Reprinted from TidBITS by permission; reuse governed by Creative Commons license BY-NC-ND 3.0. TidBITS has offered years of thoughtful commentary on Apple and Internet topics. For free email subscriptions and access to the entire TidBITS archive, visit http://www.tidbits.com/ OS 26.2 Adds Reminder Alarms, Edge Light, Podcast Chapters, and Enhanced Safety Alerts Adam Engst Following its traditional mid-December schedule, Apple has released the 26.2 updates across its operating systems, featuring a mix of focused enhancements and bug fixes. The most surprising new feature is Edge Light, a video effect that uses your Mac's display to illuminate your face during low-light video calls. The Podcasts and Games apps see improvements across platforms, iPhone and Apple Watch users in the US gain enhanced safety alerts, and Reminders finally gets alarms. It's also worth noting up front that all of these updates include fixes for a pair of WebKit vulnerabilities that have been 'exploited in an extremely sophisticated attack against specific targeted individuals on versions of iOS before iOS 26.' In other words, these updates address two zero-day vulnerabilities, so you should update sooner rather than later from the 26.1 versions or install the standalone security updates for Apple's older operating systems. Shared Improvements Across Platforms As always, Apple worked to maintain feature parity across its operating systems by releasing new features that apply to iOS, iPadOS, and macOS: * Alarms for Reminders:You can now mark a reminder as urgent, which triggers an audible alarm that you must dismiss explicitly. When an alarm goes off, it appears as a Live Activity, and you can snooze it for 9 minutes if you're not ready to complete the action. You can even reschedule a snoozed alarm. Although you can mark reminders as urgent on the iPad and Mac, alarms appear to play only on an iPhone and a connected Apple Watch. While this feature is welcome, Apple should go further by adding alarms as a third notification type that users can select on a per-item basis (see '[1]A Call to Alarms: Why We Need Persistent Calendar and Reminder Notifications,' 11 May 2023). * Podcasts chapters and links: The Podcasts app now automatically generates chapters, making it easier to navigate within episodes to find a segment you want to hear again. Additionally, when a podcast host mentions another podcast, Apple says you'll see links to view and follow the referenced podcast directly from the player and transcript. * Apple News section links: The News app now includes section links in the sidebar for quick navigation to popular topics like Sports, Politics, Business, and Food. * Freeform tables: The Freeform app now supports tables, allowing you to organize text, images, documents, and drawings in a structured grid. Cells intelligently resize to fit their content. These enhancements also appear in the Freeform app for the Vision Pro. * Games app improvements: The Games app gains filters to help you find games by category, size, and more. In-game challenge score banners provide real-time updates when someone takes the lead, and controller support has been improved; the iOS and iPadOS release notes specifically mention Backbone and Razer controllers. * Pre-release album fix: Apple has resolved an issue where pre-release albums in Apple Music weren't immediately playable at their release time. iOS 26.2 and iPadOS 26.2 Improvements With two exceptions, all the changes in [2]iOS 26.2 and [3]iPadOS 26.2 are shared. The exceptions are: * iPhone (and Apple Watch) Enhanced Safety Alerts: New emergency alert capabilities can inform US users about imminent threats such as earthquakes, floods, natural disasters, and other emergencies, with information like maps of affected areas and links to additional safety guidance. We hope wildfires, hurricanes, and tornadoes will also be included. You configure these options in Settings > Notifications > Enhanced Safety Alerts, and some explanatory text there suggests that enabling the feature can help your iPhone anonymously alert other nearby Apple devices. * iPad multitasking gestures: Apple continues to refine iPadOS's new Mac-inspired approach to multitasking. You can now quickly tile windows or place an app in Slide Over by dragging app icons from the Dock, which makes a lot of sense within the iPad context. The iOS/iPadOS shared changes include: * Apple Music enhancements: Your Favorite Songs playlist now appears in Top Picks, making it easier to access the music you've explicitly marked as favorites. Music also now stores offline lyrics for downloaded songs. * AirDrop verification codes: When using AirDrop with unknown contacts, a new verification system provides an additional layer of security. The receiver's device displays a code that the sender must enter to complete the transfer. * Lock Screen time customization: In another step back from Liquid Glass transparency, a new option lets you choose whether the Lock Screen time display is glass (below left) or solid (below right). Much more readable! * 'Juice jacking' protection fix: In '[4]Juice Jacking Protection Setting Broken in iOS 26' (13 October 2025), I noted that the options inSettings > Privacy & Security > Wired Accessoriescould incorrectly appear as managed by an enterprise organization. iOS 26.2 and iPadOS 26.2 resolve that problem, but you should check the setting, as it defaulted to Always Allow on both my iPhone and iPad, not the Ask for New Accessories I had previously selected. * Home app multipack pairing: When you buy HomeKit accessories sold in multipacks, you can now use the same setup code to enroll them all. * Flash for alerts: A new