iOS 26? Apple to Adopt Year-Based Naming Across All Operating Systems [Report]

Apple is reportedly planning the most significant change to its operating system names in years, adopting a year-based branding strategy as part of a broad software overhaul affecting all its devices.

The next generation of Apple's operating systems will be identified by the year of their subsequent iteration, rather than incremental version numbers, according to people familiar with the plan cited by Bloomberg. This means that the successor to the current iOS 18 will be named "iOS 26." This new naming convention will extend across Apple's software ecosystem, with upcoming versions to be known as iPadOS 26, macOS 26, watchOS 26, tvOS 26, and visionOS 26.

Apple is reportedly making this change to create more consistency in its branding and to simplify the versioning for both customers and developers. The current system, with varied numbers like iOS 18, watchOS 11, macOS 15, and visionOS 2, reflects the different initial launch years of these platforms. A spokesperson for Apple declined to comment on the matter.


The company is expected to announce this shift at its Worldwide Developers Conference on June 9. This new branding will coincide with fresh user interfaces across these operating systems, an effort to provide a more cohesive experience as users move between devices. The new design language, internally codenamed Solarium and inspired by visionOS, is also expected to refresh tvOS, watchOS, and elements of visionOS.

This naming strategy is reminiscent of approaches taken by other tech companies. Samsung transitioned to year-based naming for its Galaxy S line with the Galaxy S20 in 2020, and Microsoft previously used years for major Windows releases like Windows 95. Apple will use the upcoming year for its OS branding; for instance, software launching around September 2025 will be named for 2026. The company previously used a similar convention for its iWork '08 and iLife '08 software suites.

Alongside these changes, Apple is also reportedly planning to make iPadOS more Mac-like and open its AI models to third-party developers. Other features anticipated for the upcoming software cycle include a live translation mode for AirPods, an eye-scrolling option for the Vision Pro headset, new AI-powered health features, and an AI-enabled battery management mode, in addition to a new bidirectional Arabic and English keyboard and a digital calligraphy pen for Apple Pencil users.

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