I HATED iOS 26 Liquid Glass on iPhone, But Now I Like It
I admit, I was a hater. I absolutely loathed the Liquid Glass interface on iOS 26. I thought it was obnoxious, distracting, excessive, confusing, ugly, hard to read. My initial impressions were really bad, it was so weird looking and off that it made me hate using my iPhone and I immediately regretted upgrading to iOS 26.
But then I went through all the various customization options, particularly for the Home Screen icons and Lock Screen, and made a few adjustments to Accessibility settings, I customized a couple wallpapers for my most frequent Messages conversations, and now I really like iOS 26 and the Liquid Glass interface changes. Say what?
Are we still allowed to change our opinions, let alone do so publicly? Or are we supposed to hold onto our prior ideas and never let them go, even if we adjust and feel differently later?
To be clear, some of my initial accessibility complaints remain. I do still think there are notable reductions to legibility of text, and I still do not like how cramped everything feels, and that’s something Apple absolutely must work out as they continue to refine the Liquid Glass interface. But overall, the new appearance looks new and feels more modern.
Tips to Customize & Improve the Liquid Glass Experience in iOS 26
Here’s what I did to start enjoying and appreciating Liquid Glass, try some customizations yourself!
1: Choose a Good Wallpaper
Pick a good wallpaper. This goes a long way. I don’t personally find the default iOS 26 wallpapers to be pleasant, but explore wallpaper options and choose one that you like. This should be the first thing you do visually, because the next step is to customize the icons to match well with the wallpaper.
2: Customize Your Home Screen & Icon Look
Long press on the Home Screen until everything wiggles, then tap on “Edit” in the corner and choose ‘Customize’. Tinker with the various options, icon choices, explore the Clear look, try the auto/light and dark icon modes (I think “Dark” is the most consistently attractive but that’s a matter of personal preference), and make adjustments until you land where you like. I also found that hiding app name text on the Home Screen icons (which also makes them larger) made a pleasant visual difference.
3: Customize Your Lock Screen & Clock
Customizing your Lock Screen and the clock look goes a long way too. Add a few widgets that are useful to you, expand or shrink the clock, use the depth effect, just play around and find what you like. Long press on the Home Screen while you’re there and just to edit it, and see what you come up with.
4: Customize Messages Wallpapers
I thought this feature was gimicky at first, but now I kind of like it. Setting custom wallpapers for Messages and group chats really helps to distinguish each conversation from the other, and can help set a mood or feeling for each chat. Tap on the name of the person/group chat you’re in in Messages, then go to “Backgrounds” to set your custom Messages wallpaper background
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My views on Liquid Glass on iPhone are quickly evolving, but I can’t really say the same for Liquid Glass on the Mac (yet anyway). It feels much more half-baked on MacOS than it does on iPhone or iPad, but I assume that with future OS 26.x updates we will see some notable improvements all around, for all devices.
What do you think? Now that it has been a bit with Liquid Glass, has your opinion changed? Have you found a way to make it work on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac? Did you always like it to begin with? Share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below.
An article clearly originated by Apple comms team. The baseic overview is -> This UI sucks, but it’s your fault for not making good choices. Wrong. That’s what makes this change so bad. Some jag at Apple Design clearly has been up their own $%^ for too long and can’t hear feedback.
I can assure you that is not the case, we are enthusiasts who are completely independent from Apple in every possible way.
Jamie is documenting the rollercoaster of personal experiences with the new Liquid Glass design and iOS 26, something that I think a lot of people can relate to.
I would guess that there are quite a few iPhone and Mac users with failing eyesight that find these changes make their device unusable. It is hard to imagine that Apple would be willing to abandon a non trivial portion of their customer base. To make such a change a non configurable option is very disappointing.
I personally find the Liquid Glass interface on Mac and iPhone to be very difficult to read and use.
Also on the Mac it looks so clowny and kid-like, and reduced usability and readability… what were they thinking?
I also hated it…in the beginning. I think I was experiencing overwhelm with being too much out of my comfort zone but I’ve switched it all back on and I have to say it is an aesthetically pleasing UI.
If you think back to the first GUI OS interfaces, every element had a flat look with sharp corners. Then we had decades of ergonomic research and testing that brought us raised buttons, rounded corners, and shadows that made it easier to interact with the screen elements. Although we still have rounded corners, we are back to the flat elements that all those ergonomic studies said were harder on people. So, were all of those studies wrong? Are they still doing usability studies, or is this new interface just someone’s idea?
I forgot to mention…
We used to have obvious buttons. I recently noticed that many icons are now being called buttons. Are they really all buttons now? Or is it so difficult to see the difference now that they have to call everything a button?
So glad you came to a more positive position on the Liquid Glass look. The adjustments you decided to use I made early on. The changes are modern, readability and more accessibility.. All those are critical to Apple’s success, appearance and perception.
The importance of accessibility tweaks will only increase.
When I showed the update to a couple of friends with disabilities, they liked the changes right away. I wonder if it would be a good idea for MacWorld staff to include people with disabilities when reviewing new products.
Yes, it’s right to change your views and say so!
The charm of Apple products has always been simplicity. A part of my job was introducing Macintosh computers to people who had never used one. It took less than an hour before people were navigating through the apps. A customer buying an apple product should not have to spend hours tinkering, experimenting to get an interface that is easily readable. I am in my 70s and have trouble enough seeing print on my iPhone. There ought to be an off option for liquid glass.
I glad you mentioned readability and age. It’s very clear that while Apple has done a good job supporting those with disabilities, it’s clear that they DON’T RECOGNIZE and DON’T SUPPORT that they have many of us who are older users with vision issues. Every release uses smaller and small fonts, packs more and more onto the screen, etc. These are not necessarily bad things, but the model they chosen is that you must have them, and must spend hours on settings removing/changing them. Instead of alternatively making users who want them, use setting to enable. As I get older and older (I’m 67), it makes me less and less interested in upgrading Apple products. Who want to pay $1000+ to then just have to spend hours getting a device to where it is useful?
BTW all bags have the same issue with printed materials in products — check out the printed info with the AirPods Pro 3’s – someone has figured out how to print in 4pt font! :-(
I do not share this sentiment. I installed it, and it looks like a kids toy, Fischer Price. Same with Mac Tahoe, also looks like a kids toy. Who is Apple making this stuff for? Let us use the old interface again.
No, sorry, but you can’t adjust the background to improve the readability of the OS. There’s something totally wrong with this Liquid Glass. Nobody asked for a redesign.
I hate that Apple imposes a graphic UI that I don’t like. I’m talking about both iOS and macOS. It’s even worse for me on macOS. Sorry, but I hate the transparency (unreadable), I hate the new ugly Finder icon, I hate the more rounded corners (so much wasted space and nonsense)… I will stay on Sequoia and iOS 18 as long as possible. All this new graphic stuff is superficial, useless… and a failure. There are so many more important things to fix in macOS for productivity.
Sorry again, I’m a bit angry about this because I loved the macOS 15 UI, and they destroyed it… but you know what? Apple has made so many mistakes (like the butterfly keyboards, the Mac Pro trash, to name a few…) that they’ll probably backtrack when enough people start complaining about the unreadability, etc. It’s the macOS Vista moment, unfortunately.
Anyway, thanks for your website, which I’ve known for a long time. Best regards from France :)
The “ugly” Finder icon is nearly the original one from the first Macintosh. I like it!