Accessibility option lets you have the device screen flash when you receive a notification. macOS 26.2 Tahoe Improvements In addition to the cross-platform features mentioned above, [5]macOS 26.2 introduces a unique new feature. The Edge Light video effect uses your Mac's display to illuminate your face during video calls, functioning like a virtual ring light when you're in low-light conditions. You invoke it from the green video camera menu bar icon, and you can customize the light's width and temperature there. Mouse awareness causes the light to recede when you need to access content underneath it. On Macs from 2024 and later, you can reportedly set it to turn on automatically in low-light situations. In quick testing, I was unimpressed. While using FaceTime, I enabled Edge Light and moved into a dark room. It made my face visible, but the quality was poor. You can't see the bright white Edge Light rim in the screenshot below, but it's reflected in my glasses. I suppose it's better than nothing if you can't turn on a light. The [6]macOS 26 Enterprise release notes call out three additional changes: * App privacy permissions in System Settings: Permissions configured by device management now appear in System Settings. * Platform SSO and smart card fix: A bug that made the Lock Screen unresponsive on a Mac configured for Platform SSO with smart card authentication has been resolved. * Console stability: The Console app is more stable when viewing log files with Now mode enabled. watchOS 26.2 Improvements In addition to support for Enhanced Safety Alerts, [7]watchOS 26.2 offers two modest updates: * Sleep score refinements: The Sleep app adds notification controls for sleep scores and refinements to how your sleep is classified. * Music app advance bug: Apple fixed a bug that could prevent the Music app from advancing to the next song. tvOS 26.2 Improvements With [8]tvOS 26.2, Apple focused on enhancing the new profile capabilities that give each user of an Apple TV their own environment: * Apple TV app profiles without Apple Accounts: Family members and friends can now have their own profiles for the Apple TV app without needing an Apple Account, giving them their own Watchlist and personalized recommendations. * Kid profile improvements: Age-suitable content automatically appears for kid profiles across video providers, and parents can set restrictions to limit access to age-appropriate content. visionOS 26.2 Improvements Along with the cross-platform table support in the Freeform app, [9]visionOS 26.2 gains two additional enhancements: * Travel Mode expands: Apple has extended Travel Mode beyond airplanes and trains to include cars and buses. * Spatial accessory improvements: visionOS now supports hand-drawn content with spatial accessories like Logitech Muse in Notes, Freeform, and any PencilKit-enabled app. HomePod Software 26.2 Improvements All Apple is admitting to with [10]HomePod Software 26.2 is 'performance and stability improvements.' Security Updates These updates'and updates for the last two versions of macOS and the previous version of iOS and iPadOS'address numerous security vulnerabilities. As mentioned above, two of these vulnerabilities have been exploited in the wild against earlier versions of iOS. * iOS 26.2 and iPadOS 26.2: [11]25 vulnerabilities * iOS 18.7.3 and iPadOS 18.7.3: [12]20 vulnerabilities * macOS 26.2 Tahoe: [13]46 vulnerabilities * macOS 15.7.3 Sequoia: [14]25 vulnerabilities * macOS 14.8.3 Sonoma: [15]21 vulnerabilities * Safari 26.2 (for Sequoia and Sonoma): [16]11 vulnerabilities * watchOS 26.2: [17]16 vulnerabilities * tvOS 26.2: [18]9 vulnerabilities * visionOS 26.2: [19]19 vulnerabilities Update Advice If you're already running version 26.1, these updates appear safe to install and important due to the zero-day vulnerability fixes. The Reminders alarms, Podcasts improvements, and Enhanced Safety Alerts are genuinely worthwhile additions, Edge Light might be useful in some situations, and the various bug fixes address real-world annoyances. For those still on earlier operating system versions, waiting for Tahoe and its siblings to stabilize, version 26.2 is a reasonable time to consider an upgrade. We're now two point releases in, and Apple continues to smooth out the rough edges in Liquid Glass and iPadOS multitasking, in particular. If any quirks arise in your everyday use of these updates, leave a comment on this article, and I will investigate. References Visible links 1. https://tidbits.com/2023/05/11/a-call-to-alarms-why-we-need-persistent-calendar-and-reminder-notifications/ 2. https://support.apple.com/en-us/123075 3. https://support.apple.com/en-us/123074 4. https://tidbits.com/2025/10/13/juice-jacking-protection-setting-broken-in-ios-26/ 5. https://support.apple.com/en-us/122868 6. https://support.apple.com/en-us/124963 7. https://support.apple.com/en-us/123002 8. https://support.apple.com/en-us/106336 9. https://support.apple.com/en-us/123024 10. https://support.apple.com/en-us/108045 11. https://support.apple.com/en-us/125884 12. https://support.apple.com/en-us/125885 13. https://support.apple.com/en-us/125886 14. https://support.apple.com/en-us/125887 15. https://support.apple.com/en-us/125888 16. https://support.apple.com/en-us/125892 17. https://support.apple.com/en-us/125890 18. https://support.apple.com/en-us/125889 19. https://support.apple.com/en-us/125891 Hidden links: 20. https://tidbits.com/uploads/2025/12/Reminders-alarms-scaled.jpg 21. https://tidbits.com/uploads/2025/12/Enhanced-Safety-Alerts-scaled.jpg 22. https://tidbits.com/uploads/2025/12/Lock-Screen-time-transparency-scaled.jpg 23. https://tidbits.com/uploads/2025/12/Edge-Light-scaled.jpg .