In June 2025 throughout WWDC Apple revealed an enormous shift to the feel and appear 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 known as Liquid Glass. A model new method to design Apps throughout the complete Apple ecosystem. Because the title suggests, this new design language encompasses concepts and ideas from the best way glass works, utilizing reflections and refractions to create layered purposes.
With Liquid Glass now commonly obtainable on gadgets, most apps want to think about how one can undertake this new design language for themselves. On this tutorial you’ll undergo a few 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 and convey their perception that {Hardware} and Software program ought to be carefully entwined. They consider each gadget ought to work as one, leading to a pleasant and intuitive expertise for the person.
The core a part of this can be a new design materials Apple created, additionally known as Liquid Glass. It mimics glass in the true world and supplies translucency between layers, which means gentle and color might be refracted by means of 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 by means of the App.
Beneath is an instance of the Share Sheet in iOS 26. Pay attention to the sunshine refracting by means of the sheet, and a few of the colours seeping by means of to assist in giving a way of depth.
Subsequent, lets have a look at how one can undertake Liquid Glass in your Apps so you’ll be able to 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 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 you need to have the ability to see some variations to the UI. Beneath is an instance of what you can see:
As you’ll be able to see the tab bar is floating and rounded within the center. For those who have been to carry your finger over it it could start to shine and shimmer. Appearing like a chunk of glass responding to the touch.
This is likely one of the nice issues about the best way Apple has approached Liquid Glass. They’ve achieved a lot of the arduous give you the results you want by making certain their very own elements use Liquid Glass. For those who’re already utilizing SwiftUI elements to construct your UI then you definately’ll profit from these adjustments with minimal work required.
The identical might be stated for UIKit as properly. For those who’re utilizing UIKit based mostly elements then Apple has additionally achieved the arduous work and your elements will routinely use Liquid Glass.
While this can work for almost all of instances, chances are you’ll discover that there are that adjustments have an effect on your app in methods wherein you didn’t intend. At this level it is advisable to undergo your App Controls and resolve what adjustments 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 is likely to be too restricted, or the glass is having an unintended impact. It’s at this level it is advisable to undergo your App display by display and have 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 is advisable to add extra?
– Is there a Glass impact that’s overlaying one other a part of the display? Does this affect the feel and appear of the display?
– What about your Apps model? Does it work properly 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?
Wanting on the App you noticed earlier, right here is an instance of a display the place the Toolbar is a bit of 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 beneath:
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 got a good suggestion how Liquid Glass works as a developer, you should still want to think about the enterprise priorities of your job. It might be you end up ready the place Liquid Glass is just too time consuming in the intervening time to assist in your app. Thankfully Apple have supplied a flag you need to use to disable Liquid Glass inside your App plist.
To do that, open your `Information.plist` and add the next key `UIDesignRequiresCompatability`. Guarantee the kind is a `Boolean` and set to `YES`.
Construct and run the app utilizing an iOS 26 gadget. You need to discover all traces of Liquid Glass have disappeared!
It is a fast and straightforward method to push again interested by Liquid Glass. Bear in mind although that there might 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 likewise how simple 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 adjustments 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.
