Overview

• iPhone 17 models ship with iOS 26 preinstalled, while public downloads begin Sept. 15 for devices from iPhone 11 and iPhone SE (2nd gen) upward, dropping 2018’s XS, XS Max and XR.
• Liquid Glass introduces a depth‑aware, translucent look across iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch following months of beta refinements.
• Apple has seeded release‑candidate builds of iOS 26, iPadOS 26, watchOS 26, macOS Tahoe, tvOS 26 and visionOS 26 to developers and public beta testers.
• Advanced Apple Intelligence capabilities, including Visual Intelligence and live translation, run only on newer high‑end models such as iPhone 15 Pro and the iPhone 16/17 families.
• macOS Tahoe arrives the same day with a narrowed compatibility list that drops several Intel Macs in favor of Apple Silicon and select newer Intel systems.