Apple iOS 26 Released (www.apple.com)

Apple has released iOS 26, introducing a sweeping visual refresh called Liquid Glass and deep system-wide AI features under the “Apple Intelligence” banner. Liquid Glass brings glass-like optics, dynamic controls and updated icons, a Lock Screen that adapts time and adds 3D photo effects, and shared UI refinements for a more fluid cross-device experience. The update also expands accessibility, CarPlay reactions and Live Activities, and new media features like AutoMix (beatmatching/time-stretching) and Lyrics Translation in Apple Music. The headline AI changes are broader multimodal intelligence and real‑time translation: Live Translation works in Messages, FaceTime and Phone (with spoken AirPods output), while Visual Intelligence lets you search across apps, ask questions about on‑screen content and take actions such as adding calendar events. Image Playground and Genmoji add image-generation styles (including “ChatGPT styles”), and Shortcuts can now invoke Apple Intelligence models for summarization, image creation and automated workflows. System privacy and screening tools are enhanced too—Call Screening, Hold Assist, message sender screening and localized on‑device features (e.g., Visited Places in Maps, Wallet digital IDs for U.S. passports, spatial photo scenes using visionOS tech). For the AI/ML community, iOS 26 is significant because it mainstreams multimodal models and tightly integrates translation, vision and generative image features into core OS workflows—accelerating real‑world usage patterns, raising implementation and privacy considerations, and opening new opportunities for developer integration.