CALIFORNIA (Kashmir English): Technology company ‘Apple’ has released the latest updates to all its major operating systems, including iOS 26.3, iPadOS 26.3, macOS 26.3, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS.
According to ‘ARS Technica’, these updates mostly contain bug fixes and security patches. Still, some new features have also been introduced for iPhone users that make it easier to connect between Apple and non-Apple devices.
The most prominent feature of ‘iOS 26.3’ is ‘Transfer to Android’, through which users will be able to transfer their data from an iPhone to an Android device.
According to Apple, under this feature, photos, messages, notes, apps, and other content, along with phone numbers, will be able to be transferred.
However, Bluetooth pairing information and sensitive data from the Health app will not be transferred.
This feature is linked to Apple’s ‘App Migrate Kit’ framework, which was introduced in ‘iOS 26.1’. Through this, apps can transfer their data to other devices or download it from the cloud.
However, this feature is only for transferring from Apple to non-Apple devices, as there are already different systems for transferring data from iPhone to iPhone.
Related support from Android will also be necessary. Google recently added the data transfer API in the ‘QRP2’ update of Android 16, but it may take time for this update to reach various Android companies.
Notification forwarding facility
Another important addition in ‘iOS 26.3’ is the ‘Notification Forwarding’ feature, through which iPhone notifications can also be sent to third-party devices, such as Google’s Wear OS smartwatches.
Users will be able to choose which apps’ notifications should be forwarded. However, notifications can only be forwarded to one device at a time.
This means that if the notification is being sent to a third-party watch, it will not go to the Apple Watch. This feature was likely introduced under European Union regulations.
Some new iPhone and iPad models have a new option called ‘Limit Precise Location’, which improves privacy by reducing the accuracy of the location given to cellular networks.
This feature is currently available to a limited number of devices and networks, including Boost Mobile in the US. Only the iPhone Air, iPhone 16e, and the M5 iPad Pro will support this feature.
The 26.3 updates to ‘watchOS’, ‘macOS’, and other systems are mainly limited to performance improvements and bug fixes.
However, beta versions have found signs of support for the M5 Max and M5 Ultra chips, which is likely a sign of the preparation of new Mac computers.
According to experts, the upcoming ‘iOS 26.4’ update may prove to be more important, as it is expected to include Apple’s ‘more intelligent Siri’.
In January, Apple and Google announced that the new Siri would be based on Google’s Gemini language models, which will make it smarter and more effective than before.
Thus, although ‘iOS 26.3’ has come without major changes, through it, Apple has taken an important step towards making its devices more compatible with other platforms.
