Slow performance and lag after iOS 26 update on iPhone

i have a Apple 13(bought 2 years ago)

86% battery health…

the new ios26 update is killing me.

texting: glitches, laggy.

safari: does it work today? No, not without freeze, laggy and delays in response. Several seconds!!

camera from locked screen: ive conplained so much. First open, black screen. And I see the green light go on. Nothing. SO!! I have to lock the screen again. Click to ”wake upp” and press the camera button again and now I can take a picture. This has been since the launch of ios26.

do you have devs working? That know how to troubleshoot? Because it doesn’t seen like you do.

jed298 wrote: "Honestly my phone has never been the same since I updated to 26…"

jed298 ~ What model of iPhone is it?...

Settings > General > About > Model Name

And which point version of iOS 26 is it running?...

Settings > General > About > iOS Version

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staticfunction wrote:

I have a new iPhone 13, fresh from the box, updated it to ios 26. Experienced significant lag.

There is no such thing as a "new" iPhone 13 as they were first introduced 5 years ago and discontinued just shy of 2 years ago. Depending on where you purchased it, the phone may have been refurbished or simply the battery "boosted" to appear better than what it actually is. Fresh from the box just means it was shrink wrapped which anyone can do and packaging material is readily available.

Even if the phone was not used before, it would have been sitting on a shelf somewhere for an extended period of time. Having a lithium battery completely drained is the worst thing that can be done. Everything you describe sounds like a battery that is not able to meet the demands and the battery may be damaged.

I have been experiencing nothing but problems with my iPhone 15 Pro ever since installing the recent major iOS update. It seems to be getting worse with every subsequent point-upgrade that rolls out.

I am seeing others post about the exact same glitches, and I don't believe this has anything to do with the specific phone model, as the iPhone 15 Pro should easily handle current software. Because all of these performance troubles started directly after the update, I have intentionally decided not to upgrade my hardware.

My phone right now is not working properly, and I refuse to spend another $1,200 to upgrade to a newer model just to solve a problem that feels entirely software-related. Is anyone else experiencing this loop of worsening bugs on a 15 Pro?

lol definitely the low power mode.

Only if you have the beta. I’d suggest just not updating anymore. You know 26.2 is even bigger and slows your device even more. If you keep upgrading you are inevitably retiring your phone.

Is low power mode or adaptive power disabled too? Which model iPhone and specifically what version iOS are you using?

It's not always the iOS update's fault!  Many things can cause phone problems.  If you tell people you think it's an iOS update, it might make it harder to fix or find a solution for the real issue.

Remember, the right question often leads to the solution!

Was/Is your device Jailbroken? If that's the situation, please be informed that attributing the issues to iOS updates may not be accurate.

iOS updates aim to enhance user experience, boost security, and fix bugs rather than disrupt core features. The majority of the issues after updates might stem from underlying, unmentioned factors. Updates won't typically alter personal data but may refine settings or features. Backup before major updates for safety. Review Apple's update details and backup advice for a smooth process.

Kindly consider checking your settings and addressing any device issues before attributing the issue to external factors. This could be a pure coincidence that the iOS update affected the iPhone functions.

Before initiating a standard iOS update, it's advisable to create a backup. Have you completed this step? If yes, proceed with the restoration from the backup.

See what each update does: OS — iOS 26, About iOS 18 Updates, About iOS 17 Updates, About iOS 16 Updates, About iOS 15 Updates, About iOS 14 Updates, About iOS 13 Updates, About iOS 12 Updates, and so on...

Yeah, I have the same issue. The person who has said is not the update, it’s wrong. My phone was fine before the update, now I feel I have an iPhone 4 in 2025 (I have an iPhone 13 with more than 20GB free of storage).

Also, it is not only the bad performance and battery drain but also still a lot of bugs (mostly in the UI) that really make me feel like a beta user.

Besides my iPhone being almost unusable, my iPad Pro M4 also started lagging after the update and I even managed to cause a full UI crash followed by a black screen with a loading spinner.

iPhone 14/15&16 myself and daughters phone, all experiencing the same issue since latest update. Daughter’s phone is only a few months old! Lagging, timing out, games not loading properly, low battery very quickly.

This whole statement took 4 attempts to text and load!!!

Apple need to update and rectify immediately!

Same thing. i did an update for my 12pro and it was slow for a day and smooth for second day onwards. and then after couple of days, it is lagging the whole thing. I used Lirum info app to see what is the usage and all. Not even 35-45% of CPU usage and 30% memory usage. Not sure how true it is. Appears to be true as it shows all 6 core usage info. (4 cores at nearly 40-45%% and 2 performance core almost at 0-10% and i dont understand what is slowing things down?

I have the same problem. iPhone 15 pro max.

By “slow”, I mean my keyboard isn’t that responsive anymore, when processes change, I’ll notice a micro stutter. It’s really strange to see this kind lacklustre UX responsiveness in an Apple product.

I updated a few days ago. Updated all my apps. Did a restart.

Battery at 87% health. Storage at 50%

Out of curiosity I went to an istore to check out the iPhone 17 pro, and to my surprise I noticed the same micro lag! Is ios26 a bad release??

My phone feels like a 4 year old Samsung now….

Further follow up on this issue from my own experience. I ended up returning my iPhone 15 Pro to Apple as I had it less than a month and the MagSafe charging functionality stopped working too as well as all of the issues with lag and unresponsiveness. I have now bought an iPhone 17 and I am not experiencing any issues although I have not yet activated Apple Intelligence.

Just an update to the iOS 26 update. So it’s been a month now since installing iOS 26 and compared to iOS 18 and all previous iOS versions this one is the worst. I can’t see anything it did to make my iPhone better. The lagging is still there. The battery still drains quickly and overheats. I’ve read through this whole forum several times and waited weeks for all the indexing to complete, I turned off Apple Intelligence, I turned off the reduce transparency display, I added the iOS 26.0.1 patch, I never dropped my phone, didn’t jailbreak it, bought it brand new from the actual apple store paid in full in person, always used a protective case, updated all the apps that I could and yet the problems and glitches and lag persists. Even going to the App Store or using Apple Maps or the weather app or the clock app all original apps nothing 3rd party outsourced doesnt work properly. Nothing works like it did with iOS 18. That worked perfectly. I have full bars reception data 5G there works. And now my phone is slow, glitchy and it’s not an upgrade. iOS 26 was a major downgrade. Probably should have waited to install after 26.2 or 26.3 was released. It shouldn’t take 4 weeks after installation to have it running smoothly. But I’m not a software engineer or developer so all I can compare it to is the 14 years of continuous use of other iPhones models and iOS versions. It’s hard to say it was working perfectly before the update and is now not working good after the update. And reading through all the comments and troubleshooting is like okay I did this and I did that and I am still experiencing lag and glitches so now what. Those issues weren’t there before. I guess it’s my fault for installing iOS 26. Maybe they should have just gone incremental improvements like from 18 to 19 to 20 instead of trying to leap ahead to 26.