Slow performance and lag after iOS 26 update on iPhone

any tips now that it has been months?

Stop upgrading it will only slow you phone down even more

Same problem here. Lagging a lot and now deleting an app also takes full 5 - 10 seconds. Nothing of that before the update. Every time I switch screens the apps are displaying slowly one after another. Apple ! Please fix this. I contacted them and they said to wait 72hours after the update as the update requires time to update. It’s been 48 hours still same problem. Will wait the full 72 hours and see.

Same thing here.

Don't tell me it's not the update, because it's definitely been lagging ever since I did it this morning. It's no longer smooth when I swipe left to right on the app menu, or when I swipe up to exit an app or down for the drop-down menu.

I still have over 30GB of free space, my iPhone isn't jailbroken or anything like that.

If you have any solutions, I'm all ears, otherwise I hope the next update will fix the problem.

they will tell you battery & storage & other excuses, but in reality all my friend and brothers and me have the same issue, they just release unfinished product, also AI not here Apple just become bad in the recent years…

Nope you are so wrong. It’s the update, as soon as I updated my phone not even a hour ago, I get extreme lag and it doesn’t even run smoothly at all.

AND I HAVE A 15 PRO MAX NOT EVEN 2 years old with extra 350 gigs left

Jpprado232 wrote:

Nope you are so wrong. It’s the update, as soon as I updated my phone not even a hour ago, I get extreme lag and it doesn’t even run smoothly at all.

AND I HAVE A 15 PRO MAX NOT EVEN 2 years old with extra 350 gigs left

That is exactly what you are supposed to be experiencing after an update of not even an hour ago. Not only lag, but you should be seeing increased battery drain and higher than normal heat being generated from the background indexing being done.

About Apple software updates - Apple Support

You will need to give it 3-5 days to complete. The exact time is not possible to know as it depends on many factors including the size of your photo library where updated algorithms on object detection are also being done. Leave your phone on a charger all night, every night.

Since 26.0 my iPhone is lagging badly and I keep getting “message failed to send” errors, even though the messages do go through. Apple says it’s not the update, but too many people are reporting the same issues for that to be coincidence. These problems didn’t exist before 26.0.

Updates should fix bugs, not create them, and users should have the choice to disable features that drag performance down. Right now, it feels like we’re being forced into updates that slow our phones and eat storage, with no real help in return.

It’s been almost 5 days since upgrading to iOS 26 and so far the lagging is not going away. All apps are slow, phone is overheating. Still have 40gb storage and 88% battery capacity. Everything that was working fast and smooth a week ago now barely working. Safari, email, social media all very slow. Had 14 years of iPhones, the 4, 6, X, 12 models and never updated iOS then it froze up like this. Patiently waiting for the iOS 26 to start working better. If I could go back to iOS 18 I would and wait there until this is fixed. Many websites and tasks just stop working now and they were working fine before upgrade 5 days ago.

nah its been more than a week i gues after the update my iphone 14 is still lagging in doing simple task even today changing a walpaper its lagging ios 18 was much much better and why are the icons so big as compared to ios 18 and while you unlock from face id it shows a blank screen for 1 or 2 sec before opening and also why is there no option to revert back to ios 18 my phone has 87gb free with 87percent battery health its getting too much overheated while charging and also it never did when it had ios 18

Same here. Just booted up the new iPhone 17 with the new iOS and it’s significantly slower than any iPhone/iOS I’ve ever had. Like everyone is saying, switching apps and navigating screens is incredibly laggy, unlocking with Face ID/passcode takes a few seconds, even scrolling up/down a page has noticeable latency, battery life for a brand new device is surprisingly bad (lasted less than 20 hours of spotty usage on a full charge). How the heck do I undo this garbage update? APPL YOU NEED A RELEASE FIX ASAP!!

You are basically right with your statements but there is no doubt that iOS26/OS26 brought laggy user experience to a lot of devices. My iPhone 15 Pro feels Like 7 year old. MacBook Pro the same. There are issues in a intense that i will downgrade the devices because it makes no fun to use like this.

I didn't tested it for a long amount of time but i get signifcant better performance if i disable the "reduce transparency" setting...remarkable because this setting will be advised to enable to get over performance issues. But it seems that the setting does not improve the problems but rather exacerbates them.

So...you have to decide between a windows vista glass design or fluent animations 🤔

If the phone is working OK from last year, and starts lagging just after the update, the real issue here is iOS26.

My iPhone 12 is also very laggy since the update, and I am also experiencing APP crashes that I didn't see before the update.

I updated my IPhone 15 when the update first came out and I am still experiencing so much lag and battery drainage. I have to restart my phone sometimes because if I click an app it’ll just be a black screen as if it’s just stuck in trying to load which ever app I’ve selected. My son’s phone does the same. Neither phone had any previous issues. Now I can’t even use my phone without some form of glitch or lag. As I try to write this, my screen just keeps glitching up and down. As if I’m trying to scroll and type at the same time. I just want my phone to function like it did before this update.