Both operating systems introduce new designs, but the real story is what’s happening beneath with A.I.
For nearly two decades, smartphones have all worked pretty much the same, whether you bought an Apple iPhone or a smartphone running Google’s Android system: You have a grid of colorful apps that you tap on. But this year, Apple and Google are finally taking separate paths.
Apple’s next phone operating system arriving this fall, iOS 26, includes a transparent aesthetic mimicking the look of glass and making apps and buttons blend in with content on the screen. Google is doing the opposite with its newly released operating system, Android 16, which emphasizes brighter, punchier colors.
Those are just cosmetic changes that may represent the beginning of a greater split between iOS and Android. Google is also leaning heavily into integrating Gemini, its A.I. chatbot, to automate tasks like writing emails, editing photos and creating shopping lists. In contrast, Apple has released a small set of A.I. features and has postponed the debut of a revamped version of Siri because of technical challenges, so the company is focusing on making its software interface look prettier.
What this means for you, the consumer, is that your technology experience may differ drastically depending on which type of phone you buy in the coming years. With Google diving into the deep end of A.I., Android users will soon have phones that dig into their data to do lots of tasks for them — but whether they will appreciate this remains an open question. Apple phone users will get some nice-looking software with extra polish, which is more of the same.
Here are the highlights of what’s changing in our smartphones with the imminent arrival of iOS 26 and Android 16.