- Apple has just published the update of developer Beta 3 iOS 26
- This adjusts the liquid glass design to make it less transparent
- This is not the first time that the apple has changed the liquid glass in iOS 26
When Apple unveiled iOS 26 at its WWDC 2025 event in June, the thing on everyone’s lips was the overhaul of liquid glass. This has brought vitrous effects to Apple operating systems and has divided opinion significantly, but the latest beta version of iOS 26 seems to have repressed it considerably – and I am happy to see it.
Compared to previous betas, iOS 26 beta 3 added a little more opacity to interface elements, reducing their transparency in the process. The toolbars and buttons are now a little more solid, which makes it more difficult to see what is below.
This deals with one of the key criticisms of the liquid glass so far: that it is too difficult to read higher level elements when the text or the images are visible below. By adding more opacity, Apple has made the way to put this correctly.
This is not the first time that the apple has changed the liquid glass. In iOS 26 Beta 2, the company has reduced the translucidity of the pimples and boxes of the control center, which were particularly difficult to read in the previous versions. There will undoubtedly be other adjustments before the entirely iOS 26 launch in the fall.
A little more readable
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I am a fan of liquid glass, but I prefer it to MacOS Tahoe that in iOS 26, simply because the larger screens that you get on a Mac compared to an iPhone means that there are fewer elements that overlap, which allows macOS to avoid some of the worst readability problems that afflict iOS 26.
Despite iOS 26 beta 3, which makes things a little more readable, not everyone is a fan of change. For example, by writing on X, the Apple Sam Kohl powder wrote that “iOS 26 beta 3 completely nerves liquid glass”, adding that “it looks so much cheaper now and has the impression that Apple is in return on their original vision”.
With a lot of time until the full release of iOS 26, we can expect Apple to make more modifications as the year progresses. Hopefully it will give him time to make liquid glass well – or at least make it a little more readable.
