I've been on Liquid Glass for months. Here are 3 features I love and 1 that isn't done cooking.
Liquid Glass, Apple's big new design language, is finally rolling out. Liquid Glass is essentially a new design concept that's built on the idea of layering software elements that look like actual glass, making for a design that looks more natural, rather than completely digital.
It's a pretty neat idea. The concept has actually been refined quite a lot over the past few months during the beta phase, after Apple announced the new design language at its WWDC 2025 conference. Liquid Glass still isn't perfect, but it has a lot going for it. Here are some of the things I like most about it, and one thing that still needs some work.
Simplified controls are nice
Part of the Liquid Glass redesign is making controls a little more simplified, which makes sense. Having translucent controls on a screen is cool, but if they're too big and too in your face, it can start to be a little annoying. There are a number of areas where Apple has seriously refined controls, and while it can take some getting used to, after using the iOS 26 beta for a while, I quite like the changes.
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A good example of this is in Safari. In iOS 26, Safari has new Liquid Glass controls that are similar to the old controls when you first open the app, showing a URL bar, back and forward buttons, and a menu for additional settings. Once you start scrolling, however, the controls minimize to a small URL bar at the bottom of the screen, helping maximize how much of a web page you can see at a time. It looks excellent. To access the controls again, simply tap on the URL bar at the bottom or start scrolling up a little and they'll show up. Again, it takes a little bit of getting used to, but it works well.
Another example is in the new camera app. When you open the app, you'll only see two different shooting modes: Photo and Video. That's handy for average users who don't need to access other photo modes, especially now that things like portrait settings are available in photos taken outside of portrait mode. The good news is that for nerds like me, those modes are still available. You just have to scroll to one side to access them. It's just as easy to access them if you know they're there – and the change helps make the Camera app a little less daunting when you open it up.
Lock screens look great
Liquid Glass has come to the lock screen too, and I really like how it looks. Things like notifications and widgets have always had some translucency, but the Liquid Glass effect helps make them look even more refined.
All of the digital elements on the lock screen can have the Liquid Glass effect, including the clock, lock screen widgets, and notifications. They can be clear glass, but they can also be colored, which can look pretty cool depending on the image that you've chosen for your lock screen background.
Along with adding Liquid Glass to the lock screen, there's also the new spatial scenes feature, which gives photos a parallax effect that helps make them appear three-dimensional when you tilt your phone. It's a super cool feature and works very well. And there's a new full-screen music feature that shows the album art and controls on the lock screen when you're listening to music. It can be enabled or disabled by simply tapping on the album art, but I like it a lot.
Apple’s software feels more consistent
One of the best things about Liquid Glass isn't simply about how it looks on iOS 26, but more about how it looks across Apple's entire ecosystem of products. Liquid Glass helps tie together iOS 26, macOS 26, watchOS 26, and iPadOS 26 in a way that previous versions of these operating systems didn't. Sure, Apple's software has always been more cohesive than others, but Liquid Glass helps take it to the next level.
That's not necessarily to say that the redesigns of these operating systems are amazing. There's plenty to be said about macOS 26 and the changes that Apple has made, but at the very least, I like that it has the Liquid Glass design built into it. And I really like how Apple has changed iPadOS partly with Liquid Glass and partly with new productivity features that help make the iPad feel much more like an actual laptop.
Apple hasn’t quite figured out Messages yet
As you would expect, the Messages app is getting a liquid glass overhaul too, but I'm not quite sure that all of the changes made to Messages are that great. Like in other apps, menu bars have been replaced with floating controls. And in chats, you'll now get floating liquid glass back buttons, FaceTime buttons, and a label for the name of the contact or group chat.
The floating bubble for your contact kind of looks a bit silly, especially considering how far down the screen the image and label extend compared to the back and FaceTime buttons. And, perhaps to better highlight these controls, Apple has added a kind of fade to chats, where they'll fade to white at the top of the screen if there's a light background, or get darker if there's an image or something else. It's really not a huge deal, but I think it's a little bit sloppy.
