From iOS 26, the telephone app will of course get a completely new appearance with the transparent Liquid Glass design and a renewed, optional layout in which favorites and recent calls are merged.
In addition, Apple introduces functions such as ‘screening calls’, where unknown callers must first give up their name and reason before your phone passes and when you are on hold, Hold Assist will let you know if an employee is available. We list all the new options for you.
Phone for iPad and Mac
Before we list all the innovations for telephone, it is good to know that this application is now also available on a Mac with macOS 26 or newer and an iPad with iPados 26 or newer. With the help of continuity and iCloud, telephone calls from your iPhone are sent to these devices and you can also have and start conversations on these devices.
Tabs merged in sleek design
The telephone app is the foundation of your iPhone and has hardly undergone a change in recent years. This will change from iOS 26. Together with the new Liquid Glass, the app has a new design, so that all your favorites, recent conversations and voicemails are now in one place. By merging tabs you can see at a glance what you missed and you can quickly start a new conversation.
At the top of the ‘Calling’ tab you will find your favorites including their contact poster, below that your recent calls will be displayed. These not only contain your missed calls and telephone calls made, but also your Visual Voicemail messages.
Using the filter options (three horizontal stripes at the top of the list) You can quickly display all your calls, missed conversations, voicemail and spam. Via this menu you can possibly switch on the classic display with separate tabs.
Screen calls
Not available in Dutch
The new function ‘Screenen’ calls in iOS 26 is based on live voicemail and collects information about unknown callers. Via a band, the caller is asked to pass on his name and reason for calling; Their answer is immediately shown as text on your screen, so that you can decide on the basis of that whether you want to hire or ignore the conversation.
This function is primarily intended to keep spam, scams and unwanted calls, and builds on live voicemail: you are not disturbed during your activities, but you do get an immediate insight into who is calling and why. Unfortunately, ‘calling calls’ does not work in Dutch. Languages ​​that are supported are English, German, French, Japanese, Cantonese, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese and Spanish.
As a user, you can, however, block unknown and anonymous callers as standard and send it directly to voicemail. These calls are then stopped and placed in your conversation list so that you can decide at a later time to call back. With the help of the new filter options you can immediately see which calls are of unknown callers.
Hold Assist
Not available in Dutch
You probably know that you are on hold during a telephone conversation and actually can no longer use your iPhone. Annoying, but the new function Hold Assist Ensures that your iPhone will automatically stay on the line when you are put on hold during a telephone conversation, for example at a customer service. As soon as a real employee comes on the line, you will immediately receive a notification so that you no longer have to listen to the waiting music yourself and you can spend your time on something else.
Hold Assist is available in English, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese, Japanese and Mandarin. For the time being it is unknown when the function becomes available in Dutch.
Tap ‘recently’ to call
In the previous versions of telephone, the fixed shot was, as soon as you tapped an item in the list, the telephone conversation was started. From iOS 26 this is no longer the case and you must enable this function manually via the telephone settings. Call in the ‘Tap’ Recent ‘option to call’ to start the call immediately as soon as you tap a name or number in the list of recent calls.
Other changes
- Completely new design by Liquid Glass interface
- Visual Voicemail Summaries using Apple Intelligence (unclear whether this will also be available in Dutch)
- Smaller reports of calls on CarPlay
- Report of telephone calls on Apple TV
- With live translation, conversations in a foreign language are automatically translated using transcription (unfortunately not to Dutch)