There’s one thing completely different about Apple‘s new Liquid Glass design language in iOS 26 Whereas the translucent, fluid interface parts are undeniably lovely, with their specular highlights and dynamic reflections, they really feel unusually at odds with the flat, angular {hardware} they’re meant to inhabit.The shift represents the corporate’s third main design evolution because the unique iPhone, transferring from the real-world mimicry of skeuomorphism to the simplified geometry of flat design, and now to one thing totally new. hat comes 12 years after the final main change, when Apple shifted from skeuomorphism to flat design in 2013.However, the present technology of iPhones, with their crisp edges and matte finishes, appears to conflict with software program that is all about curves, transparency, and natural stream.This disconnect is not unintentional. If something, it is a preview of the place Apple is heading, each in design philosophy and {hardware} evolution. The Liquid Glass interface feels prefer it belongs on a tool that does not exist but, one which matches its fluid aesthetic with equally fluid kind elements. That gadget, based on Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, is probably going coming before we predict.
When software program outpaces the {hardware}
Apple’s design historical past is punctuated by moments when software program imaginative and prescient preceded {hardware} functionality. The unique iPhone’s skeuomorphic interface helped customers transition from bodily to digital interactions, whereas iOS 7’s flat design coincided with the introduction of the Apple Watch and bigger iPhone shows. Now, Liquid Glass seems to be setting the stage for one more {hardware} change for Apple.
The brand new design language, introduced at WWDC 2025, extends throughout all of Apple’s platforms, iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, watchOS 26, and tvOS 26. It options translucent supplies that “replicate and refract their environment” whereas “dynamically remodeling to assist deliver larger focus to content material.”
Alan Dye, Apple’s vp of Human Interface Design, described Liquid Glass as combining “the optical qualities of glass with a fluidity solely Apple can obtain.” The emphasis on real-time rendering and dynamic reactions to motion suggests Apple is getting ready customers for gadgets which might be themselves extra glass-like, extra fluid of their bodily development.This hardware-software is sensible when considered via the lens of Apple’s growth cycles, as they’ve repeatedly used interface design to telegraph future. Main interface overhauls sometimes precede vital {hardware} launches by 12 to 18 months, giving builders time to adapt and customers time to acclimate for transitions which may in any other case really feel jarring. The introduction of Darkish Mode years earlier than OLED shows turned commonplace throughout the iPhone lineup is one instance; the emphasis on curved corners in iOS design parts earlier than the iPhone X’s curved show is one other. Trying again, the tinted icons and customization choices Apple launched final 12 months have been early hints of the Liquid Glass design language to return.
The twentieth anniversary iPhone: The place {hardware} meets Liquid Glass imaginative and prescient
Attendees watch a presentation throughout an occasion on the Apple campus in Cupertino, Calif., Monday, June 9, 2025. (AP Photograph/Jeff Chiu)
Gurman’s reporting reveals why Liquid Glass feels untimely on present {hardware}: it is designed for the 2027 iPhone, internally codenamed “Glasswing” after the butterfly species with clear wings. This twentieth anniversary gadget guarantees to embody the Liquid Glass aesthetic in bodily kind, that includes “curved glass sides across the total telephone, even on the edges” with “terribly slim bezels and no cutout part within the display.”
The Glasswing idea suggests Apple is returning to the design language of the iPhone X, that pivotal 2017 gadget that launched edge-to-edge shows and curved corners. The iPhone X felt revolutionary exactly as a result of its {hardware} matched its software program: the curved show corners completely complemented the rounded interface parts, whereas the all-glass development mirrored the translucent design parts on display.Present iPhones, regardless of their technical prowess, lack this concord. The flat edges launched with the iPhone 12 sequence, whereas premium and distinctive, create a visible stress with Liquid Glass’s natural curves and flowing animations. It is elegant software program trapped in geometric {hardware}.
It’s past mere aesthetics
Liquid Glass is not nearly visible attraction, it is a present of Apple’s advancing graphics capabilities and silicon efficiency. The actual-time rendering and dynamic gentle results require appreciable computational energy, indicating Apple’s chips can deal with extra refined visible processing than present interfaces utilise.This technological functionality is essential for the Glasswing iPhone‘s implementation. A tool with curved glass surfaces and minimal bezels will want software program that may adapt to completely different viewing angles and lighting situations. Liquid Glass’s emphasis on environmental adaptation, how interface parts reply to surrounding content material and lighting, resembles a function set for a telephone designed to be considered from a number of angles.
The implications prolong past telephones. Apple’s concentrate on cross-platform design consistency suggests Liquid Glass will affect merchandise from the Apple Watch to future AR/VR gadgets. A design language constructed round transparency and environmental consciousness seems well-suited for combined actuality purposes, the place digital interfaces should combine with bodily environments.As Apple prepares to introduce iOS 26’s Liquid Glass interface, customers will expertise a design philosophy that feels forward of present {hardware}. This seems intentional. By the point the twentieth anniversary iPhone arrives in 2027, Liquid Glass could really feel much less ‘revolutionary’ and extra like a pure evolution of a design language that lastly has applicable {hardware} to help its imaginative and prescient.