Announced during the WWDC 2025 keynote, the iOS 26 software update has been in beta testing for almost three months now. Expected to be released around the same time as the iPhone 17, the beta cycle is nearly complete. iOS 26 brings an all-new design language with Liquid Glass UI, offering a revamped Lock Screen, Home Screen, Control Center, app icons, ringtones, and more. Apple says this is the biggest change to iOS since iOS 7 in 2013.
Another important change you’ll notice right away is that Apple isn’t calling this update iOS 19, as expected. That’s because the company wanted to add the same suffix to all of its releases, ensuring they represent the new design language that touches all of the new systems.
With this upcoming update, Apple is also improving Apple Intelligence features with Live Translation, upgraded Genmoji and Writing Tools, ChatGPT integration with on-screen awareness, and new Image Playground styles. If you can’t wait to get your hands on iOS 26 but don’t want to risk installing the developer’s beta or public beta, here’s when you can expect it based on previous years.
Here’s when Apple released past iOS updates
In the past four years, Apple has been pretty consistent when it comes to the timing of rolling out the release candidate (RC) versions of its software updates as well as the final version:
- iOS 18: The Release Candidate version was made available on Monday, September 9, 2024, followed by the full release on Monday, September 16.
- iOS 17: The Release Candidate version was made available on Monday, September 12, 2023, followed by the release on Tuesday, September 18.
- iOS 16: The Release Candidate version was made available on Wednesday, September 7, 2022, followed by the release on Monday, September 12.
- iOS 15: The Release Candidate version was made available on Tuesday, September 14, 2021, followed by the release on Monday, September 20.
If the Apple event does indeed take place on Tuesday, September 9 (as rumors have suggested), we expect Apple to make the Release Candidate version of iOS 26 available later that day, followed by the official launch on Monday, September 15. If the Apple event is on September 8 or 10, we’d still expect the official iOS 26 release to be on September 15, 2025.
Will my iPhone be compatible with iOS 26?
Even though iOS 26 is a big update, Apple will offer it for a vast majority of the same iPhone models that supported iOS 18. As a matter of fact, the company is only removing the iPhone XR, iPhone XS, and iPhone XS Max from the list of supported devices. These are all of the models that will be compatible with the update:
- iPhone 11
- iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max
- iPhone SE (2nd gen)
- iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 12
- iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max
- iPhone 13 mini and iPhone 13
- iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max
- iPhone SE (3rd gen)
- iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus
- iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max
- iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus
- iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max
- iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus
- iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 16 Pro Max
- iPhone 16e
Also, just because the iPhone 11 can run iOS 26 doesn’t mean that all of the features will be available on the aging iPhone. These are 8 key features that won’t make their way to this device due to the age of the hardware.
