Slow performance and lag after iOS 26 update on iPhone

Following up on my previous comment even after turning off Apple Intelligence my iPhone still experiences lag. I have now reduced transparency and deleted my VPN profile again in

conjunction with turning off AI. My iPhone seems more responsive but only time will tell. Apple need to release a patch. I have only had my iPhone 15 Pro for about two weeks and find that my iPhone 13 responded so much better.

THIS SOLVED IT FOR ME THANK YOUUUU. I was late to update to 26 like did it beginning of this month and have been so disappointed because my phone ran so smoothly before. Turn reduce transparency on!! Saved my phone!

It’s the IOS26 update. I have the iPhone 17 pro and it’s doing the exact same thing. ughhh slow as heck, lag, freezing on the simplest task, heating fast and the battery life sucks. Glad I haven’t traded in my iPhone 13 Pro Max, nor have I done the update on it.

If it was the iOS update there would be a million posts about it, as there are 500 million users who have updated and presumably don’t have a problem. Have you read the thread to see how others have solved this?

Hi, this is not Apple Support. Apple and Apple Support do not participate here. Everyone posting and commenting are fellow Apple users, just like you. If you’re in the US, please call  1-800-MY-APPLE, or outside the US, consult the support articles below. In Canada, call 1-800-263-3394.

Contact Apple for support and service - Apple Support

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...i'd like to add one detail I've noticed that I think has to be part of the problem or where the problem partly lies: if my phone is fine, not too many apps open and its having one of its better moments (for the sake of this post lets say that means when its not quite as laggy), and I plug it in to charge, within minutes the battery/phone starts to heat up like never before and then, its slow as a slug... so just sitting there, charging, using just Apple bricks and charge cables, it starts to hear up a lot to the point where I have to unplug it... while in the car, It even gets so hot it gives that "too hot" warning and shuts off... only solution is to unplug it and let it cool off... if it stays plugged in it wont cool off... and please note, this same phone NEVER had that experience before the update...

Along the same lines... once my battery got down to around 7% and I plugged it in to charge up... it heated up, but this time seemed ok, but then I noticed that slowly but surely, the battery drained while it was plugged! It drained to 1% and I left it, no apps on nothing. Came back 30 minutes later and still at 1%...

The only thing that got it to charge up was switch Apple brick to the more powerful Apple brick, the 60W one. Then it charged up quite quickly and smoothly...

So again, I dont know what the new iOS did to create all these issues, but maybe how it handles the Battery is part of the problem, because as many have said, this behavior was non-existent before iOS26...

Yes. I’m not getting all my calls or voicemails. My daughter called about 5 times. So she had to call me on Facebook Messenger. My focus will just come on and it wouldn’t let me turn it off. My hotpot just turns on.I went to settings to make sure it was off and it was. Couple hours later it just pop back on.

I’m having so my issues with this new Update 26.0.1

I also been asking a lot of other people with it. Some has and some hasn’t no issues with the new update.

Contrary to what is said in the ' best answer' the ios 26 update ís horrible, buggy and laggy. It's a month now and I'm pretty sure it indexed and optimized whatever there was to optimize. The difference with my girlfriends 12 mini on 18.7 is shocking. I have an iphone 13 mini with a new original battery that lags and is empty earlier. I have 15 iOS versions and numerous devices to know that iOS 26 underperforms.

I would actually pay to be able to revert back to 18.7

[Edited by Moderator]

sma333 wrote:

Please do not blame jailbreaking, dropping heat etc. I upgraded as required to use new apple watch and immediately after upgrade iPhone 13 connects to wifi but not internet. Even if only on cellular, it is very very slow and almost useless.

Are you using a VPN? That is going to give you network issues and turning off will not help, they must be removed. Check at Settings > General > VPN & Device Management. Seeing a connection to Wifi just means you have connected to your router, it means nothing as far as internet connectivity.

Not sure why your referenced jailbreaking or dropping the phone. If that is the case you are likely experiencing problems that go far beyond the iOS 26 update and those conditions are likely not going to get resolved here.

I used apple support which was very helpful. It took a while but what finally fixed it was to delete VPN apps on iphone 13

While this is apparently resolved, what does Apple suggest for VPN if on public wifi?

sma333 wrote:

I used apple support which was very helpful. It took a while but what finally fixed it was to delete VPN apps on iphone 13

While this is apparently resolved, what does Apple suggest for VPN if on public wifi?

Apple has no opinion on VPN. Experienced users in this forum do, however. First, you don’t need VPN on public Wi-Fi, because all communication to and from an iPhone is end to end encrypted. Your iPhone also “lies” about its Wi-Fi address when connecting to unknown networks, so your iPhone can’t be tracked by its Wi-Fi address. Using VPN is LESS secure that no VPN, because when you use VPN there is a middleman, the VPN provider, who knows everywhere you connect to, and thus can track your usage and sell that information to anyone who wants to track you. While all VPN providers deny they do this, several have been caught doing so. Avast, for example, has paid multimillions of dollars in fines for doing it repeatedly, after court settlements where they denied it. And even if your VPN provider is “honest”, it can be hacked, as NordVPN was recently.

Knowing this, if you still want to be less secure by using VPN go ahead and reinstall it. The problem you are most likely having is explained here: An important and frequently overlooked fact is that when you install VPN it configures itself to the specific hardware, OS version and network that the device uses. If any of those change it can break the VPN. So any time you change any of these you may need to delete the VPN app and profile, restart your device, then add them back (if you still want to use VPN) so it can configure itself to the new environment.

Here's more detail about: VPN - What you need to know

Same here on the 17 Pro. It feels clumsy, slow, and unresponsive — not to mention the numerous bugs, like the disappearing message input line in Viber, iMessage, and others. Compared to the experience I had on my previous 14 Pro running the latest iOS 18, it honestly feels like a step back by seven years.

Battery saver mode INTENTIONALLY slows down your iPhone to extend the life of the battery.

For low bandwidth: 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.

Rapp_J wrote:

Wrong. It's been way more than 3-5 days. It's been like 2 weeks, and my phone is still lagging significantly.

Did you read the post I replied to? The user updated an hour ago and Apple states clearly that you should be experiencing lag, battery drain, and heat for a couple days as seen in their Support Article. That is what is expected.

For your case, you have not provided any information that would be helpful:

• Did you Reset Settings?
• Have you performed a Factory Reset?
• What is your Battery Health?
• Is this in a specific app?
• Is this while browsing the internet?
• Do you have a VPN installed?

Without any information, you have a couple of choices:

• Schedule an appointment at Apple for diagnostics.
• Wait for the next release of iOS 26.1. It is currently in beta, so we cannot comment on the issues that have been resolved as it is a violation of the terms of use for being a beta tester.

Almightyadil I did the same: turned off low power mode and the problem was solved for me. iPhone 14PM iOS 26.0.1.

the bad thing still is that I can’t use low power mode anymore. That is a bummer because I use it many hours a day if not all day.