My solution was to change from "Unified" to "Classic" which changes the bottom bar from [("Calls" "Contacts" "Keypad") "Search] to ["Favorites" "Recents" "Contacts" "Keypad" "Voicemail"]. THE ICONS ARE EXACTLY THE SAME SIZE. The only difference is the spacing between them.
But again, this is fucking crazy because going back to the classic mode, if I click on a recent name it starts dialing them. But in the unified mode it gives me information. The unified makes the whole name act as if I'm pressing the info button.
The problem is that Apple created an anti-pattern, TO ITSELF. They taught users that an action did one thing and then used that action to do something completely different. No one on iOS 26 should expect that clicking the call line will take you to the information page and should instead expect that doing so will start dialing that person.
I working in software and "build features" for a living, and over the years I've come to prioritize reliability, performance, and an intuitive experience over all else. No matter how good the feature set is, if it crashes, is painfully slow, or I can't figure out how to use it, then I don't want it.
Apple used to have that focus, but seems to have lost it of late.
But I find iOS 26 absolutely disrespectful. It wants you to use it in ways that previous iOS versions pushed you away from. It's an anti pattern to previous versions. I'm sorry, if you teach users one pattern don't update to have them do the opposite. Nothing is could be less intuitive