iOS 26 will add two brand new apps to your iPhone’s Home Screen

5 hours ago 1

iOS 26 might be best remembered for its Liquid Glass redesign, but the update will also add two brand new apps to your iPhone’s Home Screen. Here’s what’s coming.

#1: Apple Games app

Gaming on the iPhone is getting a new central hub in iOS 26.

’Apple Games’ is a brand new app that joins the ranks of other media-focused iPhone apps such as:

Apple TV
Apple Music
Apple Podcasts
Apple Books

The new Games app includes a Home view where you’ll spend most of your time. Here’s Apple’s description:

The Home tab keeps you connected to the games you love, recommends new games, and makes jumping back into all your favorites easy. Browse can’t-miss events from your games, and get personalized suggestions for what to play next.

Joining Home are tabs for Arcade, Play Together, and Library.

Arcade largely replicates the type of content you’d see inside the App Store’s Arcade tab.
Play Together shows challenges, multiplayer options, and Game Center data from your friends.
Library contains all the games installed on your iPhone, plus your achievements and more.

Apple Games is launching not only on iPhone, but also iPad and Mac this fall.

#2: Preview app

Preview might sound familiar—it’s the name of Apple’s long-time Mac utility for viewing and editing PDFs and images.

In iOS 26, Preview is coming to the iPhone (and iPad) for the very first time.

Preview offers a dedicated app for viewing PDFs and images saved in iCloud, on your device, or other Files app sources.

Features include:

Browsing PDFs and images in a dedicated app
Editing PDFs and images with tools like resize, rotate, and more
Document scanning
PDF AutoFill
Creating new images, whether from scratch or the clipboard

Just like the Mac’s Finder launches PDFs and images in the Preview app by default, now your iPhone and iPad’s Files app will launch those document types inside Preview too.

Preview uses the new document browser UI first introduced in iPadOS 18 and seen in other apps like Pages, Keynote, and Numbers. So it won’t look quite like the Mac app does, but the functionality is very similar.

New apps in iOS 26: wrap-up

With Apple Games and Preview, Apple is once again expanding the number of built-in apps on an iPhone.

Games seeks to capitalize on the iPhone already being a popular gaming platform for many, while Preview looks like a valuable added utility. Both apps replicate a lot of functionality previously found elsewhere, but add new features too and seem like natural candidates for new standalone apps.

Are you interested in the new Games or Preview apps in iOS 26? Let us know in the comments.