Liquid Glass on iOS 26 is stunning, it also sucks
We had countless reports that Apple wouldn't talk about AI much at this year's WWDC ( Worldwide Developers Conference ), focusing instead on a complete UI redesign. That turned out to be true, and we got our first look at iOS 26 and its meticulously designed Liquid Glass overhaul.
This redesign is, at least in technical terms, quite stunning. The execution, however, leaves a lot to be desired.
Apple shows off Liquid Glass for its operating systems. | Video credit — Apple
When Apple went into the details of how it created Liquid Glass for iOS 26 , all I could think was that this looked amazing. The craftsmanship here is brilliant, and the company has genuinely put a ton of effort into this redesign.For example, the glass-based elements across the UI don't just show whatever's hiding behind them, that would have been super easy to do. Instead, Liquid Glass tabs and menus refract the light of the objects behind them, just like real glass would. Apple showed us how it had crafted app icons with actual glass in its design labs to better study how light would bounce off of their unique shapes.In all technical aspects, Liquid Glass is a marvel of digital engineering. I keep seeing iOS 26 in motion and I keep thinking, 'wow!' Comparing Liquid Glass with Windows Vista or custom Android skins is doing a disservice to just how brilliantly Apple's redesign is crafted.Which is why it's a massive shame that it sucks so much.
Liquid Glass on iOS 26. | Image credit — PhoneArena
As soon as iPhone users installed the iOS 26 Beta, reports of Liquid Glass and its failures started pouring in across social media. I would have shared some of those posts if the moderators of those communities weren't working overtime to remove all of them. Simply put, Apple's new design needs time in the oven, a lot more time.
Menus and other elements that feature text fail to adapt properly to their background, often leading to issues with legibility. Contrast is all over the place and has made notifications almost impossible to decipher. Lastly, whenever there's too many Liquid Glass buttons or menus on the screen at the same time, it leads to a confusing and jumbled up mess. Which entirely defeats the purpose of why Apple made Liquid Glass.
The refraction in Liquid Glass is great. | Image credit — Apple
I personally think that there is a lot that Apple has done right with iOS 26 . For example, the improvements to the Camera and Phone apps, with the former being a lot less cluttered now. The lock screen also looks pretty neat, when it's not messing up all of your notifications, of course.
Unfortunately, Liquid Glass needs a lot of work. Thankfully, iOS 26 is only out as a Beta at the moment, and Apple has months to perfect the new redesign before the public release in fall. This means that some of the stunning new effects on the virtual elements will likely need to be toned down, which is a bummer because they're genuinely very pretty.
The level of translucency across Liquid Glass will probably also need to be tweaked, and iOS 26 may actually end up resembling Windows Vista after all. Apple executive Craig Federighi pointed out that the company has been experimenting with translucent elements since iOS 7. It's a shame that they weren't able to perfect it in time for this overhaul. Lastly, even if Liquid Glass looked just as perfect as Apple had intended, it would have still needed to be changed. There have been multiple reports that all of the fancy effects are taking a toll on the processing, and iOS 26 is a laggy experience for many iPhone users.
And I haven't even mentioned how iOS 26 is apparently the buggiest Beta in years.
Fair warning: this is the buggiest beta 1 in 12 years. — Mark Gurman (@markgurman) June 9, 2025
Apple has recently had a string of bad software updates, and it needed to really pull it together for WWDC. In a way, it did. I enjoyed the in-depth look at Liquid Glass and I can see the vision that the company has. But the bugginess and lack of quality control is, unfortunately, expected at this point.
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