I use my iPhone 16 Pro for professional work. Before iOS 26, adding participants to an iexisting audio call and setting up an audio conference call was fairly easy. I find the redesigned interface unnecessarily cumbersome.
This has actually impeded my work and materially reduced the phone’s usefulness. During a live professional conversation, I need to add another participant quickly, without interrupting the discussion to work out where the necessary controls are or how to proceed.
I hope Apple avoids what I regard as Microsoft’s mistake of “dumbing down” interfaces in ways that make useful features harder to find and established tasks harder to perform. A simpler-looking interface should also be simpler to use.
Is there a setting or a simpler method that makes adding participants and merging calls more directly accessible? I would appreciate a practical explanation of the shortest available sequence, including whether the relevant controls can remain visible during a call.
Have others experienced the same difficulty?
