Slow performance and lag after iOS 26 update on iPhone

Contrary to what is said in the ' best answer' the ios 26 update ís horrible, buggy and laggy. It's a month now and I'm pretty sure it indexed and optimized whatever there was to optimize. The difference with my girlfriends 12 mini on 18.7 is shocking. I have an iphone 13 mini with a new original battery that lags and is empty earlier. I have 15 iOS versions and numerous devices to know that iOS 26 underperforms.

I would actually pay to be able to revert back to 18.7

[Edited by Moderator]

sma333 wrote:

Please do not blame jailbreaking, dropping heat etc. I upgraded as required to use new apple watch and immediately after upgrade iPhone 13 connects to wifi but not internet. Even if only on cellular, it is very very slow and almost useless.

Are you using a VPN? That is going to give you network issues and turning off will not help, they must be removed. Check at Settings > General > VPN & Device Management. Seeing a connection to Wifi just means you have connected to your router, it means nothing as far as internet connectivity.

Not sure why your referenced jailbreaking or dropping the phone. If that is the case you are likely experiencing problems that go far beyond the iOS 26 update and those conditions are likely not going to get resolved here.

Hi, this is not Apple Support. Apple and Apple Support do not participate here. Everyone posting and commenting are fellow Apple users, just like you. 

Please provide your feedback directly to Apple using the link I shared below.

Product Feedback - Apple

sovanreach96 wrote: "My phone when recording is lag"

sovanreach96 ~ What model of iPhone is it?...

Settings > General > About > Model Name

And what version of iOS is it running?...

Settings > General > About > iOS Version

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lol definitely the low power mode.

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 here.

Don't tell me it's not the update, because it's definitely been lagging ever since I did it this morning. It's no longer smooth when I swipe left to right on the app menu, or when I swipe up to exit an app or down for the drop-down menu.

I still have over 30GB of free space, my iPhone isn't jailbroken or anything like that.

If you have any solutions, I'm all ears, otherwise I hope the next update will fix the problem.

Nope you are so wrong. It’s the update, as soon as I updated my phone not even a hour ago, I get extreme lag and it doesn’t even run smoothly at all.

AND I HAVE A 15 PRO MAX NOT EVEN 2 years old with extra 350 gigs left

It’s been almost 5 days since upgrading to iOS 26 and so far the lagging is not going away. All apps are slow, phone is overheating. Still have 40gb storage and 88% battery capacity. Everything that was working fast and smooth a week ago now barely working. Safari, email, social media all very slow. Had 14 years of iPhones, the 4, 6, X, 12 models and never updated iOS then it froze up like this. Patiently waiting for the iOS 26 to start working better. If I could go back to iOS 18 I would and wait there until this is fixed. Many websites and tasks just stop working now and they were working fine before upgrade 5 days ago.

nah its been more than a week i gues after the update my iphone 14 is still lagging in doing simple task even today changing a walpaper its lagging ios 18 was much much better and why are the icons so big as compared to ios 18 and while you unlock from face id it shows a blank screen for 1 or 2 sec before opening and also why is there no option to revert back to ios 18 my phone has 87gb free with 87percent battery health its getting too much overheated while charging and also it never did when it had ios 18

You are basically right with your statements but there is no doubt that iOS26/OS26 brought laggy user experience to a lot of devices. My iPhone 15 Pro feels Like 7 year old. MacBook Pro the same. There are issues in a intense that i will downgrade the devices because it makes no fun to use like this.

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?