There's a major iPhone update coming early next year – here's when it should land

Apple announced its latest software build for iPhone back in June this year, during its Worldwide Developer Conference. That software, which is better known as iOS 26, was then released as a final build in September 2025, just ahead of the new iPhone models arriving.

Among many other features, it brought one of the biggest design changes to the iPhone interface since iOS 7, and there have been a few additional updates since – including iOS 26.1 in November, and iOS 26.2 in December. Now the third major update is on its way, with some predicting when it will arrive, based on previous patterns.

According to 9to5Mac, we can expect to see iOS 26.3 sometime towards the end of January.

It predicts 26 January 2026, based on the fact that Apple has traditionally released the third major update to each previous iOS around this time. For iOS 18.3, we saw it arrive on 27 January 2025, iOS 17.3 arrived on 22 January the year before, and iOS 16.3 was released 23 January in 2023.

Notably, the report points also out that all these dates are exactly one week after Martin Luther King Jr. Day, which for this year will fall on its predication of 26 January. It’s possible that date might push to a day or two after, but that week certainly seems likely.

What features will iOS 26.3 bring?

As for what the iOS 26.3 software update will add, it seems like it'll introduce fewer features than some of the other major software updates have delivered recently.

The report suggests we'll see some wallpaper changes, while Weather will be split into its own section, and a new setting will make it easier to transfer from an iPhone to an Android phone.

Elsewhere, there is notification forwarding for EU users, meaning those with third-party smartwatches or wearables will be able to get all their iPhone’s notifications – something only Apple Watch offered previously.

Hopefully, we'll find out more in the coming weeks, as we get closer to the expected dat