Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

Shut up, hissy kitty!

A tremendous foreign policy asset… to all of our adversaries.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

He really is that stupid.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

The arc of the moral universe does not bend itself. it is up to us to bend it.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

“In this country American means white. everybody else has to hyphenate.”

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

You are here: Home / Science & Technology / Tech News & Issues / It Takes a Village to Outsmart iOS 26

It Takes a Village to Outsmart iOS 26

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Apple is relentless.  After my iPad flashed a message that it would be installing iOS 26 later that evening – even though I am set up NOT to auto update, I changed every Apple mobile device to not even download updates.

Now I am getting relentless notices – message after message after message – that I can either install iOS 26 now or I can schedule the install.

Anyway, let’s use this thread to share tips on all the settings that can be changed to make iOS 26 less awful.

I’ll share these from Scout211, but please add any more tips you have in the comments.

Key Steps to Disable Information Features in iOS 26.2

Stop Information Sharing: Go to Settings > Privacy & Security > Analytics & Improvementsand turn off all toggles to stop sending diagnostic/usage data to Apple.

Disable Personalized Ads: Navigate to Settings > Privacy & Security > Apple Advertising and turn off “Personalized Ads”.

Restrict App Data Access: Go to Settings > Privacy & Security and select specific categories (e.g., Contacts, Calendars, Motion & Fitness) to revoke access for individual apps.

Limit Location Services: Under Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services, set apps to “Never” or “While Using” and disable “Precise Location” for better privacy.

Reduce UI Clutter: To minimize intrusive “smart” interface elements, go to Settings > Accessibility > Motion and turn on Reduce Motion, and toggle Reduce Transparency in the Display & Text Size menu.

Disable Notifications/Haptics: Go to Settings > Sounds & Haptics to change how alerts behave, such as setting haptics to “Don’t Play in Silent Mode”.

A good resource for iOS 26 .

How to turn off Liquid Glass in iOS 26 if you hate it

I have added a link to this post in the sidebar under Calling All Jackals.

Not an open thread.

Reader Interactions

51Comments

  5. 5.

    Ohio Mom

    Thank you. When this phone dies, I am thinking of going back to an android phone, even if I dread the learning curve. Just out of spite.

  6. 6.

    frosty

    I don’t understand how I’ve escaped. My 13 Mini is on iOS 18 and I don’t get notices of automatic updates any more. At least not lately. How did I miss (counts fingers) seven other updates?

  7. 7.

    Gin & Tonic

    @frosty: You didn’t, you just can’t count. 17, 18, 26…

    Me, regretting that I skipped the 18 update, and now can’t get it.

  11. 11.

    WaterGirl

    @frosty: I believe they jumped straight from 18 to 26.

    Google Apple iOS versions and you’ll see that.  My current phone is a 13, and they are fucking relentless about trying to get me to do this update.

    Our friend PatrickG noted that he has seen one, count ’em, one person who likes iOS 26.

    Speaking of which, this is a reminder that he is willing to share his friends and family discounts with jackals.  Send me email.  As he likes to say, there’s no reason to pay full price for an Apple product when you have a friend who will share.

  12. 12.

    PeteS

    Every day the phone “reminds” me that I have not installed Apple Pay. How do I stop it? (Without installing the Pay software) It’s only tedious to keep not doing it, but I never had it, won’t miss it, and don’t want to be tied even tighter to the Apple ecosystem.

  13. 13.

    Mike E

    Stop buying new iPhones, get one used if you have to have one which solves a number of problems not least of which is eschewing the new crappy UI plus it hits Tim Apple right where he lives (you know, in Tramp’s pocket).

  15. 15.

    trollhattan

    @PaulWartenberg:

    Tim Apple is and will remain very disappointed in you.

    (Am on an ancient Android Galaxy that somehow made it past the two-year self-destruct horizon and now gets no updates at all beyond what Verizon pushes out. Probably caving on a new phone this year and find the decision-making to be fraught.)

  16. 16.

    cope

    My accidental solution is that my now unsupported iPhone SE is too full to download iOS 26.  I don’t think I will bother to open up enough space to do so.

  21. 21.

    MattF

    I installed all the ‘26’ updates because I wanted the windowing UI on my iPad— and installing iPadOS 26 makes installing the iOS 26 and MacOS 26 updates necessary because of the close integration of the Apple ecosystem. And… the iPad windowing UI is pretty good, at least better than the previous UI, which I never really fully mastered. Good enough that I’ll put up with the ugliness and dysfunction in the other updates. I’m still waiting for an actual iPadOS filesystem.

    That said, it is certainly worth the effort to improve the ‘mitigated disaster’ of iOS 26 and MacOS 26 as far as it is possible to do so. Apple does eventually fix its mistakes, but very slowly.

