7 iOS 26 tricks you need to try on your iPhone right now

iOS 26 is here with a plethora of features, small tweaks across the board, and a new Liquid Glass design. Supported iPhones are getting updated to Apple's new OS this week, with the stable version released on Monday, September 15. 

Here are some fun tricks and changes that Apple is bringing to iPhones with iOS 26 which you may have not noticed thus far.

Left-aligned glyphs for menu items

That one is something that Apple has finally gotten on board with. Before iOS 26, glyphs for menu items were on the right, after the menu item itself. Now, with iOS 26, Apple has finally changed its stubborn decision to keep them there, and now they are left-aligned, as one would expect them to be to begin with. 

The change is visible on all menus and in the share sheet with iOS 26. Curiously enough, I've been an iPhone user for quite some time now, ever since 2018, and before iOS 26, I never even paid attention to these glyphs. So yep, Apple's done a good job bringing them back into contention, alright. 

iOS 26 video player glass buttons 

The video player is getting the Liquid Glass treatment in iOS 26, and the buttons are now transparent with the glass look. That's a bit of a controversial one, as the buttons are somewhat big and can obstruct the view quite a bit. 

At least, there are gorgeous effects when you tap play and pause under the transparent buttons, so that's a nice tweak. 

Buttons have shapes

iOS 26 is also adding another visual yet helpful tweak: buttons now have shapes. They now have circular and pill-like shapes, just like usual buttons that you can press. They are also now easier to spot, which is also a welcome addition. 

The animation for buttons is also great. When you tap on a button, you can see it elevate and highlight itself to respond to your tap. Also, the "Done" button is now finally a check mark, while the "Close" button is an "X" button.

Most people would appreciate that change, but I see myself actually missing some of the text buttons. Oh, well. 

Color-matched icons and Apple cases

You can now tint your home-screen icons to match your official Apple case with iOS 26, which is an excellent tweak for personalization and seamlessness. From the "Customize" screen, there's a new iPhone case symbol in the "Tinted" section. Icons will be automatically tinted to match the color of your case. 

The option is exclusive to Apple cases, as they can send additional data to a paired iPhone thanks to MagSafe and Apple's magic behind the scenes.

I find that this feature is great. Although I'm not a huge fan of tinted icons to begin with, I may find it fun to make the iPhone's home screen match my case. 

Parallax effect on photos/Spatial wallpapers

That one is something I quite like. iOS 26 is adding the ability to turn your photo into a Spatial wallpaper with a fancy parallax effect. Not every photo can be made into a Spatial wallpaper, though; the photo needs to have depth information and a subject (or an object) in the foreground, and stuff in the background. 

This technique makes the photo respond to your device's movement, and the layers of the photo will tilt accordingly. 

• How to make Spatial wallpapers in iOS 26 

I think this feature is quite fun, and I've been using it since I installed iOS 26. 

Artwork mode on the Lock Screen and Liquid Glass

The Liquid Glass look is also integrated with Apple Music and other music-streaming platforms. This makes for a cool addition when you're listening to music. 

When you tap on the album art in the Now Playing widget, the Lock Screen will transition to artwork mode just like usual. However, artwork can now extend edge-to-edge and be completed with scroll edge effects and glass interactions, if the media item and the app support it. 

I quite like how the Liquid Glass notifications are visible on top of the album artwork. Apple's made sure the text in your notifications won't become hard to read by dimming the artwork a bit when you scroll through your notifications. 

Videos on the Lock Screen as full-screen "album artwork" 

Using this framework, Jordi Bruin has made Frames, a simple tool that uses this framework to play videos on the Lock Screen as full-screen "album artwork". The API for this is open to third-party developers, so we can potentially see some interesting takes on this idea. 

"Iconic Phones" is coming this Fall!