If You Hate Liquid Glass on iOS 26, Right here’s Make It Higher

Now that iOS 26 is offered for everybody, iPhone customers are breaking off into two camps. One is open to Apple’s new search for its total product ecosystem, dubbed “Liquid Glass” for the translucent “glassmorphic” UI. As is so typical of the web, the opposite aspect of the coin is furious concerning the change to their units. Hold off on leaping the gun and retreating again to iOS 18. There are a number of hidden choices that may make your gadget slightly extra legible and return the person interface to one thing extra opaque, like on earlier iPhone software program.

Apple designed its Liquid Glass interface to look layered, as if the buttons you’re tapping on the display are tangible parts. The impact is as if a glass prism hangs over numerous design parts, the place gentle refracts and distorts by way of app icons or menus. This could cause issues with legibility, particularly when textual content in some menus distorts different phrases beneath it. Apple adjusted the transparency a number of occasions in beta over the previous couple of months to reach on the present model that’s much less glassy and liquidy, however can nonetheless be a visible downside at occasions.

Apple needed to take care of comparable usability points again within the age of iOS 7. The iPhone maker rolled out a number of updates that fastened efficiency points and accessibility choices to make textual content extra readable. For iOS 26, Apple has a number of choices out of the gate that assist cut back the Liquid Glass impact. If you go to Settings, then Accessibility and Display & Text Size, you’ll discover three settings you possibly can regulate.

“Reduce Transparency” is the closest you may get to eradicating Liquid Glass altogether. It eliminates the blur impact on some menus and provides opaque packing containers round others. For occasion, in Apple Music, the “Now Playing” bar has a white field that takes up the underside portion of the display house. If you carry down the Control Center, you gained’t see almost the identical quantity of transparency. If I have been most customers, I’d really go together with the “Increase Contrast” possibility. This creates a extra frosted glass look in comparison with the translucent number of the common Liquid Glass. You can see this impact beneath with out these choices, with “Reduce Transparency,” and with “Increase Contrast.”

With both possibility chosen, you’ll nonetheless see the identical ripple impact while you swipe from the highest left to carry down the lock display and your notifications. You also needs to take note of new app icon choices to actually emphasize the brand new look. If you long-press on the house display, then hit the Edit button within the prime left after which faucet Customize, you’ll see choices for “Clear” or “Tinted” app icons. “Clear” can be incoherent on any lighter background wallpapers, whereas “Tinted” will increase the distinction way more. Add within the “Increase Contrast” setting, and your apps will sport much less of a 3D impact however nonetheless keep the quasi-glassy look.

I counsel you mess around with accessibility settings till you discover one which works. Let’s face it: whether or not you like or hate Liquid Glass, most individuals gained’t wish to transfer again to older variations of iOS. If you propose to make use of the brand new AirPods options on the AirPods Pro 3 or Apple’s older earbuds, comparable to Live Translation and coronary heart fee monitoring, you’ll want a tool with iOS 26. Want new options to mechanically display incoming requires spammers and scammers or long-awaited polls in Messages? You’ll want to stay with iOS 26.

As for me, I’m already confronted with idiosyncrasies of Apple’s design. Punching in my code to entry my telephone is much less readable than regular, a minimum of with out altering my settings; the odd optical phantasm that makes my apps seem like they’re tilting within the gentle is unsettling, although to a small diploma. I’ll settle for I gained’t like all the things on the platform as locked down as Apple needs it to be. It will take collective retraining for all of us to just accept the adjustments, as a lot as we could attempt to mitigate them.