Apple Unifies Design Across All Devices with New Liquid Glass Design
Apple today previewed a new software design that promises to redefine the user experience across its entire ecosystem. This comprehensive overhaul, extending to iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, watchOS 26, and tvOS 26, introduces a “delightful and elegant” aesthetic centred around a revolutionary new material dubbed “Liquid Glass.”
The new design aims to bring greater focus to content while delivering a “new level of vitality,” all while retaining the familiar and intuitive nature of Apple’s software. The core of this transformation is Liquid Glass, a translucent material that mimics the optical properties of real glass, reflecting and refracting its surroundings. Crucially, it dynamically transforms to highlight content and enhance interactions across controls, navigation, app icons, widgets, and more.
Liquid Glass: A New Era of Expressive Design
Inspired by the depth and dimensionality of visionOS, Liquid Glass further leverages Apple’s advanced hardware, silicon, and graphics technologies. As a result, this innovative material intelligently adapts its colour to surrounding content while also seamlessly transitioning between light and dark environments. Moreover, through real-time rendering and dynamic reactions to movement with specular highlights, Liquid Glass ultimately creates a lively and engaging experience across all Apple devices.
This stunning material is integrated into every aspect of the user interface, from small elements like buttons, switches, and sliders to larger components such as tab bars and sidebars. Its impact is also evident in critical system experiences, including the Lock Screen, Home Screen, notifications, and Control Center.
Redesigned Apps and Enhanced Platform Harmony
Apple’s design team meticulously re-evaluated every facet of its platforms to optimise for content focus and user familiarity. Designers have redesigned controls, toolbars, and navigation within apps to fit perfectly with the rounded corners of modern hardware and app windows, creating greater harmony between hardware, software, and content. These controls, crafted from Liquid Glass, act as a distinct functional layer, dynamically morphing to provide more options as users navigate.
Tab bars and sidebars have also been reimagined. In iOS 26, tab bars will shrink to emphasise content while remaining accessible, fluidly expanding when users scroll back up. On iPadOS and macOS, updated sidebars in apps like Apple TV will refract content behind them and reflect surrounding elements, providing users with a constant sense of context.
Apple will roll out these design enhancements across a suite of updated apps, including Camera, Photos, Safari, FaceTime, Apple Music, Apple News, and Apple Podcasts.
An Enhanced Experience Across All Apple Platforms
The new design extends to core system experiences across all platforms. Apple has crafted the Lock Screen time from Liquid Glass, designing it to dynamically adapt and elegantly nestle behind photo wallpaper subjects. They’ve also uniquely designed the San Francisco typeface to dynamically scale its weight, width, and height for seamless integration.
macOS Tahoe 26 transforms the Home Screen and desktop by crafting the Dock, app icons, and widgets from multiple layers of Liquid Glass, delivering stunning visuals and enhanced personalisation options. It also introduces new customisation features for the desktop and Dock, including light and dark appearances, colourful tints, and a sleek new clear look. A completely transparent menu bar further enhances the Mac display, creating a more immersive experience.
Empowering Developers
For developers utilising SwiftUI, UIKit, and AppKit, an updated set of APIs will simplify the adoption of the new design. By leveraging Liquid Glass materials and the newly updated controls, developers will have the tools to refresh their apps, making every user interaction more intuitive and delightful.
This extensive software design update marks a significant step forward for Apple, promising a more beautiful, intuitive, and engaging user experience across its entire product lineup.
