IOS 26 presents a brand new design scheme called “liquid glass” which has more transparency, translucidity, movement and shine. To say that iOS 26 Liquid Glass is polarizing would be an understatement, because opinions on the new look could not be more extreme, some users thinking that it is incredibly fantastic, and others like me are really miserable with the new look and a reduced conviviality on their freshly updated iPhone and iPad.
While Liquid GL-ASA seems fairly well in well-maintained marketing images of Apple, in the practice of liquid glass means a lower contrast, exrusting user interface elements and an overlapping text, general readability problems, excessive movements and unnecessary visual animations which are strange and distracting icons that look more difficult to distract and contact with an interface A user experience that is more difficult to read and be more difficult. Personally, I hate it, and I’m not alone. It is not surprising that a good number of iPhone and iPad users are wondering if they can deactivate the Liquid Glass E Completley interface in iOS 26, because it is more difficult to use for many of us. While Apple should introduce an “classic” iOS 18 look option for users who prioritize conviviality and accessibility on their devices, this does not yet happen (and let’s be honest, probably never), so in the meantime, you can somehow attenuate some of the most dramatic liquid glass interface changes and coarse compensated animations with a handful of changes.
Note: If you have not yet updated on iOS 26 on your iPhone or iPad, you should know that watching screenshots and beautiful Apple marketing images does not really represent what the new liquid glass interface looks like and feels on your own device. If you care at all by readability, conviviality, accessibility and readability, you will probably want to avoid updating and prevent your iPhone from automatically updating iOS 26 and rather update to iOS 18.7 and remain very careful about the installation of future iOS updates. I would like to have stayed on iOS 18, but my work here is to clog with this kind of thing, so I am determined to the vertiginous experience of iOS 26 and to the boy Oh boy, I will complain while trying simultaneously to offer solutions to others who also hate liquid glass.
If your iPhone and iPad are already on iOS 26 and iPados 26 and you do not appreciate the new visuals and the user experience, I collected some tips below to make it a little more readable and usable.
8 Tips to improve the readability and conviviality of the iOS 26 interface
Several access parameters can be based to improve the readability and conviviality of iOS 26, but beware that these parameters are much less effective in their declared features (such as “increasing the contrast” and “reducing movement” which are both insufficiently implemented) than in the previous iOS versions.
1: Use reduce transparency to improve the readability of everything
- Access Settings> Accessibility> Display and text sizes> Reduce transparency>
2: Use the increase in contrast to reduce the astonished blurred translucent look
- Access Settings> Accessibility> Display and text sizes> Increase the contrast>
3: Use daring text to improve the readability of the text
Since the contrast on the text is reduced even with the increase in activated contrast, the use of the text in bold helps to improve the readability of the text on iOS 26.
- Access Settings> Accessibility> Display and text sizes> Gras text>
4: Use button forms to make visual elements more distinct
- Access Settings> Accessibility> Display and text sizes> button forms> We
5: Use active labels for an additional distinction
- Access Settings> Accessibility> Display and text labels> On / off labels> We
6: Disable excessive movements and movements in the user interface
IOS 26 has many excessive animations and screen transitions, many of which stuck and are awkward on iPhone models otherwise superb which have worked perfectly with previous iOS versions. Disabling excessive movement and jerky animations plunged a little if the new liquid glass experience bothers you:
- Access Settings> Accessibility> Motion> Reduce movement>
7: activate crossroads to further reduce the movement
- Access Settings> Accessibility> Motion> Prefer Crossed Transitions> on
8: tone and customize the home screen and the icon look
- Press the iPhone home screen long, then press “Modify”> Customize
- Explore the options available to customize the home screen, including: by default (clear), dark, clear, tinted and the different parameters and personalizations associated with each
How can I make sure that the text stops riding or being crushed in iOS 26?
If you have noticed that the text is overlapping and looks stony and difficult to read from the update to iOS 26, you are not alone. It’s fun, because apart from shrinking the size of your text to be smaller, you cannot stop the riding or the crushed text.
Many of us use a larger text size on iPhone in particular because the screens are small and the size of the text is tiny. With the iOS 26 liquid glass, the contrast of the text is also reduced, which makes it even more difficult to read, and to top it all, the text areas are smaller and more compressed, which means that the text often overlaps or crushed in a way that makes it not only clumsy, but more difficult to read.
Liquid glass reviews require a lot of DIY to see what works best for them
Overall, if you do not like the liquid glass interface, or if you hate it squarely (as I do because I find it much more difficult to use), then you will have to engage in a lot of DIY to try to operate the interface for you. The overhaul is both subtle and dramatic at the same time, something that is difficult to accomplish, but Apple has managed to do.
If you were wise enough to make a local backup before going to iOS 26 on your device, you return to iOS 18 for a little while, so if you completely despise the new look that could be an option for you too. I am stuck with iOS 26 because I did not do it, so I will regularly express my opinion in articles like this and by complaining, while hoping that Apple will bring significant changes and improvements to updates to come.
What do you think of liquid glass on iOS 26 for iPhone and iPados 26 for iPad? Do you like it? Do you hate yourself? Would you like to be able to completely deactivate liquid glass and have the iOS 26 features, but keep the classic iOS 18 interface?
