The four iPhones Apple introduced last 9 September, which are available for preorder until this week when in-store sales will start, will ship with iOS 26 preinstalled.

iPhone 17 and iPhone Air buyers will get to experience the new operating system right out of the box. Some of them will already be familiar with the iOS 26 experience, and especially the new Liquid Glass design that Apple unveiled in June at WWDC 2025, after testing iOS 26 beta releases on their previous iPhones. Others will discover iOS 26 for the first time with the iPhone 17 and iPhone Air models.

Also, existing iPhone owners who don't plan to upgrade the hardware and who have not installed the beta will experience iOS 26 for the first time this week, as Apple will make the final iOS 26 release available for download in a few days.

Those iPhone owners who have used iOS 26 beta releases over the summer have probably gotten used already to the new features the operating system has to offer, and may be familiar with what follows. However, those users seeing iOS 26 for the first time this week might want to tweak their experiences by adjusting specific settings and learning a few of the new features in iOS 26.

The Liquid Glass design is easily the most polarizing element in iOS 26. Apple has been testing various degrees of transparency in Liquid Glass over the summer. If you think the default experience is too transparent for you, there's a setting to improve it. Go to Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size > Reduce Transparency and enable the toggle. The Differentiate Without Color setting might also help improve legibility. Those iPhone users who want a more transparent look can set up clear (fully transparent) icons for all apps by long-pressing the wallpaper, and then tapping Edit > Customize > Clear.

The Messages app also gets a design customization feature some people might like. You can set up chat backgrounds in Messages, like in other messaging apps. Others might not like it, and the good news is that you can permanently disable it. Head to Settings > Apps > Messages > Conversation Backgrounds and disable the toggle to use the default white/black background for all messaging.

The last design-related tweak in iOS 26 you should try concerns the screenshot experience. You can see screenshots in full-screen rather than having them appear minimized in the top right corner of the screen as was the case before iOS 26. Go to Settings > General > Screen Capture > Full-Screen Previews to enable the feature. This is also where you enable CarPlay Screenshots if you need it. The advantage of full-screen screenshots in iOS 26 is that you'll quickly use Visual Intelligence from the full screenshot view on supported devices.

Now that you've tweaked the design experience in iOS 26, you might want to enable two security features the new operating system introduces for the Phone and Messages apps. The new call screening feature (Screen Unknown Callers) might help you reduce the number of spam calls you get. Go to Settings > Apps > Phone and scroll for the Screen Unknown Callers feature. You can set the new Ask Reason for Calling option, so the phone will handle the call on your behalf before the iPhone rings.

While you're there, you might want to enable the new Hold Assist feature that will have the iPhone hold the call for you when you're attempting to speak to a customer care representative and you have to wait in line. The iPhone will ring when a human agent is available.

The Messages app has a similar feature called Screen Unknown Senders, which hides notifications from unknown numbers and moves those chats to a different folder. Go to Settings > Apps > Messages to enable it.

iOS 26 also delivers improvements to the battery experience and battery life (on some models). First, the iPhone will tell you how long it takes to reach 80 percent (on the Lock Screen). Go to Settings > Battery to see how long it takes to reach a full charge. If you have an iPhone that supports Apple Intelligence (iPhone 15 Pro or later), you might want to enable Adaptive Power in Settings > Battery > Power Mode, so your iPhone can learn how you use the phone and extend battery life based on your habits.

Another useful feature in iOS 26 is the support for custom snooze times. You can finally set any period of time for your snoozes instead of the 9-minute default that wasn't customizable before iOS 26. Go to Clock > Alarms, select an alarm, and tap the Snooze Duration menu to set your desired time (up to 15 minutes).

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Like most people, when Anja-Sara Lahady used to check or research anything online, she would always turn to Google as reported by Suzanne Bearne from BBC News.

But since the rise of AI, the lawyer and legal technology consultant says her preferences have changed - she now turns to large language models (LLMs) such as OpenAI's ChatGPT.

"For example, I'll ask it how I should decorate my room, or what outfit I should wear," says Ms Lahady, who lives in Montreal, Canada.

"Or, I have three things in the fridge, what should I make? I don't want to spend 30 minutes thinking about these admin tasks. These aren't my expertise; they make me more fatigued."

Lahady says her usage of LLMs overtook Google Search in the past year when they became more powerful for what she needed.

"I've always been an early adopter… and in the past year have started using ChatGPT for just about everything. It's become a second assistant."

While she says she won't use LLMs for legal tasks - "anything that needs legal reasoning" - she uses it in a professional capacity for any work that she describes as "low risk", for example, drafting an email.

"I also use it to help write code or find the best accounting software for my business."

