Slow performance and lag after iOS 26 update on iPhone

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.

I've been having the same issues as everyone else. After two hours on the phone with both regular support and senior advisors, we got nowhere. But my problems go beyond just lag and overheating. My calendar was completely wiped clean, the widget stopped showing appointments, and I couldn't even permanently delete files—they'd get stuck in the "recently deleted" folder. To top it off, iMessage would show "failed to send" even when the other person received the text.

The most frustrating part? The senior advisors were just as confused as I was. Their final advice was to just keep installing future updates and "hope" one fixes it.

My iPhone is getting a very bad sound lag. Ever since updating it’s been affected heavily. There was a sound lag for keyboard - when it sometimes disappears while typing and sometimes grows very loud - before, but now it’s across the entire system. Alarms now behave weird and my reminder at first vibrated and then had a sound with a 9 minute delay (it’s also not set to vibrate). Silence toggle reacts with a small delay like never before.

Screen locking sound behaves very strange and repeats itself.

Yes, also on my old 12 unlocking screen takes a longer moment and it shows darkened wallpaper but that’s because of the lack of Dynamic Island that shows Face ID icon.

At first there was lag for both my current and old iPhones but now it’s kinda most noticeable on my current iPhone since I use it most and have it not silenced. I hope next update fixes a lot of things and it gets more stable over time since it’s already been a while since the update and this kind of issue usually doesn’t happen to my iPhones

I have the same problem today after updating my iPad A16 from iPadOS 18 to 26.

In my case (iPad A16 & iPadOS 26), that's enough for fixing. I tested with 3D game Critical Strike, lag issue has gone.

But if the problem is still not resolved, try again after a few days to let the OS finish processing background tasks.

Good luck

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6zwVuDJ9cw

Perhaps a long shot:

Do you have a 3rd party VPN installed, even if you are not using it? If so, delete the VPN profile in Settings/General/VPN & Device Management/VPN, then restart your device. Don't just turn it off; delete the profile. If that fixes it, you can try reinstalling VPN, but probably shouldn't.

(VPN isn’t the cause of all problems, but it is responsible for a great many)

Good Morning everyone!

Another one here.

iPhone 14 256GB - 70GB free space

Battery capacity 87%

iOS 26.0.1

Imediately after upgrading to iOS26 seven days ago I faced performance issues, which I don’t have on any other, even older devices.

Clear indicator is the Home Assistant app (or calling Home Assistant in Safari or Chrome), which has terrible lags. Also this - not occurring on devices with iOS18 in the same environment.

I am really a fan, but what Apple is presenting here is just sad. Instead of sketching new icons, they should invest some time in integration testing.

The latest patch iOS 26.0.1 has partially solved the problem for my iPhone 12. Now the APPs don't crash, and the phone has minimized the absolutely laggy behaviour of iOS 26. Still lags, but at least the phone can be used.

Folks, I think I figured it out. TURN OFF LOW POWER MODE

mainly I was experiencing micro lag. I’ve done everything from reduce transparency, update all apps, turn on and off phone - but the solve was to turn off low power mode.

hope this helps

Mac/Jim, you seem to be pretty well plugged in. This thread is swarming with really bad 26 bugs.

I have a healthy 15ProMax running 17.5 because that's the most recent ios my freestyle glucose monitor app is compatible with. But I'll soon be switching to Dexcom7 monitors, which claim compatibility with ios 26. If I can upgrade that would be great.

But this thread is really alarming. Are engineers working on the lag/battery/other issues and will apprpriate patches be available soon? If not, updating is too risky and doesn't seem worth it.

Edit: Thought this was going to drop under Userkoozer’s response to toggle reduce transparency.

This should be one the top comments. I had to do this on my 4th Gen iPad. It didn’t completely resolve the issue because there is still a slight stutter when swiping between my list of apps. However, it does help a lot! Can confirm, it helped my iPhone 15 Pro max as well!

Not sure if anyone has seen slowness with the camera app. It seems pretty sluggish swiping between camera to video, etc. even with reduced transparency.

Thanks OP for posting this issue, thought I was going crazy!