Apple Releases 26.1 Updates to Its Operating Systems

John Voorhees, writing at MacStories:

With iOS 26, Apple placed two big buttons onscreen when an alarm went off. One was for stop and the other snooze. That wasn’t a big deal for many of the alarms you set throughout the day, but when you’re waking up in the morning blurry-eyed, two big buttons stacked on top of each other weren’t ideal. For a lot of users, it was a toss-up whether stabbing at their iPhone through a morning haze would stop their alarm or snooze it.

With iOS and iPadOS 26.1, the “Stop” button for an alarm set in the system Clock app now requires a slide to stop gesture, which echoes the Slide to Unlock gesture of the original iPhone. The more deliberate gesture is a good move on Apple’s part. I can’t imagine someone tapping and sliding their finger to stop an alarm by accident.

This is a clever little change. I enjoy that it harks back to the original iPhone’s slide-to-unlock.

Update: If, for whatever reason, you don’t like this slide-to-stop feature, you can turn it off by toggling this option in Settings: Accessibility → Touch → Prefer Single-Touch Actions.

★ Tuesday, 4 November 2025