{"id":2199,"date":"2026-04-07T03:45:48","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T02:45:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/innovatenews.site\/index.php\/2026\/04\/07\/returning-to-ios-18-after-using-ios-26-might-surprise-you\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T03:45:49","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T02:45:49","slug":"returning-to-ios-18-after-using-ios-26-might-surprise-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/innovatenews.site\/index.php\/2026\/04\/07\/returning-to-ios-18-after-using-ios-26-might-surprise-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Returning to iOS 18 after using iOS 26 might surprise you"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The topic Returning to iOS 18 after using iOS 26 might surprise you<\/strong> is currently the subject of lively discussion \u2014 readers and analysts are keeping a close eye on developments.<\/p>\n

This is taking place in a dynamic environment: companies\u2019 decisions and competitors\u2019 reactions can quickly change the picture.<\/p>\n

iOS 26 brought a major new Liquid Glass design that, in some cases, led to user reports of slower iPhone performance. But Daring Fireball\u2019s John Gruber recently went back to iOS 18 after a long time on iOS 26, and had a surprisingly different experience.<\/p>\n

Over the weekend, John Gruber published a brief post titled simply, \u2018iOS 26 feels faster than iOS 18.\u2019<\/p>\n

One more follow-up point after I spent two days using an iPhone 16 Pro running iOS 18.7.7 as my main phone. At some point late in the iOS 26 beta cycle last summer, it became obvious that Apple had sped up a bunch of system-level animations. Prime example: the animation when you swipe up from the bottom of the screen to go back to the Home Screen.\u00a0People noticed. But it hasn\u2019t gotten a lot of attention since.<\/p>\n

But man, if you want to notice, do what I did and spend two days back on iOS 18. So many little things feel slower. I don\u2019t know if anything actually\u00a0is\u00a0slower, but because the animations are slower, it looks slower, and that means it\u00a0feels\u00a0slower. You may not notice if you only use iPhones, but people contemplating a switch from Android\u00a0definitely notice.<\/p>\n

One of the biggest speed changes arrived with iOS 26 beta 6 last summer, when Apple made the app launching animation significantly faster than it had been. I remember being impressed by the new speed at the time, but quickly got used to it and forgot about it.<\/p>\n

This change made a difference in helping iOS 26 feel fast even on older iPhones. Though I have no doubt some other aspects of iOS 26 resulted in performance issues\u2014especially in 26.0.<\/p>\n

Now that we\u2019re on iOS 26.4 though, it\u2019s fascinating to hear firsthand from someone like Gruber that iOS 18 actually feels slower, not faster than iOS 26.<\/p>\n

It would be interesting if Apple let users downgrade to iOS 18, or even switch easily between each OS version so more users can experience the difference. Gruber was only able to run this experiment because he had an older iPhone still running the previous OS.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your experience with iOS 26 been like vs iOS 18? Let us know in the comments.<\/p>\n