iOS 26.5 is out: Everything iPhone users need to know

Apple released iOS 26.5 on May 11, 2026, exactly 48 days after iOS 26.4 debuted. The update is not a massive overhaul, but it brings three things Apple officially highlighted: end-to-end encrypted RCS messaging (in beta), a new Suggested Places section in Apple Maps, and a customisable Pride Luminance wallpaper. Alongside those, there are more than 50 security fixes and a handful of smaller quality-of-life changes across the system.

Which iPhones are getting iOS 26.5

Apple Intelligence: A separate gate

This guide covers everything: what’s new, which iPhones support it, and which features are available across different regions.

This is the biggest change in iOS 26.5. When you send a message to someone on Android, it usually goes as an RCS message (if both carriers support it) or plain SMS. Either way, the conversation has not been encrypted end-to-end until now.

With iOS 26.5, Apple has added end-to-end encryption to RCS conversations. The feature is built on the Messaging Layer Security (MLS) protocol, developed with Google and the GSMA. When it is active, you will see a lock icon and the word “Encrypted” at the top of the conversation thread.

Carrier support is patchy right now. Here is where things stand:

The practical takeaway for most users outside the US and Canada: the encrypted RCS toggle will appear in your settings, but the feature will not actually activate unless your carrier is on the list. For private cross-platform messaging, Signal and WhatsApp remain reliable options.

When you tap the search bar in Apple Maps, you will now see two recommended locations appear above your recent searches. These are pulled from what is trending nearby and your own recent search activity. The recommendations refresh over time and shift to reflect wherever you have been searching.

This feature is available globally. There is no opt-out for the location-based personalisation that drives these suggestions.

One important distinction: Suggested Places and Apple Maps ads are two separate things. Apple has confirmed that ads will eventually appear within Maps search results, clearly labelled as “Ad,” with placement auctioned by keyword. But those ads are not live yet. Apple announced in its March 24, 2026, Newsroom post that Maps ads would be “available to businesses in the United States and Canada starting this summer.” As of now, the ads have not appeared. The Suggested Places feature itself is the live, global addition in iOS 26.5.

iOS 26.5 ships with a new animated wallpaper called Pride Luminance. It dynamically refracts a spectrum of colours as you tilt, lock, or unlock your iPhone. It is part of Apple’s 2026 Pride collection and comes with 11 preset colour combinations inspired by Pride flag variants, including the Progress flag (light and rich versions), Transgender, and Lesbian, among others, labelled with Roman numerals I through XI.

There is also a 12th option called “Custom” that lets you build your own palette of up to 12 colours. A matching Pride Luminance watch face was added to watchOS 26.5 at the same time.

To get it: Settings > Wallpaper > Add New Wallpaper > Pride collection > Pride Luminance.

If you own a Magic Keyboard, Magic Mouse, or Magic Trackpad, iOS 26.5 makes pairing much less annoying. Plug the accessory into your iPhone or iPad using a USB-C cable, and the device will establish a persistent Bluetooth pairing that stays active after you unplug the cable. You will not need to manually pair it through Settings every time. This mirrors how the same accessories have always worked with a Mac.

Apple has added a new subscription billing option for developers. It lets them offer a plan where you pay monthly but commit to 12 months upfront, similar to how mobile phone contracts work. The monthly price must fall between the standard annual price and 1.5 times that annual price. You can cancel at any time, but you remain responsible for paying out the remaining months of the term.

This plan is available in every country except the United States and Singapore. Apple has not given a public reason for excluding those two markets. Analysts have linked the US carve-out to ongoing DOJ antitrust pressure and the aftermath of the Epic v. Apple legal battle.

On the user side, this requires iOS 26.4 or later. Developers need to build their apps with SDK 26.5 to offer it.

A small but useful change to the Reminders app. When a timed reminder fires and you long-press the notification, the snooze options now show exact times, like “Remind Me at 3:00 PM” or “Tomorrow at 9:00 AM,” instead of the old vague labels like “This Afternoon,” “This Evening,” or “Tomorrow Morning.” The times update dynamically based on the time of day when you press.

Apple’s Move to Android transfer tool, which was introduced in iOS 26.3, gets a small upgrade here. When transferring data from your iPhone to an Android device, you can now choose how many message attachments to carry over. The options are: None, Last 30 days, Last 1 year, or All.

The code and assets for an Apple Books Year in Review 2026 feature are sitting inside iOS 26.5, but the feature itself is not live. It will go live closer to the end of the year, following the same pattern Apple used in 2023, 2024, and 2025. When it does, it will assign reading awards with titles like The Adventurous Reader, The Listening Legend, Reading Royalty, The Social Reader, The Endurance Reader, The Golden Bookmark, and The Loyal Reader.

To comply with the EU Digital Markets Act, iOS 26.5 opens up three features that were previously exclusive to Apple accessories, but only for users whose Apple Account region is set to an EU country:

Accessory makers still need to update their firmware and companion apps before any of this works. The iOS-side support is in place, but hardware adoption will take time. Apple’s updated developer agreement bans the use of forwarded notifications or Live Activities for advertising, profiling, or location tracking.

iOS 26.5 adds a new “App Installation” setting under Settings > Apps for users with a Brazilian Apple Account. This is the system-level groundwork Apple is putting in place following its December 2025 settlement with CADE, Brazil’s competition authority. That settlement came after a complaint originally filed by MercadoLibre in 2022.

The settlement requires Apple to allow alternative app marketplaces on iOS, third-party payment processors inside apps, and the removal of anti-steering rules. But as of iOS 26.5’s release, no alternative marketplace has been approved or launched. Brazilian users who update will see the new App Installation menu, but it only lists the App Store. You still cannot install apps from outside the App Store in Brazil.