Jun 2025
Image sources: Apple Inc.
Updated June 2025: This article now covers preparing for iOS 26’s Liquid Glass design system.
At WWDC 2025, Apple unveiled something extraordinary—a complete reimagining of how users interact with their devices. While AI capabilities grabbed headlines, the real game-changer for app owners is Apple’s revolutionary “Liquid Glass” design language, coming to iOS 26 and beyond this fall.
This isn’t just another visual refresh. It’s the most significant change to iOS development since Auto Layout, and it will determine whether your app feels cutting-edge or completely outdated in the new Apple ecosystem.
Apple’s new design language combines the optical qualities of glass with fluid, responsive behavior. UI components now refract content from below, reflect ambient light, and respond dynamically with subtle animations and depth effects. The result transforms every interaction, making apps feel more intuitive, engaging, and alive.
Liquid Glass prioritizes what matters most: your content. UI elements elegantly recede when you’re reading, creating, or watching, allowing content to extend to the edges of your display. Controls fluidly morph—disappearing when you need focus, expanding when you need functionality.
While Google’s Material Design emphasizes tangible surfaces and physical metaphors, Apple’s Liquid Glass focuses on optical qualities, fluidity, and light interaction—a move toward more ethereal, responsive interfaces that adapt and respond rather than simply exist.
This design deeply supports personalization—Lock Screen wallpapers adapt fluidly to personal photos, folders can be customized with colors and emoji, and Visual Intelligence seamlessly integrates for visual search across apps. It’s not just about looking good; it’s about creating interfaces that understand and adapt to how you use your devices.
For the first time, Apple introduces a consistent design across iOS 26, iPad OS 26, watchOS 26, tvOS 26, macOS Tahoe, and visionOS 26. This creates seamless experiences as users move between devices, each maintaining platform-specific characteristics while sharing core design principles. Interface consistency is good for users. It is especially important for developers and project budgets. “Cross-platform” commonly refers to an app that more or less functions the same across Apple and Google platforms from the same source code. Apple views it differently. They think of “cross-platform” as running across all their hardware platforms from the same (Swift) source code. Apple wants a user’s favorite app to be available on all their devices. Making it easy for developers to create apps that look and function great across those devices without a lot of extra device-specific work is in Apple’s best interest to achieve that objective.
The most visible transformation is that icons now feature multiple layers, creating depth and visual richness. They adapt across contexts, transitioning between light/dark modes, showcasing system colors, and featuring a new transparent “clear mode.” Apple’s new Icon Composer tool requires teams to rebuild icons as multi-layer compositions rather than flat images.
Lock screens, control centers, and navigation elements use Liquid Glass for smoother transitions and context-aware behavior. Controls elegantly recede when you’re focused on content, then expand when needed.
While Apple frames this as a “design language,” the reality of business is more stark. When you recompile with Xcode 26, your app automatically gets Liquid Glass for system controls. If your custom components aren’t updated, you’ll have a jarring mixed experience where parts of your app look modern while others appear dated.
The timeline is non-negotiable. Apple explicitly stated that the option to retain current designs would “be removed in the next major release.” This means full adoption isn’t optional—it’s required by iOS 27’s public release next year.
When iOS 26 launches this fall, users will immediately notice which apps have adapted and which haven’t. Liquid Glass will be everywhere—in every Apple app, every system control, and every interaction. Your app will either feel like it belongs in this new world, or it won’t.
Outdated flat icons will instantly signal your app hasn’t been updated for iOS 26. Since icons are the first thing users see, this creates significant perception risk. In an app store where first impressions determine downloads, looking dated means losing users.
As users experience Liquid Glass across Apple’s native apps, they’ll expect the same fluidity and responsiveness from yours. Apps that don’t adapt will feel broken by comparison, like using a website from 2010 on today’s internet.
While many companies scramble to understand these changes, thoughtful early adoption positions your brand as innovative and current. The businesses that move first will set the new standard in their categories.
Every app with custom UI components needs substantial work. When you recompile with Xcode 26, framework views automatically update—but custom components don’t. Enhanced APIs in SwiftUI, UIKit, and AppKit enable Liquid Glass effects, but require implementation.
For icons alone, Apple’s new Icon Composer tool demands a complete workflow shift: importing vector content, managing multiple layers, adjusting blur effects and translucency, and testing real-time specular highlights. Teams must validate designs across multiple appearance modes, including the new transparent “clear mode.”
This isn’t a simple reskin; it’s a comprehensive rebuild of your app’s visual layer, touching everything from your app icon to your deepest navigation elements.
Adopting Liquid Glass requires more than applying new visual effects. Consider:
This transition presents both a challenge and an opportunity. Teams that approach Liquid Glass thoughtfully, rather than rushing minimal compliance, can modernize interfaces, address UX debt, and create genuinely better user experiences.
The window for strategic planning is closing. With iOS 26 launching this fall, now is the time to act.
Reading between the lines, Apple’s emphasis on universal design and hardware-software integration points to something bigger. Combined with Apple Intelligence advancements, we’re moving toward ambient, context-aware interfaces that anticipate needs without being intrusive, making technology feel less like a tool and more like a natural extension of how we work and live.
For businesses, this means the apps that succeed will not just comply with Liquid Glass requirements but embrace this philosophy of adaptive, intelligent design that puts users first.
At InspiringApps, we’re fluent in Apple’s design principles and the technical requirements of this major shift. We understand both the visionary opportunity and the practical complexity.
We can help you:
Don’t let your app get left behind. Contact InspiringApps today to schedule your Liquid Glass readiness consultation and ensure your app thrives in Apple’s new era.
InspiringApps: Transforming Apple’s biggest design update into your competitive advantage.
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