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.