Lahady is not alone. A growing number are heading straight for LLMs, such as ChatGPT, for recommendations and to answer everyday questions.

ChatGPT attracts more than 800 million weekly active users, up from 400 million in February 2025, according to Demandsage, a data and research firm.

Traditional search engines like Google and Microsoft's Bing still dominate the market for search. But LLMs are growing fast.

According to research firm Datos, in July 5.99 percent of search on desktop browsers went to LLMs, that's more than double the figure from a year earlier.

Professor Feng Li, associate dean for research and innovation at Bayes Business School in London, says people are using LLMs because they lower the "cognitive load" - the amount of mental effort required to process and act on information – compared to search.

"Instead of juggling 10 links with search, you get a brief synthesis that you can edit and iterate in plain English," he says. "LLMs are particularly useful for summarising long documents, first-pass drafting, coding snippets, and 'what-if' exploration."

However, he says outputs still require verification before use, as hallucinations and factual errors remain common.

While the use of AI might have exploded, Google denies that it is at the expense of its search engine.

It says overall queries and commercial queries continued to grow year-over-year and its new AI tools significantly contributed to this increase in usage.

Those new tools include AI Mode, which allows users to ask more conversational questions and receive more tailored responses in return.

That followed the rollout of AI Overviews, which produces summaries of queries at the top of the search page.

While Google plays down the impact of LLMs on its search business, an indication of the affect came in May during testimony in an antitrust trial bought by the US Department of Justice against Google.

A top Apple executive said that the number of Google searches on Apple devices, via its browser Safari, fell for the first time in more than 20 years.

Nevertheless, Prof Li doesn't believe there will be a replacement of search but a hybrid model will exist.

"LLM usage is growing, but so far it remains a minority behaviour compared with traditional search. It is likely to continue to grow but stabilise somewhere, when people primarily use LLMs for some tasks and search for others such as transactions like shopping and making bookings, and verification purposes."

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Buried in an ocean of flashy novelties announced by Apple this week, the tech giant also revealed new security technology for its latest iPhone 17 and iPhone Air devices. This new security technology was made specifically to fight against surveillance vendors and the types of vulnerabilities they rely on the most, according to Apple.

The feature is called Memory Integrity Enforcement (MIE) and is designed to help stop memory corruption bugs, which are some of the most common vulnerabilities exploited by spyware developers and makers of phone forensic devices used by law enforcement.

"Known mercenary spyware chains used against iOS share a common denominator with those targeting Windows and Android: they exploit memory safety vulnerabilities, which are interchangeable, powerful, and exist throughout the industry," Apple wrote in its blog post.

Cybersecurity experts, including people who make hacking tools and exploits for iPhones, tell TechCrunch that this new security technology could make Apple’s newest iPhones some of the most secure devices on the planet. The result is likely to make life harder for the companies that make spyware and zero-day exploits for planting spyware on a target’s phone or extracting data from them.

"The iPhone 17 is probably now the most secure computing environment on the planet that is still connected to the internet," a security researcher, who has worked on developing and selling zero-days and other cyber capabilities to the U.S. government for years, told TechCrunch.

The researcher told TechCrunch that MIE will raise the cost and time to develop their exploits for the latest iPhones, and consequently up their prices for paying customers.

"This is a huge deal," said the researcher, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss sensitive matters. "It’s not hack proof. But it’s the closest thing we have to hack proof. None of this will ever be 100 percent perfect. But it raises the stakes the most."

Jiska Classen, a professor and researcher who studies iOS at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Germany, agreed that MIE will raise the cost of developing surveillance technologies.

Classen said this is because some of the bugs and exploits that spyware companies and researchers have that currently work will stop working once the new iPhones are out and MIE is implemented.

"I could also imagine that for a certain time window some mercenary spyware vendors don’t have working exploits for the iPhone 17," said Classen.

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Apple's new Cosmic Orange iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max didn't come as a complete surprise at the "Awe Dropping" event last 9 September; many leaks hinted at the premium color left turn. Still, the vibrant hue marks a real departure from the more muted finishes of previous iPhone Pro line-up handsets.

In a conversation with Apple Global Marketing head Greg Joswiak and the company's Senior VP of Hardware Engineering John Ternus (along with Tom's Guide Global Editor in Chief Mark Spoonauer), the pair of executives noted that the new colors are, in part, a direct product of the switch from Titanium on the last set of iPhone Pro and Pro Max phones to anodized aluminum.

It's a lighter, more energy-efficient material that, through anodization, happens to support a wider color range.

"For years, we've had Pro customers say, 'Hey, the other part of the line gets all the fun colors and we don't,'" explained Joswiak, "and it's like, 'Okay, you want a fun color, how about Cosmic Orange, baby'."

