All iPhone users must install new free update ‘as quickly as possible’

Apple may be getting ready to update your iPhone with a shiny new look soon with iOS 26 and its Liquid Glass design, but until that happens later this year, the firm is still making sure you’re all up to date with the current iOS 18.

That’s why Apple has just pushed out iOS 18.6 to compatible iPhones, which is any iPhone released in or after 2018, including that year’s iPhone XR, XS and XS Max.

iOS 18 is coming to the end of its year-long life cycle though, as Apple gears up to skip right on to iOS 26 when the iPhone 17 comes out, bringing its software version numbers in line with the year (well, next year).

That means Apple probably won’t roll out any major new features for your iPhone with iOS 18, explaining why iOS 18.6 only contains bug fixes and security improvements.

These include fixing a bug where your passcode could be read aloud using Apple’s VoiceOver tool, as well as gremlins that could crash the Safari browser.

“iOS 18.6 contains fixes for over 20 bugs and vulnerabilities. Given that this update is smaller and largely focused on security enhancements, we recommend users update as quickly as possible,” Josh Stein, VP of Strategy, Security at security firm Jamf told Express.co.uk.

“A significant number of fixes are in WebKit, which is not unusual for an iOS security release. WebKit is the framework for presenting web-based content, and the vulnerabilities fixed could allow attackers to access sensitive user information or cause denial of service.”

So, iOS 18.6 is not a flashy upgrade, but it’s still important you download and install it as soon as possible. There is still a tendency for some people to not install the latest iOS updates for fear it will make their phone run slower, which did sometimes used to be the case. But that was largely down to a period in time where software improved drastically, and older iPhones could not cope.

Nowadays, quality control is a lot better, and even phones five or six years old should be able to run iOS 18.6 with no issues.

Apple has restricted its Apple Intelligence features to only iPhone 16 models and the iPhone 15 Pro, presumably to ensure older models won’t grind to halt if they were also trying to run these new AI features.

“The iOS update also addresses several bugs in Apple’s CoreAudio and CoreMedia frameworks,” said Stein. “These frameworks are commonly used to process audio and media, respectively, which means they support a broad set of apps and manage data queues in memory.

“The positive news from Apple is that none of these vulnerabilities have been exploited in the wild. However, this should not delay users from updating their devices to iOS 18.6. Keeping devices up to date with the latest patches is one of the most effective ways to safeguard against attackers.”