Apple is bringing professional audio editing tools to the mobile level for the iPhone 16 series with the iOS 26 update announced at WWDC 2025. The new Audio Mix feature integrated into the Photos app allows users to edit the sounds in videos in detail after shooting.

iOS 26 will improve audio control features

In particular, operations such as reducing background noise and clarifying speech sounds can be done directly on the iPhone. The new feature brings together hardware and software improvements in audio processing on Apple devices.

This system, which is activated by default on iPhone 16 models, is not limited to Apple’s own applications. With iOS 26, third-party applications can also access Audio Mix controls. Thus, mobile video content producers can have more control over audio quality.

This feature offers four different audio processing modes supported by machine learning. Standard mode plays the recorded audio without any processing. In-frame mode highlights only the sound sources visible on the screen. Studio mode provides a professional recording environment by suppressing echo and background sounds. Cinematic mode, on the other hand, brings dialogue to the forefront and pushes ambient sounds into the background, providing a movie-like auditory experience.

In addition to these modes, iOS 26 also includes new options for fine-tuning background noise. However, to benefit from these advanced editing options, the video must be recorded with Spatial Audio technology.

Apple is not limited to mobile, and is bringing Audio Mix capabilities to the desktop platform. With the new version of macOS Tahoe, third-party Mac apps will also be able to access these controls.