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iOS 26 Speculation Thread

Ctrlos said:
Their roadblock will be getting Siri 2.0 to work within the parameters of their current on-device LLM. If they were to offload it to a server, even a PCC one they'd have no excuse not rolling it out to older devices which would remove their advertised upgrade path. This will never happen.

My guess is they are waiting for future iPhone models with more RAM to run them and it will not be an iOS19 feature but rather an iPhone 17 one (or whatever). But they've already advertised it to iPhone 16 buyers! Releasing it exclusively for the iPhone 17 or later will no doubt result in a few 'not as advertised' lawsuits.

Given the market apathy towards LLMs in general, I do wonder if they shouldn't just tank the whole idea and instead look at other areas of the OS or apps that might benefit from the current AI backend instead. Perhaps a presentation generator for Keynote or an 'Audio Playground' app to create alert tones or garageband loops from a hum or recording (and kill off the little-used Tone Store in the process). I imagine a sweet piece of marketing where a parent creates a Homekit alert using the cry from their newborn as the source or something 💕
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I think the chances they’re going to make it an iPhone 17 feature and not support it on the iPhone 16 are very low. There’s nothing indicating the issues causing the delays they’re running into have anything to do with RAM. 8GB is plenty of RAM, especially with how efficient iOS is on RAM usage. Many full fledged computers use that RAM spec, including even Macs until recently. They’ve likely just run into major bugs affecting functionality, or security vulnerabilities that need fixed before release. That seems to be the consensus of everyone more familiar with the matter…
 
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Ctrlos said:
Their roadblock will be getting Siri 2.0 to work within the parameters of their current on-device LLM. If they were to offload it to a server, even a PCC one they'd have no excuse not rolling it out to older devices which would remove their advertised upgrade path. This will never happen.

My guess is they are waiting for future iPhone models with more RAM to run them and it will not be an iOS19 feature but rather an iPhone 17 one (or whatever). But they've already advertised it to iPhone 16 buyers! Releasing it exclusively for the iPhone 17 or later will no doubt result in a few 'not as advertised' lawsuits.

Given the market apathy towards LLMs in general, I do wonder if they shouldn't just tank the whole idea and instead look at other areas of the OS or apps that might benefit from the current AI backend instead. Perhaps a presentation generator for Keynote or an 'Audio Playground' app to create alert tones or garageband loops from a hum or recording (and kill off the little-used Tone Store in the process). I imagine a sweet piece of marketing where a parent creates a Homekit alert using the cry from their newborn as the source or something 💕
Click to expand...
They have doubled down on 8GB RAM so making exclusive features that require more doesn't make sense right now. The iPhone 17 is going to have 8GB as well according to rumors.
 
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HouseLannister said:
The Pro will have 12

www.macrumors.com

iPhone 17 Pro: 12GB RAM Rumor Gets Third Confirmation From Analyst

Will the upcoming iPhone 17 Pro models come with 12GB of RAM, up from 8GB in the iPhone 16 Pro? Jeff Pu of GFHK Tech Research certainly thinks so. ...
www.macrumors.com www.macrumors.com
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It will but I don't see them making anything major like Siri features exclusive to the 17 Pro in iOS 19. They have the whole 16 series, 15 Pro and many Macs and iPads that don't have 12GB to work with, not to mention the iPhone 17 and 17 Air or whatever it'll be called.

It would also work against them in any legal dispute regarding the 16 being marketed as built for AI.
 
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Luckily, I think the chances of them going circle icon only are pretty low considering they just refreshed icons with Dark Mode icons. It would be weird to only have Dark Mode icons for 1 year before they’re removed. I’m guessing we may see some more subtle changes with icons since they just got a glow up in iOS 18. But the rest of the system will likely see big changes with some more translucent UI elements, a change in the look of some current translucent UI elements. And apparently some design tweaks meant to make navigation and interaction on Apple’s platforms more unified and similar. 👍🏻

And while aesthetic changes are likely coming, we must also remember that consistency and familiarity are also very important on Apple’s platforms. Changing the shape of app icons is a much bigger difference than changing from skeumorphism to flat icons. The icons maintained the same shape in iOS 7. And this is also why changing icon shape would be a very controversial change. The squircle icon shape is literally iconic to Apple’s platforms. It makes iOS instantly recognizable from Android and such. And I think Apple generally cares about maintaining their software branding.
 
