Apple’s new software design, featuring ‘Liquid Glass,’ aims to create a more unified, intuitive, and delightful user experience across its entire ecosystem. This represents a significant evolution in Apple’s human interface design philosophy, focusing on a deep integration of hardware and software.
The core of this new design is a revolutionary material called Liquid Glass. This translucent material is designed to reflect and refract its surroundings, dynamically transforming to bring content into sharper focus. Its behavior mimics real-world glass, with colors informed by surrounding content and intelligent adaptation between light and dark environments. This isn’t just a static aesthetic; Liquid Glass utilizes real-time rendering and reacts dynamically to movement with specular highlights, creating a lively and engaging experience across all Apple devices.
This new material permeates every level of the user interface, from the smallest elements like buttons, switches, sliders, and text, to larger components such as tab bars and sidebars. It also extends to critical system experiences, including the Lock Screen, Home Screen, notifications, and Control Center, providing a cohesive visual language across the entire Apple ecosystem.
A key aspect of this design overhaul is the meticulous redesign of app interfaces. Apple’s design team has re-evaluated every facet of its platforms to enhance content focus and maintain instant familiarity. Controls, toolbars, and navigation within apps have been re-engineered to align perfectly with the rounded corners of modern hardware and app windows, fostering greater harmony between the physical device, the software, and the content being displayed. These controls, crafted from Liquid Glass, act as a distinct functional layer that sits above apps, dynamically morphing to provide more options or facilitate navigation as needed. Thoughtful groupings of controls also make it easier for users to find what they need.
The redesigned tab bars and sidebars further exemplify this content-centric approach.
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In iOS 26, tab bars intelligently shrink as users scroll, prioritizing content display while keeping navigation readily accessible.
They fluidly expand the moment users scroll back up. On iPadOS and macOS, updated sidebars in apps like Apple TV become more immersive, refracting the content behind them while reflecting surrounding content and the user’s wallpaper, always maintaining a sense of context for the user. These updated design elements are seamlessly integrated into refreshed experiences in popular apps such as Camera, Photos, Safari, FaceTime, Apple Music, Apple News, and Apple Podcasts.
The new design extends its influence across all of Apple’s major platforms: iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, watchOS 26, and tvOS 26. This universal application establishes an unprecedented level of harmony while still preserving the distinct qualities that make each platform unique. System experiences have also received significant attention. On the Lock Screen, the time is now crafted from Liquid Glass and fluidly adapts to elegantly fit behind the subject of photo wallpapers, maintaining focus on the primary image.
On the Home Screen and desktop, the Dock, app icons, and widgets have all been reimagined with multiple layers of Liquid Glass. This not only enhances their visual appeal with stunning specular highlights but also introduces greater personalization options while retaining the familiar user experience. For instance, macOS Tahoe 26 empowers users to customize their desktop and Dock with widgets and app icons that come alive with light or dark appearances, vibrant new light and dark tints, and an elegant new clear look. This is further enhanced by a completely transparent menu bar, which makes the Mac display feel even more expansive.
For developers, Apple has provided an updated set of APIs for SwiftUI, UIKit, and AppKit, making it easier to adopt this new design. By leveraging Liquid Glass materials and the redesigned controls, developers can refresh their apps, making every user interaction more intuitive and delightful. An innovative Icon Composer tool allows developers to create Liquid Glass icons across platforms that render beautifully in various appearances, including light, dark, tinted, or clear looks.
This comprehensive software design update, spearheaded by Alan Dye, Apple’s vice president of Human Interface Design, is described as Apple’s “broadest software design update ever.” It’s a meticulous undertaking that rethinks the fundamental elements of Apple’s software, building upon the optical qualities of glass with a unique fluidity that transforms based on content and context. This lays the groundwork for future experiences and aims to make even the simplest interactions more fun and magical.
The inspiration for this new design is deeply rooted in the depth and dimensionality observed in visionOS, leveraging Apple’s significant advancements in hardware, silicon, and graphics technologies. The seamless collaboration between design and engineering teams was crucial in bringing Liquid Glass to life, ensuring its real-time rendering capabilities and dynamic reactions to movement.
Ultimately, Apple’s introduction of Liquid Glass and the accompanying universal design across its platforms represent a bold step forward in user experience. It’s an attempt to create a more integrated, intuitive, and visually captivating interaction with technology, reinforcing Apple’s long-standing philosophy of combining hardware and software in a deeply interconnected and delightful manner. This new era of software design promises a renewed vitality and a heightened focus on content, all while maintaining the familiar and beloved essence of Apple’s software. The emphasis on fluidity, adaptability, and contextual awareness through Liquid Glass is poised to redefine how users interact with their Apple devices, setting a new standard for intuitive and beautiful digital experiences. The implications for developers are also significant, providing them with powerful new tools and materials to craft even more immersive and engaging applications that seamlessly integrate with the new visual language. This strategic design evolution solidifies Apple’s commitment to pushing the boundaries of human-computer interaction and delivering unparalleled user satisfaction across its expanding ecosystem.