thoughts on iOS 26

I've just updated it and started using it, and have already run into a major issue. I rebooted my phone and Voiceover did not turn on when I turned my phone back on. I couldn't activate it with the accessibility shortcut either, I had to enter my pin with no voiceover assistance first, and then once my phone was unlocked, I could enable voiceover.

The copied speech option is wonderful.

I just wanted to share my experience as someone using an iPhone 13 updated to iOS 26. Overall, performance has been quite good — everything feels smooth, and VoiceOver navigation is very fast. Honestly, it doesn’t feel much different from newer models, which is impressive considering this is already an older device.

By the way, I also wanted to ask: does anyone know how to enable call screening on iOS 26? I couldn’t find the option in Settings.

Thanks!

Thankfully, it only happened once. I've restarted my phone again and all is well, but when I rebooted after the update, there was no speech and no way to enable Voiceover. Sounds like this may have been a wide-spread issue, although it wasn't listed here on Applevis; maybe it didn't happen with the betas? Perhaps they need to add it as a critical bug so that people aren't caught off guard like I was. If I'm being honest, all of the updates I've done today have been quirky to 1 degree or another, but the no VO on the phone issue was by far the most serious; it actually cost me $44, as I had to buy an emergency book of paratransit tickets. I mean... I guess it'll be good to have them around just in case, but it's something I never should have had to deal with. I'm just so thankful that my paratransit driver was able to unlock my phone; I hadn't had any luck entering my passcode without speech. Let's hope that whatever caused this problem gets resolved in the next iOS 26 update.

go to settings>apps>phone. change roter to headings, and flick down until you hear screen callers.

Good news, Gujarati language has officially added to the apples ecosystem, I was happy that the Gujarati language has been added, as I was waiting for it for quite some times now. I'm an American, but I always have wondered that there are so many Gujarati's in America, why Apple hasn't implemented their mother tongue, which is Gujarati. Unless, better late than never.

I upgraded to iOS 26, mainly because the last thing I need is for the app that works with my blood sugar monitor to eventually no longer be supported with iOS 18. I regretted updating the second my phone came back on. I launched safari, returning to a fanfiction I'd started reading just before updating. I use Alex as my main voice. I don't know what apple did with Alex, but he doesn't pause between sentences now, making reading anything longer than a sentence or two almost impossible. Also, my phone's volume seems quieter than it was on iOS 18, even after I restarted the phone. Now I'm stuck on an operating system I can't tolerate. I'm trying to find another voice I can use in place of Alex, but all the other voices seem to quiet, to the point where I have to blast my phone just to hear anything.

I am trying to change my primary VO Voice, and I can't get rid of the default Sumantha no matter what.
I had to download all of the voices which I was previously using, which I did successfully, but, changing primary voice is prooving to be a big challenge so far.
I am stuck with Tom so far.

Can you add a voice to the rotor and just use that as your 'primary'? It's pretty much what I have been doing throughout 18.x. Since you can't seem to have custom Rates for the Rotor voices, and I like my 'main' voice at 58%, while I actually use basic Samantha as a rotor voice for certain scenarios, at 70%.

HTH.