SAN FRANCISCO, Jan 26, 2026, 04:05 PST
- New guides show how to restore older layouts in Safari and the Phone app after iOS 26’s redesign.
- Users can also switch off features like Apple Music’s AutoMix-style transitions and Messages chat backgrounds.
- iOS 26 adds new everyday tools — from a Preview app for PDFs to a new sleep score — but not everyone wants the defaults.
Apple’s iOS 26 redesign is sending iPhone users into Settings to claw back familiar controls, as a string of how-to guides over the weekend laid out workarounds for Safari, the Phone app and other defaults. Yahoo
The scramble matters because iOS updates do more than add features — they reset habits on hundreds of millions of devices and set the rules for app makers. When the “new look” costs extra taps, the complaints land fast, and small toggles start to matter.
Apple previewed iOS 26 last year with “Liquid Glass,” its translucent interface style, and pushed Apple Intelligence — its in-house AI features — deeper into core apps. “iOS 26 shines with the gorgeous new design and meaningful improvements to the features users rely on every day,” software chief Craig Federighi said at the time. Apple
One recurring flashpoint has been Safari’s “compact” approach, which critics say buries basics like tabs and bookmarks behind extra menus. Supercar Blondie pointed to step-by-step instructions shared by the Proper Honest Tech channel showing how to switch Safari away from the default Compact Tab option in Settings. Supercarblondie
Other fixes are less about looks than muscle memory. Guides say users can bring back the old Phone layout, turn off Apple Music’s DJ-style AutoMix transitions, and disable Messages conversation backgrounds so one person can’t change the wallpaper for a whole chat. Apple describes AutoMix as using “intelligence” to mix songs “like a DJ,” time-stretching and beat-matching between tracks. Apple
The new Preview app — long a staple on the Mac — has become another fork in the road. Tom’s Guide highlighted features like scanning documents, adding signatures to PDFs, password-locking files and stripping image backgrounds, while other guides say some users delete Preview to force PDFs to open inside the Files app again. Tomsguide
Not all the attention has been about undoing changes. gHacks flagged what it called four iOS 26 features that quickly turned into daily tools, including a more adaptive toolbar in Notes, a clearer sleep score in the Health app, and what it described as Apple Intelligence-powered search improvements in Maps. Ghacks
The push-and-pull is not unique to Apple. Rivals including Google’s Android ecosystem and Samsung’s One UI have also leaned harder into AI features and interface refreshes, betting that new software sells new hardware.
But there are limits to the “make it like it used to be” approach. Apple generally does not offer an easy route back to older iOS versions once a device has moved on, and workarounds like deleting built-in apps can mean losing useful tools. Users also face the usual trade-off: staying current helps with security fixes, while waiting can avoid early annoyances. Apple
For now, iOS 26 is leaving room for both camps — the people leaning into new features like AutoMix and chat backgrounds, and the ones switching toggles just to get their tab bar back. Apple’s next updates will show how long that balance holds.
