Experience iOS from 26.2 to 26.5
iPhone Air 256GB Global
I am Vietnamese, and this text was translated using Google Translate.
Hello everyone, I want to contribute something to the community, the Apple developers, and I also enjoy sharing, so I created this post. I think iOS 26.5 is the last iOS version until there is information about iOS 27.0, so I want to share my experience with the iOS versions I have installed on my iPhone.
iOS 26.2
This was my immediate update when I bought my iPhone Air, and it's also the version I used the longest (for 2 months).
I will call this the milestone version to make it easier to compare with subsequent versions.
In this version, everything is very normal, it doesn't get hot suddenly, I almost never see my phone suddenly get hot in a strange, random way; it only gets hot when I use the camera. Battery life is pretty good, like most other iPhone Air users; it's almost on par with my colleague's iPhone 17.
My problems with this version: Occasionally the keyboard stutters, sudden FPS drops cause image lag, and what annoys me most is the search function on the home screen; when swiping down, the image lags slightly, and the keyboard doesn't appear immediately. Instead, there's a blank space in the keyboard area, and the keyboard only appears after a second (this is the function I use most because I don't have app icons cluttering the home screen).
iOS 26.4.1
I heard this version had many bug fixes and improved battery life.
BUT NO, it's terrible on the iPhone Air. I always reassure myself that this version is optimized for a different system, not the iPhone Air.
Battery life has dropped by 40% compared to 26.2; I've never come home with less than 20% battery before.
I was shocked to find that after a night's sleep, the battery had dropped by 12% compared to 2-4% on iOS 26.2.
And of course, it frequently heats up randomly whenever I touch it. These bugs haven't been fixed yet.
iOS 26.4.2
After a week of using 26.4.1, I had to quickly upgrade to 26.4.2, and the battery life has returned to 90% compared to 100% based on the initial 26.2 milestone. It doesn't overheat as much anymore, but it still occasionally gets hot randomly during use. The stuttering and keyboard issues have been fixed, but the search function is still buggy.
iOS 26.5 Beta 4
I saw the community saying it was amazing, it was constantly being praised everywhere from Reddit to Facebook and YouTube in my country. I decided to upgrade to try it out since I was going to update to iOS 26.5 anyway.
AMAZING! This is the version that really excited me. It gave me a 110% improvement in battery life based on 100% of iOS 26.2. What really made me WOW was the speed. Everything is so fast, the refresh rate is so smooth. I feel like I'm using a 240Hz screen like my PC, not 120Hz. App launches are super fast, app opening speeds are like double compared to 26.2. Anything I open is faster than usual. This speed gives me the feeling that this is the real power of the A19 Pro chip.
I came home from work with 55% battery life remaining. The phone still occasionally gets slightly warm, but it's not very noticeable.
All the bugs I encountered during use have been fixed, except for the issue with finding the most important and frequently used app, which hasn't improved much.
iOS 26.5
This is a stable version. Battery life per charge has returned from 110% to 100%, similar to 26.2.
However, it brings many confusing and regrettable issues.
Apps no longer launch at 2.0 speed; instead, they're slower, running at 0.8 compared to 1.0 in 26.2. The screen refresh rate has returned to normal, feeling at 120Hz.
It no longer gets hot; everything stays cool, similar to 26.2. And of course, Apple seems unconcerned about the app search bug on the home screen, so it hasn't improved at all.
Now I wish I could go back to iOS 26.5 Beta 4 or some future version where the "search on home screen" issue was fixed.