WWDC 2025 is underway, and Apple has unveiled a new year-based naming convention for its iPhone operating system: what would have been iOS 19 is now officially iOS 26, since 2026 will be the year most people are running the software. Alongside this change, Apple introduced a sweeping visual overhaul dubbed Liquid Glass (previously rumored under the internal codename “Solarium”).
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Liquid Glass brings a glass-inspired aesthestic not only to iOS 26 but all of Apple’s platforms. While on stage at WWDC, the company pitched it as a unified design language coming to the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, Mac, Vision Pro, and Apple TV.
What is Liquid Glass?
Liquid Glass is Apple’s biggest design update since iOS 7 — which famously ditched skeuomorphic features in favor of flat look. Apple said Liquid Glass layers semitransparent “glass” materials throughout iOS 26, iPadOS 26, MacOS 15, WatchOS 10, TVOS 16, and VisionOS 4. This translucent look can refract and reflect whatever’s behind it and adapt its tint for both light and dark modes.
Also: How to install iOS 26 on your iPhone (and which models support it)
What’s new in Liquid Glass?
Rumors had hinted that Apple’s next UI overhaul would introduce glass-like translucency. At WWDC 2025, those whispers became reality with the unveiling of Liquid Glass, a unified, cross-platform design language. Apple demonstrated how Liquid Glass adds consistent depth, translucency, and motion-responsive effects across its entire device lineup.
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For instance, on the iPhone’s Lock Screen, the time numerals can now “nestle” into your wallpaper and pick up its colors. Meanwhile, in MacOS 26, the Dock and menu bar can go fully transparent or take on tinted or clear looks that let your wallpaper, widgets, and icons shine. And across apps like Safari, Apple Music, News, and Podcasts, tab bars float in a frosted-glass layer — shrinking when you scroll down to put content front and center and re-expanding when you scroll back up.
- Glass reflections: A new translucent material refracts its surroundings, adapts its tint for light or dark modes, and reacts with specular highlights.
- App icons: New squircle glyphs sit beneath transparent surfaces that bend wallpaper colors and animate subtly with a tap.
- Widgets: Glass panels let your background peek through, cast gentle shadows, and animate ever so slightly.
- Navigation bars: In iOS 26, tab bars shrink on scroll-down and re-expand on scroll-up; on iPadOS and MacOS, sidebars refract whatever’s behind them to keep context.
- Panels and menus: Control Center, Notification Center, and sidebars sport a frosted look, with sliders, buttons, and sheets floating above content.
- Toolbars: In Safari and similar apps, toolbars turn semi-transparent and resize fluidly as you scroll.
- Developer APIs: A new set of Liquid Glass materials and components is available to third-party developers, enabling apps easily to adopt the same translucency and motion-responsive effects.
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Which platforms get Liquid Glass?
Apple confirmed that Liquid Glass spans its entire software lineup:
- iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and MacOS 26: All system panels (Control Center, notifications, etc.), toolbars, sidebars, windows, app icons, and widgets now use Liquid Glass materials — complete with translucent frosted layers, rounded corners that mirror device bezels, and floating controls that morph and recede to keep content front and center.
- WatchOS 26: Every UI element — from notifications to watch-face complications — now uses Liquid Glass, improving legibility and visual harmony with rounded corners and translucent menus.
- TVOS 26: The Apple TV Home Screen and app pages feature frosted backdrops behind app tiles, while the top-bar navigation and action overlays adopt the same translucent Liquid Glass styling for a cohesive look with Apple’s other platforms.
- VisionOS 26: Builds on its spatial-computing roots by refining its floating windows and 3D iconography to match the new Liquid Glass style, unifying headset and handheld experiences.
Release schedule
As with previous years, developer and public betas of iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and the rest will roll out over the summer, with final public releases and new hardware arriving around September 2025.
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