Apple's Liquid Glass makeover and expanded Apple Intelligence tools arrive this fall, but not every phone can make the leap.

Testing with developer and public beta versions went smoothly for even the oldest supported models. But there are safety measures if upgrading to the beta or release version goes awry. Apple says the upcoming iOS 26,

Visual Intelligence is getting a new screenshot search feature in iOS 26, giving the iPhone it's own version of Google's Circle to Search.

Looking at the home screens, the primary difference you'll find is that in iOS 26 the background of the dock and the search option that sits in between the dock and the home screen icons are more transparent and have a sheen to the edges, whereas in iOS 18, these are slightly darker.

The fourth developer beta of iOS 26 introduces 12 new CarPlay wallpapers. The new CarPlay wallpapers are based on the official iOS 26 wallpaper

Apart from the selection tool, other interesting iOS 26 updates for the Messages app include Polls, Live Translation with Apple Intelligence, typing indicators for group chats, updated message filters, and natural language search.