{"id":9300,"date":"2025-11-07T17:05:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T21:05:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tcn.tidbits.com\/?p=11316"},"modified":"2026-01-27T15:20:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T19:20:21","slug":"new-features-in-ios-26-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/new-features-in-ios-26-1\/","title":{"rendered":"New Features in iOS 26.1"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first feature update to iOS 26 is now available\u2014go to Settings > General > Software Update<\/b> to install iOS 26.1. It doesn\u2019t introduce any game-changers, but there are a few new options and tweaks worth knowing about.<\/p>\n

Tinted Option for Liquid Glass<\/h3>\n

For many people, Liquid Glass\u2019s aggressive transparency can make some interface elements, especially notifications, difficult to read. Until now, your best bet for improving readability was to turn on Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Reduce Transparency<\/b>. In iOS 26.1, Apple bowed to user feedback and added a new Tinted view in Settings > Display & Brightness > Liquid Glass,<\/b> which adds a subtle tint and increases the opacity of many Liquid Glass interface elements. In the screenshot below, the left image uses the default Liquid Glass Clear view, the middle one uses the Tinted view, and the right one uses Clear with Reduce Transparency. You can decide which you like best.<\/p>\n

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Disable Lock Screen Camera Swipe<\/h3>\n

For many years, a fast way to get to the Camera app has been to swipe left on the Lock Screen. With new iPhones featuring the Camera Control button for quick access to the Camera app, Apple has given us the option to disable the Lock Screen left swipe. If you find yourself accidentally opening the Camera app from the Lock Screen, you can now prevent that from happening by turning off Settings > Camera > Lock Screen Swipe to Open Camera<\/b>.<\/p>\n

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Background Security Improvements<\/h3>\n

Several years ago, Apple introduced Rapid Security Responses, focused security updates that aimed to reduce update hesitancy with small downloads, automatic installation, and easy reversal. For unknown reasons, Apple used them only a couple of times before reverting to traditional operating system updates. Now, Rapid Security Responses seem to have returned under a new name: Background Security Improvements. They\u2019re enabled by default in Settings > Privacy & Security > Background Security Improvements > Automatically Install<\/b>. If you prefer to approve these updates in advance, you can turn that off. (A similar setting is available for macOS 26.1.)<\/p>\n

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Slide to Stop Alarms and Timers<\/h3>\n

In iOS 26, Apple increased the size of the buttons that appear when alarms or timers go off, but the large Stop button was easy to hit when you meant to tap Snooze (for alarms) or Repeat (for timers). Apple made that mistake much less likely in iOS 26.1 by requiring you to slide the on\u2011screen control to stop the alarm or timer.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Swipe Between Songs in Music<\/h3>\n

Sure, you could just tap a song in the album or playlist you\u2019re viewing, but iOS 26.1 adds a subtle way to move to the next or previous track: swipe left (next) or right (previous) on the MiniPlayer at the bottom of the screen.<\/p>\n

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More Languages for Live Translation<\/h3>\n

iOS 26 introduced Live Translation<\/a> with the AirPods 4 with Active Noise Cancellation, AirPods Pro 2, and AirPods Pro 3. Initially, it supported English (US and UK), French, German, Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish (Spain). In iOS 26.1, Apple added Chinese (Mandarin, simplified and traditional), Italian, Japanese, and Korean. To avoid delays in getting new languages when you are out and about, download the languages you expect to need ahead of time, when you have a fast Internet connection. Go to Settings > Bluetooth and tap the \u24d8 next to your AirPods. Scroll to and tap Languages, then select the desired language. For actual use, open the Translate app, tap Live, and select the two languages you want to translate between.<\/p>\n

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There are a few other tweaks that most people won\u2019t notice, such as support for the new AutoMix transitions between songs in Music when playing over AirPlay, better FaceTime audio quality in low-bandwidth conditions, manual logging of workouts in the Fitness app, and improvements when recording audio with external USB mics.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re already running iOS 26, we recommend updating to iOS 26.1\u2014the changes (and numerous security fixes) are worthwhile. If you haven\u2019t upgraded from iOS 18 yet, now\u2019s a fine time to make the jump.<\/p>\n

(Featured image based on an original by Apple)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first feature update to iOS 26 is now available\u2014go to Settings > General > Software Update to install iOS 26.1. It doesn\u2019t introduce any game-changers, but there are a few new options and tweaks worth knowing about. Tinted Option for Liquid Glass For many people, Liquid Glass\u2019s aggressive transparency can make some interface elements, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9301,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,69,106,8,112,185,104],"tags":[721,3397,3398,3396,95],"class_list":["post-9300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-apple","category-apple-consulting-ct","category-apple-support-ct","category-iphone","category-mac-support-ct","category-mactech","category-security","tag-apple-support-ct","tag-apple-technical-support-connecticut","tag-mac-help-near-me","tag-mac-support-connecticut","tag-mac-support-ct"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9300"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9314,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9300\/revisions\/9314"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macworks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}