Strap in Apple fans, 2026 is going to be a wild ride

Macworld

Just over 12 months ago, I set about the task of evaluating Apple’s 2024, a year in which its hits were misses and its misses were hits. Then, as now, the company’s pet projects were AI and mixed reality, yet Apple Intelligence and Vision Pro flopped badly; whereas a number of far lower-profile products, including the 4th-gen AirPods and the M4 Mac mini, thrived by offering excellent features at an affordable price. It was a topsy-turvy year.

Looking back on 2025, one gets a similar sense of what could have been. Vision Pro remains an ultra-niche proof of concept with no commercial footprint to speak of, while Apple Intelligence is palpably behind the AI offerings of other companies. At least one of these needs to deliver in 2026.

Most obviously, it’s vital that Apple finally fulfils its promise of an AI-powered, contextually relevant Siri. Fortunately, the latest code leaks indicate that Siri 2.0 will arrive in spring 2026. That’s approximately 18 months late, a delay that has dealt a severe blow to Apple’s reputation, both from the empty promises undermining trust in the company’s vision and from the substandard performance users are experiencing with Siri’s current iteration. Whether your cliché of choice is “too little, too late” or “better late than never,” we can agree that the process of earning back our trust starts this year.

On the VR/AR side, there’s little prospect of a redesigned and slimmed-down Vision Pro model in 2026, but the cancellation of that project may result in the arrival, or at least announcement, of something users have been awaiting for even longer: smart glasses. These won’t, of course, compete with the transformative experience you get with Vision Pro, since smart glasses cannot immerse or transport the user in the same way as a high-end mixed-reality headset, but they offer far more accessibility in everyday life. Vision Pro has fundamental limitations in terms of weight, battery life, and cost that mean it simply cannot become a mainstream primary computing device for the time being. The Apple glasses could be a different matter, and we may start to find out if that’s the case in 2026.

So much for Apple’s current obsessions. But the company’s real money-maker remains the iPhone, and 2026 looks set to be a sink-or-swim year for that line as well. The two great failures of Apple’s 2025 were the iPhone Air and iPhone 16e, but both have the opportunity for redemption this year.

The iPhone 16e stumbled because it reached too high. Apple was determined to bring Apple Intelligence to its most accessible phone, which imposed minimum requirements for its processor and RAM allocation. This meant that what should have been a budget device ended up costing $599 while still missing out on a wide range of standard features, from multiple rear camera lenses to MagSafe. The iPhone 17e should learn from these mistakes, and it needs to, because this could be Apple’s last chance to remain a serious player in the budget phone market.

The iPhone Air, by contrast, strikes me as a product without much of a future in its own right. We may get a 2nd-gen model in 2026, but in the absence of a fundamental rethink of its design philosophy, I can’t see why that would sell any better than the first one. However, the technological breakthroughs Apple achieved while creating the Air are necessary for other reasons: namely, the launch of the first folding iPhone. And the iPhone Fold, which is widely expected to drop in the fall, holds the key to Apple’s future in the smartphone space.

I’m not convinced the Fold will be an instant success. It’s surely going to be too expensive for more than a handful of diehard Cupertino loyalists to crack open their wallets, but then again, it doesn’t need to dominate the foldables market right away. It just needs to give Apple a foothold, create a little buzz, and mindshare while Apple builds expertise in a space it’s avoided until now. Unlike the Air, an unconvincing 1st-gen iPhone Fold wouldn’t be a total disaster because the product has space to grow and a reason to exist. The compromises are in service to something people actually want.

And what of the Mac? That side of Apple’s business had a strong 2025, thanks to the power and efficiency of the M5 chip. The MacBook Pro is in a good place right now; the Mac Studio is in a great place. But the Mac Pro is letting the side down with its wildly outdated M2 Ultra spec, and urgently needs some love or a quiet death in 2026. And that budget MacBook with an iPhone chip? It had better not repeat the same problems as the iPhone 16e.

It’s going to be a busy year, then. New Siri, Apple glasses, the iPhone 17e and Fold, and a new MacBook are the headlines, but the company will also have to juggle the customary new iPads and Apple Watches. We could even see the mysterious HomePad and, if we’re really lucky, some operating system updates in the summer that don’t look like Windows Vista on a bad day. It’s a lot to get right. But if anyone can do it, Apple can.

Have a great year!




Foundry

Welcome to our weekly Apple Breakfast column, which includes all the Apple news you missed last week in a handy bite-sized roundup. We call it Apple Breakfast because we think it goes great with a Monday morning cup of coffee or tea, but it’s cool if you want to give it a read during lunch or dinner hours too.

2026 preview

iPhone: A year of huge changes

Mac: This could be the biggest year since 1984

iPad: Mostly minor updates (with one exception)

Apple Watch: Hopes are bigger than expectations

Smart home: Apple may be planning a massive push

Trending: Top stories

Alex Blake explains why his favorite iPhone apps of 2025 belong on your Home Screen too.

Carmakers are taking Apple fans for an unbelievable ride, says the Macalope.

Will Apple’s 2026 start with a bang or a whimper? Here’s what’s coming in January

Expert advice

9 tweaks and shortcuts every new MacBook needs

10 settings to change when you get a new iPhone

10 tips and features you need to know about the AirPods Pro

Podcast of the week

The Macworld podcast took the week off for the holidays, but they’ll be back next week. You can catch every episode of the Macworld Podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Soundcloud, the Podcasts app, or our own site.

Reviews corner

Backbone Pro: A premium gamepad at a very premium price.

Aukey MagFusion 2X 2-in-1: Wireless charging station.

Baseus PicoGo AF21 3-in-1: Qi2.2 wireless charger.

And with that, we’re done for this week’s Apple Breakfast. If you’d like to get regular roundups, sign up for our newsletters, including our new email from The Macalope–an irreverent, humorous take on the latest news and rumors from a half-man, half-mythical Mac beast. You can also follow us on Facebook, Threads, Bluesky, or X for discussion of breaking Apple news stories. See you next Monday, and stay Appley.