Not all changes represent progress. And while I’m generally appreciative of the improvements Apple has made in this year’s iOS 26 update — yes, I’m even getting used to Liquid Glass — one change particular strikes me as a big step backward.
I don’t like how iOS 26 now requires you to control timers on the iPhone’s lock screen.
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But I use my iPhone to set timers — a lot of timers, from cook times to reminding me when I have to stop working and go to pick up my daughter from school. And the way I have to turn off those times after installing iOS 26 on my phone makes that process more of a hassle than it used to be.
iPhone timers: iOS 18 vs. iOS 26
The timer interface on iOS 18 (left) compared to iOS 26 (right) (Image credit: Future)
Because I have the luxury of having a lot of different iPhones running a lot of different iOS versions, I still remember how timers used to work in the Before Times. I borrowed my wife’s iPhone 15, which is still running iOS 18, to document the change.
iOS 26’s new approach to timers takes something that used to be pretty convenient and adds another source of friction.
When a timer went off in iOS 18, an alert would appear on your lock screen with a prominent orange Stop button right in the center of the screen. Turning the alarm off simply required you to reach out and tap that big ol’ button. Or, if you wanted to have the timer run again, you could turn to the Repeat button at the bottom of the screen. That’s a very simple, very sensible interface, as all timers should have.
iOS 26 does not do this. The prominent orange button now handles repeating the timer. If you want to turn off the timer from the lock screen, you’ve now got to drag a slider from one end of the screen to the other.
In essence, the behavior of timers now mirrors what happens with alarms that you set via the built-in Clock app. When an alarm goes off, you can either tap the orange Snooze button or drag the slider to silence your alarm.
That makes sense for an alarm — you want to give some indication that you are awake, and the physical act of grabbing your phone and dragging a slider is proof enough that you’re not just going to roll over and go back to sleep. But that’s not an issue with timers — I just want it to stop buzzing me, and i should be able to handle that with a tap.
Timers still work properly in the Dynamic Island for iOS 26 (Image credit: Future)
The switch for iOS 26 is especially maddening since Apple uses an entirely different approach to timers if you’re already using your phone and don’t have it set to the lock screen. In that instance, when the timer goes off, an alert will appear by the Dynamic Island featuring buttons for stopping and restarting the timer. In other words, a tap’s good enough here to turn off a timer, but it’s not good enough on the lock screen.
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iPhone timers: Why this stinks in iOS 26
(Image credit: Tom’s Guide / Shutterstock / Apple)
The inconsistent behavior of timers in iOS 26 certainly bugs me, but it’s not the main reason why I hate this new approach to turning off timers. It’s simply because iOS 26’s new approach takes something that used to be pretty convenient and adds another source of friction.
As I’ve mentioned, I’m often using timers when I cook to gauge how long I have to boil, braise or sauté whatever it is I’m working on. And when the timer goes off, odds are my hands are busy doing something else. Stopping and tapping a prominently displayed button on my phone screen is sometimes doable — taking the time to manipulate a slider is less so.
And that assumes I’ve got my iPhone screen-up on the counter. Generally, it’s in my pocket. I can reach down and tap in the general vicinity of where I think that Stop button might be, but if I have to use a slider, that requires me to take out the phone and fiddle with the slider.
iPhone timers: Siri to the (non-)rescue
(Image credit: Future)
“What about Siri?” you might be asking, wondering why I’m not turning to Apple’s assistant to turn off my timers. Yes, what about Siri, indeed.
A few updates ago, Apple added a “Stop, Siri” command that you could say when a timer was going off that would turn off the alarm. It seemed to work pretty well, especially in iOS 18, but things have gotten a lot more hit and miss now that I’ve got iOS 26 running. And I’ve done the testing to prove it, running timers and asking Siri to turn them off in various scenarios.
With my iPhone out of my pocket and located not very far away, saying “Siri, stop” put an end to any timer alert right away. The command also worked when my phone was in my pocket, though it sometimes took repeating the command.
It’s when I’ve got AirPods in, that all bets are off, especially if I’m listening to music or a podcast. (And if I’m cooking or doing the dishes, that’s exactly what I’m doing.) The “Siri, stop” command works sporadically if it even works at all. In most of my tests, I found myself saying “Siri, stop” over and over again to no avail, doubtlessly amusing any onlookers watching a man argue with his ineffectual imaginary helper.
In one instance, I tried giving Siri a more direct command: “Siri, stop the timer,” I said, hoping that would do the trick.
“OK,” Siri responded. “For how long?”
“Now,” I replied, with perhaps a little more exasperation in my voice than was helpful.
“OK, I won’t” Siri replied, not at all helpfully, while the sounds of the Radial alert noise from my iPhone echoed through the kitchen.
iPhone timers: What needs to change
If there’s a setting to adjust to make timers work better, I’m unaware of where it might be. It’s certainly not in the Clock app’s settings, and if it’s buried somewhere in the Accessibility section of the Settings app, I’ve been unable to find it.
So that places the onus on Apple to make a tweak to how the Clock app handles timers. I’d like to see an iOS 26 update that reverts the lock screen behavior to how timers worked in iOS 18. There doesn’t seem to be any explanation for the change, so why not roll it back?
The more pressing issue, though, would be Siri. It should not be that difficult to be able to turn off a timer alarm with a Siri voice command. And yet my experience indicates that it’s very difficult indeed.
It’s no secret Apple hopes to make Siri smarter before the dust settles on iOS 26, with a big update adding more smarts to the assistant apparently targeted for the spring. But I hope that doesn’t preclude other changes, like a better way to turn off alarms, that Siri should be able to handle with greater ease.
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