In June 2025 throughout WWDC Apple revealed a giant shift to the appear and feel of its person interface for its gadgets. As a substitute of sticking with the minimalist design it had relied on since iOS 7, Apple revealed it had been engaged on a brand new design langauge referred to as Liquid Glass. A model new approach to design Apps throughout the whole Apple ecosystem. Because the title suggests, this new design language encompasses concepts and ideas from the way in which glass works, utilizing reflections and refractions to create layered purposes.
With Liquid Glass now frequently accessible on gadgets, most apps want to contemplate find out how to undertake this new design language for themselves. On this tutorial you’ll undergo a number of the eventualities chances are you’ll encounter when upgrading an iOS App to make use of Liquid Glass.
What’s Liquid Glass?
Liquid Glass is Apple’s try to convey their perception that {Hardware} and Software program ought to be intently entwined. They consider each system ought to work as one, leading to a pleasant and intuitive expertise for the person.
The core a part of it is a new design materials Apple created, additionally referred to as Liquid Glass. It mimics glass in the actual world and offers translucency between layers, which means gentle and color will be refracted via layers. These layers assist construct up in Apps to create a way of depth and complexity. Liquid Glass can even react to the customers context, enlarging and disappearing as wanted to make sure the person recieves well timed data as they navigate via the App.
Under is an instance of the Share Sheet in iOS 26. Be aware of the sunshine refracting via the sheet, and a number of the colours seeping via to assist in giving a way of depth.
Subsequent, lets take a look at find out how to undertake Liquid Glass in your Apps so you possibly can start to know the way it works your self.
Getting Began with Liquid Glass
Constructing an app for iOS 26 requires a minimal of Xcode 26 to make use of. You may obtain the newest model of Xcode from the macOS App Retailer or beta builds through the Apple Developer Portal. As soon as you might be setup with Xcode, be sure that to additionally set up the iOS 26 simulator.
When the simulator is put in, construct and run your app utilizing it. As soon as the app opens it’s best to have the ability to see some variations to the UI. Under is an instance of what you can see:
As you possibly can see the tab bar is floating and rounded within the center. In the event you have been to carry your finger over it it might start to shine and shimmer. Appearing like a bit of glass responding to the touch.
This is without doubt one of the nice issues about the way in which Apple has approached Liquid Glass. They’ve achieved a lot of the exhausting give you the results you want by guaranteeing their very own parts use Liquid Glass. In the event you’re already utilizing SwiftUI parts to construct your UI then you definately’ll profit from these modifications with minimal work required.
The identical will be stated for UIKit as effectively. In the event you’re utilizing UIKit based mostly parts then Apple has additionally achieved the exhausting work and your parts will robotically use Liquid Glass.
While this can work for almost all of instances, chances are you’ll discover that there are that modifications have an effect on your app in methods by which you didn’t intend. At this level it’s good to undergo your App Controls and resolve what modifications to make. Within the subsequent part you’ll learn to try this.
Reviewing Your App Controls
As a part of adopting Liquid Glass you’ll find elements of your App that look misplaced. The controls could be too restricted, or the glass is having an unintended impact. It’s at this level it’s good to undergo your App display screen by display screen and take a look at how Liquid Glass has affected it. Good issues to look out for are:
– Is the padding for a management too tight, do it’s good to add extra?
– Is there a Glass impact that’s overlaying one other a part of the display screen? Does this affect the appear and feel of the display screen?
– What about your Apps model? Does it work effectively with Liquid Glass or does it want some design enter to make it work as anticipated?
– What about Tab Bars and Toolbars? Are these working as they need to or do they want updating to work with the brand new design?
Trying on the App you noticed earlier, right here is an instance of a display screen the place the Toolbar is a little bit too restricted after adopting Liquid Glass:
Clearly your customers will discover this because it doesn’t look “polished”. It additionally impacts the contact floor of the Toolbar, the place a customers contact is restricted to the dimensions of the Toolbar.
On this case, including a easy `.padding(10)` modifier to the Toolbar is sufficient to repair the difficulty and provides the management some area to breathe. Try the following picture under:
With a easy improve in padding the management nows alot extra naturally positioned and any customers have extra contact area to play with!
Enabling Compatability Mode for Liquid Glass
Now that you’ve a good suggestion how Liquid Glass works as a developer, you should still want to contemplate the enterprise priorities of your job. It may very well be you end up able the place Liquid Glass is simply too time consuming for the time being to assist in your app. Luckily Apple have offered a flag you need to use to disable Liquid Glass inside your App plist.
To do that, open your `Data.plist` and add the next key `UIDesignRequiresCompatability`. Guarantee the sort is a `Boolean` and set to `YES`.
Construct and run the app utilizing an iOS 26 system. It is best to discover all traces of Liquid Glass have disappeared!
This can be a fast and simple approach to push again fascinated about Liquid Glass. Bear in mind although that there may very well be a time the place Apple decides to take away this characteristic and you may be pressured to improve your App UI.
Conclusion
On this tutorial you have been launched to Liquid Glass. You discovered about how Liquid Glass differs to the minimalist design Apple beforehand relied on and in addition how straightforward it’s to undertake Liquid Glass into your app.
You additionally learnt what to look out for when updating an current App to make use of Liquid Glass and what modifications chances are you’ll want to make sure it really works easily.
To proceed studying about Liquid Glass, check out the Liquid Glass module within the What’s New in iOS 26 Program.
