Apple announced a ton of new features and changes across its products during the company's big WWDC 2025 event. iOS 26, in particular, is chock full of updates, with a long list of iPhones that support the newest update. However, some of these new features will only run on newer iPhones. Even if your iPhone can update to iOS 26, you might be missing out on the full experience.
Most of the features on this list are powered by Apple Intelligence, Apple's suite of generative AI features. As it happens, Apple Intelligence requires an iPhone 15 Pro or newer to work. That includes, of course, iPhone 15 Pro Max, but also iPhone 16, 16 Plus, 16 Pro, and 16 Pro Max. If you don't have one of those six phones, you can't use any Apple Intelligence features—both the existing ones released throughout the iOS 18 era, as well as any of the new features in iOS 26. It's a little confusing, since there are a lot of iPhones that can run iOS 26 that aren't these iPhones—basically iPhone 11 and newer—but that's the way Apple wants it, unfortunately.
Here's what you're missing out on if you don't have a newer iPhone:
Live Translation
Apple's Live Translation features for iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS Tahoe seem great. Live Translation uses AI to translate both text and audio in real time across various apps and services. So, you might see translations appear next to messages sent in a language you can't read, or hear translations when on a call with someone who speaks a language you don't understand.
Visual Intelligence
Visual Intelligence itself isn't new this year. The Apple Intelligence feature debuted with iOS 18.2, and lets Apple's AI analyze anything in your camera feed. The feature started as an iPhone 16 exclusive, but Apple did bring it to 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max models as well.
With iOS 26, Visual Intelligence is now able to analyze the contents of your iPhone's screen as well, via screenshots. In addition to pointing your camera at something for Visual Intelligence to analyze, you can take a screenshot, and the AI will be able to process its contents.
Lens cleaning alert
It's always a bummer when you spend the day taking photos on your phone, only to notice when you're home that those photos came out smudgy—all because your camera was dirty.
iOS 26 has a (presumably AI-powered) feature to fix that. Apple didn't announce this one, but beta testers discovered that when the camera is dirty, the new Camera app now warns you to clean the lens before taking a photo.
Genmoji and Image Playground
Genmoji and Image Playground are getting updates with iOS 26—the AI features rolled out last year, allowing you to generate emojis and images with text-based prompts.
This year, Apple is adding the ability to mix together different Genmoji and emoji to create brand new icons, which introduces an Emoji Kitchen-like feature to the iPhone. In addition, Image Playground now lets you add ChatGPT styles, like anime, oil painting, and watercolor, to your generations.
AI-integrated Shortcuts
Shortcuts has been available on all iPhones since iOS 12, but with iOS 26, Apple is integrating AI features to the automation tool. These shortcuts will let you summarize text, generate images, or utilize Apple Intelligence models to power your shortcuts.
What do you think so far?
If your iPhone can't access AI tools at all, you probably won't feel the absence of these upgrades much anyway.
Messages features
Messages is getting some useful new features this year. Two key features are polls and backgrounds: You'll be able to make polls for your friends and family to answer, and choose from a set selection of backgrounds for your chats. Other chat apps have had these features for years, of course, but it's cool they're finally in the Messages app—and both are compatible with all iPhones running iOS 26.
That said, each feature has AI integrations that will only work on iPhone 15 Pro and newer. First, polls: In addition to choosing your own poll questions, newer iPhone owners will also see AI-generated poll suggestions. (I'm not entirely sure why you'd want this, but it's there.) In my opinion, Backgrounds' AI feature is more useful, since you can use Apple Intelligence to generate a background for your chats. I'd prefer to choose my own image to set as a background, but this at least opens up the background possibilities.
Reminders
If you have one of these iPhones compatible with Apple Intelligence, you'll notice iOS 26 suggests new reminders based on the contents of your messages and emails. If you're chatting with your roommate about needing to buy more coffee, for example, you might see a suggested reminder to add it to your grocery list.
Plus, iOS 26 will categorize task lists for you using Apple Intelligence. There's a new “Auto-Categorize” setting, complete with an Apple Intelligence logo, if you want to outsource that task to Apple's AI.
Apple Wallet
On iPhone 15 Pro and newer, iOS 26 will use AI to automatically pull data from your emails to show you up-to-date order tracking in Wallet. The app already has non-AI support for order tracking, but it's not particularly used by stores and merchants.
Lock Screen
iOS 26 has exactly one non-AI feature that isn't supported on all compatible devices: The Lock Screen has a new 3D effect that automatically adjusts the size and position of the time depending on the the photo you choose, prioritizing the subject of the photo. It's neat, and only works on iPhone 12 or newer. If you have an iPhone 11, you're out of luck.
