Liquid glass can be controversial but I like it so far

Apple’s great design language is almost there, and all the main Apple operating systems in the fall with the official launch of iOS 26. Liquid Glass is what Apple calls for its new design philosophy, and it promises to make major changes to the appearance of all its operating systems. This includes iOS, its most important operating system.

Indeed, Liquid Glass brings a little major change to iOS 26, or what we would have called iOS 18 (Apple changes iOS numbers to years, and iOS 26 will be released in the fall). I have been using the beta developer of iOS 26 for a few weeks now, but now that iOS 26 advertising is open, I can finally share my thoughts.

The short version? Liquid glass may not bring enough As a great transfer to iOS as Apple could make you believe, but it is probably not a bad thing. And although I focus on the liquid glass, there are a ton of iOS 26 features to discover.

As always, remember that the iOS 26 is … a beta version. So save your phone before making the change. And as Apple says in its Beta program faq“Beta software can contain errors or inaccuracies and may not work as well as software published in the trade. We encourage you to submit comments when you encounter these problems.

The basics of liquid glass on iOS 26

The idea of apple liquid glass is simple. Instead of a flat and minimalist approach to software design, Apple adopts layers. The software interface elements have always been stacked on each other, whether you can see it or not. With liquid glass, these layers enter the point. You can see what is behind things like buttons and controls, thanks to glass elements that are designed to look like a real glass. These transparent keys fold and also refract light.

To be clear, it is not necessarily a totally New approach to Apple. The company has always played a little with transparency – but with liquid glass, transparency is more involved than ever.

So where do these glass -shaped elements appear? Well, almost everywhere. Most Apple’s action applications have had controls at the bottom of the screen. For example, in the musical application, you will obtain checks for research, access to your library and control of media reading currently. In the news application, you get checks for today’s news, sports news and a research tool. With liquid glass, all these controls are condensed in a pill shape that minimizes when you scroll to maximize what you can see on the screen.

The glass approach means that if the controls are in full concentration or minimized, which is behind them in a way of turns and refractions as it would do if a real glass was placed on the top of the screen. It is a cool and futuristic effect, and it certainly seems quite natural in my initial tests.

There are other places that liquid glass also appears. The best example is perhaps the control center, which now shows your home screen behind all the controls when you slip down. This is true on all Apple operating systems – although, of course, the controls are different on iOS than on macOS (and now MacOS Tahoe).

When the beta of the iOS 26 developer started to move, not everyone liked the liquid glass control center. There were problems with the possibility of seeing screen checks, according to what was behind them. Apple has solved a large part of these problems before the beta version of the IOS 26 public, and it is now easier to see what is on the screen. However, there are other places where I found display problems. An example is the labels of application and applications files – if you have a particularly shiny and busy wallpaper, these labels can become a little difficult to read.

Fortunately, a large theme with iOS 26 is personalization, so if you want to further reduce transparency than Apple, you can do so in the accessibility section of the Settings application.

Honestly, I like the visual appearance of liquid glass. I like the idea of going back to a more skeuomorphic design approach, and that does not necessarily mean that Apple should make the application apple to a notebook. It can rather mean that objects on the screen resemble a kind of physical object, whether glass or something else. And Apple has done a good job so that the liquid glass is fluid and futuristic for this beta version. It really translates fairly well when you scroll.

A rationalized interface

The new aesthetic is more than transparency. The approach is based on the watch as much on the screen as possible, and sometimes it means removing controls, or at least rationalize them when they are not used.

As you scroll, many checks in applications such as news, messages and music minimize in a single icon that you can support. I almost never have to type on these icons, so I really don’t mind that they are now hidden.

I felt that rationalization was going too far in other places. In the application of the camera, for example, when you open the application for the first time, you will now have only two options: photo or video. In reality, there are other options that you can browse, they are just hidden by default. It is true that most users probably do not slip among all these different modes anyway, and the simple fact of having photo and video modes makes things much simpler. But if you use these additional modes, you will have to remember that they are always available for you, and without any visual clue, you could forget.

I also hope that Apple continues to refine the appearance of the messages application. Instead of a header with the photo and profile name of your contact, the rear button and the facetime button, there are floating bubbles at the top of the screen. Depending on what is behind these floating bubbles, you will see the messages behind directly, the interface blend so that you can see the controls.

It may be a problem with me, but as a journalist, I take a lot of screenshots. Apple, if you listen to, I don’t like additional clicks you need to save a screenshot.

You can customize the liquid glass

If you ever have the impression that there is Also Lots of glass in your liquid glass, you can change this. In addition to reducing transparency, you can also personalize application icons. And although the ultra-class look has attracted a lot of attention after WWDC, you don’t have to use liquid glass icons, and they are not activated by default. I think it’s an intelligent approach. The change is frightening, which facilitates users who are not ready for the experience in ultra-Claire and complete liquid glass.

I think that Liquid Glass is an interesting design evolution for Apple, and as mentioned, I like the idea that Apple is moving towards the design of software that looks like real physical objects again. For the moment, you need to go to the accessibility menu to modify the visuals to your liking, but I expect Apple will solve a lot of problems before the official launch of the iOS 26. This is all the interest of a beta version, after all.

If you are interested in trying Liquid Glass for yourself on iOS, MacOS Tahoe, iPados, Tvos or Watchos, you can register for the Apple Beta program.