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Kal Madda said:
The squircle icon shape is literally iconic to Apple’s platforms. It makes iOS instantly recognizable from Android and such.
Click to expand...

Actually, Apple icons are a quintic superellipse.

Screenshot 2025-03-12 123909.png


And Samsung used squircles for ages on TouchWiz.
 
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Also, this is a MacRumors mockup of what macOS 16 could look like. Note that the app icons are still the best shape icons ever invented. Now, I will say, I think the Menu Bar looks a bit too tall, unless they’re using it on a smaller display?
 

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Kal Madda said:
Also, this is a MacRumors mockup of what macOS 16 could look like. Note that the app icons are still the best shape icons ever invented. Now, I will say, I think the Menu Bar looks a bit too tall, unless they’re using it on a smaller display?
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So we are back to lickable, but without the pinstripes.
 
Some very interesting comments in here from Gurman about iPadOS and macOS particularly but they probably apply to iOS too…

From what I can gather, this isn’t just new splashes of paint on top of the OS we have now, and even a comparison of iOS 6 to 7 can’t illustrate how much of a change it will be.

If I’m understanding correctly, the comparison really should be the transition from Mac OS’s platinum to Aqua.
To me, this screams a complete rethink of the springboard, especially if their goal is to make macOS and iPadOS visually more the same than not as Gurman implies.
 
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Lounge vibes 05 said:
Some very interesting comments in here from Gurman about iPadOS and macOS particularly but they probably apply to iOS too…

From what I can gather, this isn’t just new splashes of paint on top of the OS we have now, and even a comparison of iOS 6 to 7 can’t illustrate how much of a change it will be.

If I’m understanding correctly, the comparison really should be the transition from Mac OS’s platinum to Aqua.
To me, this screams a complete rethink of the springboard, especially if their goal is to make macOS and iPadOS visually more the same than not as Gurman implies.
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Very interesting. I’m interested in seeing where iPadOS and macOS will become more similar. I really hope iPadOS keeps some of its distinctions with multi-windowing in Stage Manager. I like that apps automatically snap in alignment and such on iPadOS. I actually wish macOS would take some more inspiration from iPadOS in this area, maybe even add a setting that could be toggled to replicate that behavior on macOS as well. Also, I prefer the center top multitasking menu button for window options over the traffic light buttons on macOS. So hopefully these stay distinct. I think they would stay distinct though, because Gurman’s saying there will still be differences in optimizations for the different device interactions, but everything will feel more cohesive and consistent. So hopefully we shouldn’t have to worry too much about that. 👍🏻

I do think though that it would be nice to have some sort of hybrid Menu Bar interface on iPadOS similar to the Menu Bar on macOS. And I’d like to see convergence between the Home Screen and Desktop. This makes sense, because we’ve already seen convergence in this area with desktop widgets on macOS, and more free positioning of app icons and such on the Home Screen. I think both will essentially be the same thing, even if they’re somewhat different in some ways. I actually think the macOS desktop could benefit from a snap grid option.

I’m very interested in seeing how this will all shake out.
 
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TgeekB said:
I’m thinking something similar. Not a wholesale change but a refinement that enhances the look and feel.
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Agreed. Familiarity and consistency is very important in Apple’s ecosystem. While I expect there will likely be some big changes in some areas, I’m sure there will have to still be a level of familiarity to it so that people aren’t completely lost on how to interact with their device after decades of muscle memory. 👍🏻
 
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The only thing I care about is JIT.
For iPadOS, I would also love for the control center not to take over the entire display. But I've been submitting feedback for that to Apple every year for the last 4 years since I've had an iPad so. Not overly optimistic about either.
 
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