Apple iOS 26.5 may be the last major iPhone update of the iOS 26 series, before attention moves to iOS 27, which will be previewed at WWDC in June. There’s plenty in this release, from messages sent between iPhone and Android being encrypted for the first time. Here’s what you need to know, and whether you should be installing it on your iPhone.
This post has the initial thoughts on the new release and I’ll be updating this post over the coming week and I’ll add final thoughts on Tuesday, May 19.
Who Is It For And How Do You Get It?
As with other iOS 26 updates, this update is for all phones from the iPhone 11 series and more recent. The latest models, including the iPhone 17 series, iPhone 17e and iPhone Air, are all covered by iOS 26.5.
It’s straightforward to upgrade: go to the Settings app on the iPhone, choose General, then Software Update. Next, select Download and Install, and the software will download from there. This download was large, 1.61GB on my iPhone 17 Pro Max. Note that if you’re updating from an earlier iOS 26 version, or even from iOS 18, your download will be much bigger and take longer to install.
What It’s About
As mentioned above, this update includes end-to-end encrypted RCS messaging, which means messages sent between iPhones and Android handsets are encrypted. It is in beta now, and it requires carrier support before it happens, please note. There’s also a new Pride Luminance wallpaper and a Suggested Places update to Apple Maps. You can read full details of these new features here.
Apple iOS 26.5 Security
As Forbes contributor Kate O’Flaherty has described in detail here, there are more than 60 security flaws in iOS 26.5, some of them serious. Six of them sit in the Kernel, the beating heart of iOS, and at least one could allow bad actors access to root privileges.
Initial Reactions
First reactions to the release, and there have been many of them, more than is usual, I’d say, have focused almost entirely on the new RCS messaging, with one noting that carrier support for the service may influence whether they change networks in the future. That may have been tongue-in-cheek but another noted that Australian telcos don’t support RCS, apparently.
There was less delight about the introduction of ads in Apple Maps — though my understanding is they will come later. The security updates were also the subject of comments.
Apple iOS 26.5 Initial Verdict: Update
For the RCS update alone, I’d say this update is worth having. And the fact that more than five dozen security flaws are fixed make this an easy first verdict: update.
