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Your Apple TV 4K gets a free upgrade to tvOS 26 today – here are 5 changes to try
Carrie Marshall
15 September 2025
Excellent upgrades you can try on your Apple TV today
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(Image credit: Apple)
tvOS 26 is officially released today, September 15th 2025
A new look and some fun new features
Available for all Apple TV HD and 4K models
Happy tvOS 26 day to all who celebrate it! Today’s the day when your Apple TV HD or Apple TV 4K gets a brand new operating system, and because the iPhone, iPad and Mac are all getting updated too, it’ll have all your Apple kit looking and feeling part of the same Apple ecosystem.
I’ve been using the tvOS 26 developer and public betas for a while, and these five features are my current favorites. Please note that not all features work on all older devices, though.
Look through Liquid Glass
Liquid Glass is Apple’s new design language, and it comes to the Apple TV in slightly less dramatic form than on iPhone or iPad: where those devices’ interfaces now look dramatically different, the already modern-looking Apple TV design has been given more of a freshen up.
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The main difference you’ll notice is the Control Center (which now looks as clear as the one on an iPhone) and in FaceTime (which more closely resembles the iOS app).
The new interface tries to get out of your way as much as possible, enabling you to focus on the show or movie rather than transport controls and additional options. Which is exactly what you want from a TV interface.
(Image credit: Apple)
AirPlay for anything
Apple TV and AirPlay were made for one another, and tvOS 26 is introducing a very welcome improvement: in Settings > Video and Audio you can now make AirPlay your default audio output for any AirPlay speaker, without having to nominate it again the next time you wake up your Apple TV from sleep.
A small change for sure, but a welcome one for anyone who’s wished they could use a pair of Sonos speakers as stereo TV speakers, say.
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Karaoke Mode
The Sing mode in Apple Music now works with your iPhone, enabling you to bellow along to your favorite Backstreet Boys tracks (or if you’re me, annoy your dog with an overly enthusiastic rendition of Who Let The Dogs Out? when she’s trying to sleep).
Pairing is just a matter of scanning the on-screen QR code with your iPhone camera, and you can open the feature up from within Apple Music or by using the dedicated Sing icon that’s appeared in your Home Screen.
Apple Music has a dedicated selection of Sing songs and playlists so it’s just a matter of finding the ones you want to howl along to. You can also enable an on-screen visualizer to move with the music.
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The Sing feature is only for the 2022 Apple TV 4K, unfortunately, and you need to be using the TV speakers, a soundbar or other wired sound system: it doesn’t currently work if you’re outputting to wireless speakers.
(Image credit: Apple)
Change the screen scene
When I first saw the very first Apple TV, one of the things that impressed me most was the screensavers: Apple has consistently delivered very beautiful real-life scenes including some breathtaking aerial photography, and the collection has grown with every OS update.
The tvOS 26 update is no exception, and in addition to the new screensavers – this time from Indian locations including Goa and Kerala – there’s a new way to organize them.
In tvOS 26, you can personalize the Aerial screen savers more than every before. Not only can you can hide the collection(s) you don’t want to view – for example, if you really love the Earth screensavers but aren’t so keen on the Underwater collection – you can now do the same on a per-screensaver basis.
Personalize your Apple TV with profiles
If you have a shared Apple TV, you probably know about user profiles already. tvOS makes them much easier to access, enabling you to have a profile selection screen when Apple TV wakes (or to bypass it and go directly to a specified profile every time).
Profiles are also going to become even more useful in tvOS 26 because Apple is now enabling developers to tie their apps to specific Apple accounts, so the profile you sign into on Apple TV will be the profile used for your various apps too.
That should make setting up your Apple TV, or setting up a new profile for the first time, much speedier.
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Carrie Marshall
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Contributor
Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than twenty books. Her latest, a love letter to music titled Small Town Joy, is on sale now. She is the singer in spectacularly obscure Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind.
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