  22. 22.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @BretH: I HATE the damn “liquid glass” feature so much. I have a phone with security measures on it I have to use for work that forces me to type in a long passcode multiple times a day and if I see those bouncing bubble numbers ONE MORE TIME

  23. 23.

    jackmac

    As I posted deep (WAY DEEP) in previous thread, I’m currently updating my iPhone and will use Scout211’s excellent tips when the update is complete.

  27. 27.

    Scout211

    Also:

    Settings>Display and Brightness:  Change Liquid Crystal from clear to tint

    Settings>Accessibility>Display and Text Size: Toggle on: Show Borders, Reduce Transparency, Increase Contrast

  28. 28.

    Scout211

    I turned off and changed so many features that my phone and iPad look and act almost like iOS 18. There are so many features you can change or turn off. Good luck everyone.

  29. 29.

    Scout211

    CarPlay has some upgrades and improvements but was a bear to figure out how to get my phone to reconnect. I had to delete my phone and start all over again to reconnect it.  It was frustrating.

  32. 32.

    Bill Arnold

    After fiddling with various settings (including everything in the top post), 26.2.1 (just updated) seems fine.
    The battery draw was heavy for like a day after installing 26 initially, but it stabilized. (Don’t know what it was doing. Tried not be be paranoid.)
    I’m mainly with iPhone for the security updates; Apple’s brand is security. (Somewhat deserved, too.)

  33. 33.

    A Ghost to Most

    Apple is a cult. I knew that 40 years ago. An entire technical career in computers, and I never used an Apple, and never owned an Apple product. I don’t do cults.

  35. 35.

    FelonyGovt

    Thank you for this! These things help (some). Looking forward to doing the same on my new-ish iPad as well.

  36. 36.

    Aziz, light!

    @A Ghost to Most: That’s the stupidest remark I’ve heard today, but the day is young.

    I’ve enjoyed the use of my many Apple products since 1982. For 25 years I had to use PCs at work, which I didn’t like as much, but I don’t reflexively shit on people who use them. They are simply a competing product in the marketplace. I can’t imagine what possesses you to label ordinary people using ordinary consumer products with such anger and contempt, but you have lots of shitty company.

  43. 43.

    Tim in SF

    @Betty: “Not much of a learning curve. I never have understood how people justified the cost of an iPhone.”

    If you’re in the Apple ecosystem for everything else then the iPhone is a no-brainer. Everything syncs together: my photos, my music (with all my playlists), my address book, my text messages, my Apple Wallet, all my passwords to different sites (and I use a different one for every site so that’s real handy), my browser bookmarks, my email, and then the same with my iPad.

    As for the cost, if you get an older version, it’s not so bad. An iPhone 14 will be a great phone for many years to come and it’s a fraction of the price of an iPhone 17. I’m currently on an iPhone 12 with no plans to upgrade any time soon.

  45. 45.

    WaterGirl

    @Tim in SF:

    I don’t understand why I am supposed to block my phone from doing software updates. Has that been explained somewhere that I missed?

    It makes sense to block the updates if it’s trying to update you to a version you do not want.  Case in point: iOS 26

  47. 47.

    PatrickG

    @WaterGirl: since you name dropped me…

    The King asked for an item that would make him sad when happy, and happy when sad.

    His advisors gave him iOS26.

    It did not end well for them.

    But if you believe that this, too, shall pass, and want 15% friends and family discounts on any and all Apple products, email WaterGirl for details. You’re all friends here, to me!

  49. 49.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Mike E: this thread makes me happy that I only have old outdated refurbished apple products, I pads in the iOS 17 levels. And an android phone.

  50. 50.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Tim in SF: ​

    I don’t understand why I am supposed to block my phone from doing software updates. Has that been explained somewhere that I missed?

    I’ll give you a fresh example, happened to me less than an hour ago.

    It’s 1:30am when I wake up and want to check the app to see that the kiddo is where I expect him to be. And I find they’ve updated to IOS 26.2.1 without bothering to ask, so I’ve got to go through their rigamarole before I can use the phone for anything at all. Including selecting a 6-digit passcode.

    Fortunately I’m too groggy to just throw the phone at the wall, and after trying to see if I can get around that and giving up, I punch in 123456. It tells me that’s going to be too easy to guess. Well no shit Sherlock, I want to be able to guess it in the morning. The point being that it damn well shouldn’t be hitting me with this unexpectedly in the middle of the night. Damn good thing it wasn’t an emergency.

    Needless to say, I’m too pissed off at Apple to go back to sleep. Next phone is an Android.

  51. 51.

    meander

    Thank you for this post!  The transparent features of the new iOS were immensely irritating, especially for notifications on my home screen.  The Settings->Display and Brightness->set Liquid Glass to “tinted” from @BretH took care of that issue (for now…).

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