Many dealers have heard some Apple consumers complain that the Pro line color choices are boring. Orange is decidedly unboring. On the other hand, many have noted the loss of one iconic Pro color that, on the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max, Cosmic Orange seems to have replaced: Black or Space Black. I asked Joswiak and Ternus, "When did orange become the new black?"

"We've had different shades of dark for years. We know people want a dark, " Joswiak told me, "We got Deep Blue, it's gorgeous."

Joswiak added that he believes that shade is "fantastic." He reminded me that Classic Silver is still an option. "We think we've got the bases covered there, and we feel really good about that."

While Ternus and Joswiak wouldn't go into great detail on the color choices, Joswiak did recall their reaction when Apple's "best design people on the planet" first revealed the new colors. "They showed us these, and we're like, yeah, it's awesome."

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Apple's newly released iPhone series, including the groundbreaking iPhone Air, has been the main topic in social media discussion in China last 10 September, with consumers expressing concerns about eSIM adoption and delayed Apple Intelligence features.

China Unicom, one of three state-owned carriers, is the only telecoms service provider able to provide eSIM service to iPhone Air users, although China Telecom and China Mobile, two other operators, said they would roll it out later. China's conditional acceptance of eSIM, along with delays in the Apple Intelligence roll-out, could result in headwinds for sales of the new iPhones in China, analysts said.

Regardless, the latest iPhones grabbed the attention of Chinese consumers. On 10 September, three of the top 10 trending topics on microblogging site Weibo were iPhone-related, two of which focused on pricing. One topic was on the 17,999 yuan (US$ 2,525) price tag for the iPhone 17 Pro Max with 2 terabytes of storage, equal to three iPhone 17s with a storage of 256 gigabytes.

Other discussions focused on the iPhone Air, the slimmest-ever iPhone with a thickness of 5.6mm. He Shijie, a tech vlogger who interviewed Apple chief executive Tim Cook in 2021, was given hands-on access to the new gadget at the launch event at Apple's Cupertino headquarters. He said it felt "rather impressive in hand", like an enlarged iPod Touch.

"The only questions are whether you can tolerate its battery life and accept having just one camera," he added.

Meanwhile, iPhone Air models purchased outside mainland China will be unable to install an eSIM profile from mainland carriers, discouraging consumers from buying a handset overseas for the greater software availability, including Apple Intelligence.

"The iPhone Air's ultra-thin design appeals only to a small number of early adopters", IDC China research manager Guo Tianxiang said. "As local competitors roll out deeply integrated AI features tailored to Chinese market demands, Apple's lag in AI capabilities is emerging as a major challenge to its growth in China," Guo said.

Given the compromises in battery life and camera, coupled with the limited eSIM support, "this model struggles to resonate with the Chinese mainstream", he added.

IDC senior research director Nabila Popal said the iPhone Air represented Apple's "most daring design leap since the iPhone X", which would "appeal to users who favour minimalist aesthetics, while the Pro series will be favoured by the majority prioritising battery life and camera performance".

"Apple has astutely segmented its product line-up, ensuring each model appeals to distinct user needs," Popal said. "Collectively, these devices will drive a robust wave of new purchases for the company."

Earlier this month, TrendForce projected that total shipments of the iPhone 17 series would be 3.5 per cent higher than the iPhone 16 line-up released in 2024, with the Pro series remaining the main sales driver.

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Sweden’s music rights organization has just released a licence that allows artificial intelligence companies to legally use copyrighted songs for training their models, while ensuring that songwriters and composers are paid.

The move announced by rights group STIM last 9 September responds to a surge in generative AI usage across creative industries that has prompted lawsuits from artists, authors, and rights holders. The creators allege AI firms use copyrighted material without consent or compensation to train their models.

The licence developed by STIM, which represents more than 100,000 songwriters, composers, and music publishers, allows AI systems to train on copyrighted works while paying royalties to creators.

According to the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC), AI could reduce music creators’ income by up to 24 percent by 2028.

"We show that it is possible to embrace disruption without undermining human creativity. This is not just a commercial initiative but a blueprint for fair compensation and legal certainty for AI firms," Lina Heyman, STIM's acting CEO, said in a statement.

By 2028, generative AI outputs in music could approach US$ 17 billion annually, according to CISAC.

Sweden has previously set industry standards for platforms such as Spotify and TikTok, and the new licence includes mandatory technology to track AI-generated outputs, ensuring transparency and payments for creators.

Songfox, a Stockholm-based startup, is the first company to operate under the licence, allowing users to create legal AI-generated songs and covers.

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