iOS 26 may be best recalled for its Liquid Glass aesthetic, but alongside numerous other features and modifications, the upgrade also introduces two entirely new applications to your iPhone’s Home Screen. Here’s what’s new.
## #1: Apple Games app
The iPhone’s gaming experience receives a new centralized hub in iOS 26.
’Apple Games’ is a fresh app that joins the lineup of other media-focused iPhone applications, including:
– Apple TV
– Apple Music
– Apple Podcasts
– Apple Books
The new Games app features a Home view where you’ll spend the majority of your time. Here’s how Apple describes it:
> The Home tab keeps you engaged with the games you love, suggests new games, and simplifies returning to all your favorites. Explore can’t-miss events from your games and receive personalized recommendations on what to play next.
Alongside Home are tabs for Arcade, Friends, and Library.
– **Arcade** mainly imitates the type of content you’d find inside the App Store’s Arcade section.
– **Friends** displays challenges, multiplayer options, and Game Center data related to your friends.
– **Library** includes all the games installed on your iPhone, along with your achievements and additional information.
Apple Games launches not only on the iPhone, but also on iPad and Mac with iPadOS 26 and macOS Tahoe.
## #2: Preview app
Preview might ring a bell—it’s the name of Apple’s long-established Mac utility for viewing and editing PDFs and images.
In iOS 26, Preview is now accessible on the iPhone (and iPad) for the first time.
Preview presents a specialized app for viewing PDFs and images stored in iCloud, on your device, or other Files app locations.
Features include:
– Viewing PDFs and images in a dedicated application
– Editing PDFs and images with tools such as resize, rotate, and more
– Document scanning capabilities
– PDF AutoFill
– Creating new images, either from scratch or from the clipboard
Just as the Mac’s Finder automatically opens PDFs and images in the Preview app, your iPhone and iPad’s Files app will now do the same for those document types within Preview.
Preview utilizes the new document browser UI first seen in iPadOS 18 and observed in other applications like Pages, Keynote, and Numbers. While it won’t resemble the Mac app exactly, the functionality remains quite similar.
## New apps in iOS 26: wrap-up
With Apple Games and Preview, Apple is once more increasing the number of built-in applications on an iPhone.
Games aims to leverage the iPhone’s popularity as a gaming platform for many, whereas Preview serves as a valuable hub for PDFs and images. Both apps duplicate a significant amount of functionality previously available elsewhere, while also incorporating new features and feeling like logical candidates for standalone applications.
Have you experimented with the new Games or Preview apps in iOS 26? What’s your opinion? Share with us in the comments.
