Apple launched iOS 26.1 on Monday, Nov. 3, more than a month after the company released iOS 26. One of the major changes that update brought to your iPhone was a Liquid Glass redesign and the iOS 26.1 update brings a new way to adjust that design. The update also brought a few other changes to your device, including a new security setting to help keep your device up to date and secure.
You can download iOS 26.1 now by going to Settings and tapping General. Next, select Software Update, tap Update Now and follow the prompts on your screen.
Here are the features the iOS update brings to your iPhone now.
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Another way to adjust Liquid Glass
With iOS 26.1, Apple lets you adjust your iPhone’s Liquid Glass design even more. If you go into Settings > Display & Brightness > Liquid Glass, you can choose the new design to be Clear or Tinted.
“Clear is more transparent, revealing the content beneath,” Apple writes for the setting. “Tinted increases opacity and adds more contrast.”
Changing Clear or Tinted appears to only adjust certain Liquid Glass elements, like your Notification Center and some search bars throughout your iPhone. However, it doesn’t appear to change Liquid Glass elements on your Home Screen. But there’s another way to adjust Liquid Glass on your Home Screen.
To adjust Liquid Glass on your Home Screen, long-press on your screen, tap Edit in the top left corner of your screen, then tap Customize. From here, make your app icons either Clear or Tinted, then you can tap Light, Dark or Auto along the bottom of the Customize menu to adjust the Liquid Glass elements on your Home Screen.
You can also go to Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size and then tap the toggle for Reduce Transparency to adjust the new design.
People have had mixed reactions to the Liquid Glass design. Some people on Reddit point out the design can have readability issues, while others like it, calling it modern and playful. If you don’t like the way Liquid Glass looks, this iOS 26.1 setting could change your mind.
No matter how you feel about Liquid Glass, you should always download iOS updates to implement the latest bug fixes and security patches. Your iPhone’s digital security is more important than your device’s (reasonably customizable) visual interface.
Automatically install Security Improvements
Apple introduces a useful security setting in iOS 26.1 that allows your iPhone to download and install Security Improvements on its own. You can find this by going to Settings > Privacy & Security > Background Security Improvements.
“Background Security Improvements provide additional protection to your iPhone in between software updates,” according to Apple. “In rare instances of compatibility issues, these security improvements may be temporarily removed and then enhanced in a future software update.”
This feature reminds me of Apple’s Rapid Security Responses. The company introduced RSRs in 2023 as a way to quickly deploy security fixes to devices. While a good idea in theory, Apple hasn’t used iOS RSRs since the release of iOS 16.5.1 (c) in July 2023.
This isn’t a flashy setting but it’s useful and allows you to stay up to date on smaller security updates without doing any extra work. Once enabled, this setting takes care of the rest, so you don’t have to check your iPhone every day for new updates to potential security issues.
Stop accidentally opening your Camera with this new toggle
The iOS 26.1 update also introduces a toggle that could prevent you from accidentally opening your Camera from your Lock Screen. To find this toggle, go to Settings > Camera and scroll to the bottom of the menu. There you’ll see a toggle for Lock Screen Swipe to Open Camera.
“Swipe left on the Lock Screen to quickly access the Camera,” Apple writes for the setting.
Phone call haptics control
In iOS 26, there’s a new option to turn off haptics when your iPhone connects or drops a call. That way your iPhone doesn’t vibrate and make you think you got another message or notification each time you get on or off a call.
To access this setting, go to Settings > Apps > Phone and tap the Haptics toggle.
Local Capture options
Local Capture is an easy way to record high-quality video and audio recordings of video calls on your iPhone and iOS 26.1 introduces a Settings menu for the feature. To find the setting go to Settings > General > Local Capture. The menu gives you the option to select a save location for your recordings, as well as a toggle that lets you only record audio when using Local Capture.
“Add Local Capture to Control Center to record your own audio and video during a call to save and edit later,” Apple writes in the Local Capture settings page.
New Accessibility option
The iOS 26.1 update introduces an option to prefer single-touch actions over sliding actions on your iPhone’s screen. You can find this option by going to Settings > Accessibility > Touch and scrolling to the bottom of the page.
Alarm gets another update
One of my favorite small upgrades in iOS 26 was the ability to change your alarm snooze length. In iOS 26.1, Apple makes it harder to accidentally dismiss your alarm. Once you’ve updated to iOS 26.1, you now have to swipe to stop your alarm rather than hit a button. This could be annoying if you’re trying to shut your alarm off fast or it could help ensure you’re actually awake before you turn your alarm off.
Changing songs in Apple Music
Apple Music got a handful of new features in iOS 26, but iOS 26.1 doesn’t change much about the app or service. Instead, the update lets you change songs in a new way.
With iOS 26.1, instead of tapping the next or backward buttons to change songs, you can swipe left or right on the song title from the music player within Apple Music. You can do this when the player is taking up your whole screen or when you’re looking through Apple Music and the player is small and near the bottom of your screen. The song title even appears to jump left or right when you change songs now, too.
More Live Translation languages
The iOS 26.1 update adds more languages to the new Live Translation feature. Apple introduced this feature to iPhones and AirPods with iOS 26 and the iOS 26.1 update lets you use it with these languages.
- Chinese (Mandarin, simplified)
- Chinese (Mandarin, traditional)
- Italian
- Japanese
- Korean
Apple Intelligence in more languages
If you have an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone, iOS 26.1 brings the AI features to these languages.
- Chinese (traditional)
- Danish
- Dutch
- Norwegian
- Portuguese (Portugal)
- Swedish
- Turkish
- Vietnamese
New video scrubbing bar
The iOS 26.1 update also brings a small change to the video scrubbing bar in Photos. If you go into Photos and watch a video, you’ll notice that the bar across the bottom of your screen is more compact and inline compared to the past scrubbing bar, which had the play/pause and volume buttons above the bar.
This is another small change that you might not have even noticed.
iOS 26.1 release notes
Here are the full release notes for iOS 26.1.
This update adds new languages for Live Translation with AirPods, a new tinted option for Liquid Glass, along with other features, bug fixes, and security updates for your iPhone.
This update includes the following features and enhancements:
Liquid Glass setting gives you the option to choose between the default clear look or a new tinted look which increases opacity of the material in apps and notifications on the Lock Screen.
Live Translation with AirPods support for Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Japanese, Korean and Italian.
Apple Music MiniPlayer swipe gesture to go to the next or previous track.
Apple Music AutoMix support over AirPlay.
Gain control is available for external USB microphones when recording with local capture.
Local capture files can be saved to a specific location.
Manual workout logging is available directly from the Fitness app.
New Camera setting to turn on or off Lock Screen swipe to open Camera.
Improved FaceTime audio quality in low-bandwidth conditions.
Communication Safety and Web content filters to limit adult websites are enabled by default for existing child accounts for ages 13-17 (Age varies by country or region).
For information on the security content of Apple software updates, please visit: https://support.apple.com/100100.
Some features may not be available in all regions or on all iPhone models. To learn more, please visit: https://apple.com/ios/feature-availability/.
Software updates, like this one, add new features and improvements that may affect performance and/or battery life. To learn more, please visit: https://support.apple.com/125039.
For more iOS news, here’s my review of the iOS 26, other ways to reduce Liquid Glass on your iPhone and how text screening works in the update. You can also check out our iOS 26 cheat sheet.
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