We’ve been used to it for so long; have any of us really noticed it in years? Since 2013, the Apple iPhone’s icons, windows, and tabs have looked more or less the same. Aside from a few slight tweaks over the years, it’s been Apple’s steady design language. Playful and flat.
Liquid Glass upends all of that. It’s the new design language that Apple is standardizing across its product line. Even the Apple TV and Apple Watch get it.
After installing the public release of iOS 26 on my iPhone 15 Pro to try it out, I can say that it is certainly something. It looks different in my hand than in pictures online, and it takes some getting used to.
a free update to liquid glass
Updating your iPhone to iOS 26, available for free for an iPhone from the iPhone 11 and newer. Older iPhones, such as the iPhone XR, don’t receive iOS 16, as they’ve been declared obsolete by Apple.
Of all the aspects of Liquid Glass, the lock screen is my favorite. The edgy, blocky, translucent numbers floating within the clock feel more like glass than the heavily rounded bubble shapes of Liquid Glass’ icons.
Since iOS 26 is a hefty update, give it some time to download to your phone and then install it. I began the process before I shaved and showered, and when I came back, it still hadn’t finished downloading.
Two cups of coffee later, and it was finally installed on my phone. If you want to eke out a few more days with the old Apple look—which I doubt will ever return, given the many resources Apple has invested in Liquid Glass—then you can delay the update to iOS 26 for a bit.
But Liquid Glass is the way of the future, at least for the next few years, like it or not.
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