Apple’s new Liquid Glass design is noticeable on the House Display screen proper whenever you unlock your iPhone, although the diploma of change is customizable. We have rounded up every part that is modified with the iPhone’s fundamental interface.
Liquid Glass Design
By default, app icons have a layered look with delicate depth, primarily showing as a number of sheets of glass stacked on each other to create a glass-like translucent look.
Apple created Liquid Glass app icons for apps like Safari, Maps, Images, the App Retailer, Mail and extra. Third-party app icons are adopting the identical aesthetic, and for apps with a easy design on a stable background, no replace is required. Icons like this have already got a Liquid Glass look.
The dock is clear and blends into the background behind it, and the identical goes for the search button. App folders have a frosted glass design that additionally adjustments tint based mostly in your wallpaper. If you edit your House Display screen, the buttons that you just work together with are additionally clear.
Interface components just like the dock, folders, and the search button have a lighting impact that adjustments whenever you transfer your iPhone, making them appear like actual glass.
Gentle, Darkish and Tinted Modes
The Liquid Glass impact is obvious in each Gentle Mode and Darkish Mode, with icons persevering with to characteristic the identical stacked glass look, simply with a lighter or darker background.
Apple technically modified Gentle Mode to “Default Mode” within the customization settings the place you possibly can alter colour (lengthy press on the show and faucet on customise).
There are new “All the time” and “Auto” toggles for enabling everlasting Gentle or Darkish types or adjusting them based mostly on time, and the Small and Giant buttons for altering icon dimension have been relocated to the higher proper of the customization interface.
Tinted mode appears to be like completely different in iOS 26 than it did in iOS 18. Slightly than icons that includes a black background with coloured graphics, icons undertake the total colour that you choose with white graphics in Gentle Mode. In Darkish Mode, backgrounds are a a lot darker shade of the colour you select, however aren’t solely black.
With Tinted icons, the layered glass look is not as apparent, nevertheless it’s nonetheless current.
Clear Icons
Apple added a “Clear” icon choice in iOS 26 that is obtainable alongside Default, Darkish, and Tinted. Because the identify suggests, Clear has a dramatic Liquid Glass look with icons which can be solely clear. The icons undertake the colour of your wallpaper, with white textual content and designs.
There are Gentle and Darkish choices for the Clear setting. Gentle appears to be like like frosted glass, whereas Darkish appears to be like like tinted glass. If you wish to go all-in on Liquid Glass and have your iPhone look notably completely different, Clear is the choice to decide on.
Widgets
Widgets have a few of the identical aesthetic as icons, however on the entire, they do not look an excessive amount of completely different from how they seemed in iOS 18 within the Default mode.
With the Clear choice turned on, widgets are clear and have a extra cohesive design that matches together with your wallpaper.
Wallpaper
You’ll be able to edit your wallpaper immediately from the House Display screen in iOS 26. Lengthy press on the show after which faucet on the brand new “Edit Wallpaper” choice.
The wallpaper interface enables you to change the picture that you just’re utilizing on the House Display screen, nevertheless it would not have an effect on the Lock Display screen. In case you have a photograph set as a wallpaper, for instance, you possibly can change the colour, choose a gradient, or select a photograph, plus you possibly can flip blurring for photos off or on.
Wallpaper takes a starring position in iOS 26 as a result of it impacts the colour of the dock, folders, and icons, relying in your settings.
Management Heart
Management Heart adopts Liquid Glass, so whereas the performance is similar, the overall look is completely different. In comparison with the iOS 18 Management Heart, the iOS 26 model has depth for the icons with the Liquid Glass shifting mild impact.
The icons are tinted to appear like frosted glass, and a few of the underlying buttons for adjusting Management Heart have been tweaked with the up to date look. Icons are just a little bigger, and a few of the bar-shaped icons for quantity, brightness, and different settings are rounder.
Different House Display screen Components
The Dynamic Island, Notification Heart, lengthy press gestures, and App Library haven’t modified past aesthetics. App Library folders are translucent and the search bar is rounded, and for widgets, there’s a glass look of various depth relying in your icon colour alternative.
App Library icons are additionally barely bigger, with much less padding between them.
Net Apps
If you add a web site to your House Display screen in iOS 26, it all the time opens as an internet app. Net apps had been obtainable on the House Display screen in iOS 18, however net builders wanted to configure them to function as net apps.
If web sites weren’t configured correctly, they might open in Safari when added to the House Display screen. Now a web site will open as a devoted net app, even when it hasn’t been explicitly set as much as work that manner.
There’s an Open as Net App choice that may be toggled off when including a web site to a House Display screen in case you desire that web sites open up in Safari.
Learn Extra
We’ve a devoted iOS 26 roundup that goes into element on all the new options which can be obtainable within the replace.
