way to create a new task without needing to open the app. And reminders can be automatically grouped into related topics, such as work or errands, thanks to Apple Intelligence.
