This September and October your iPhone will likely show a new software update that might shock you. iOS 26 is coming, according to reports from reputable Apple reporter Mark Gurman in Bloomberg.

It’s a big shift for Apple moving away from the incremental numbering system that has been in place now since the very first iPhone in 2007.

Every year in June at the Worldwide Developers Conference Apple announces new versions of their key software range, with iPad separating out to it’s own Operating System in 2019 – called iPad OS 13 in line with that year’s iPhone release software iOS 13.

But, if the rumours are true, in just a couple of weeks we’ll hear about iOS 26, with Apple looking to align their software with the year of use, and with the next iOS rolling out in the final three months of 2025 it makes sense to call it iOS 26.

True? We don’t know, but it seems legit, and makes sense.

Samsung did a similar thing with their device numbers, skipping from the Samsung Galaxy S10 in 2019 to the S20 in 2020 to align with year of release, which has been very helpful in dating devices since then:)