- Apple’s iOS 26.2 update brings a useful change to Liquid Glass
- You can now change the transparency of the lock screen clock
- This is done with an easy-to-use slider
Apple has released beta builds for iOS 26.2, and the latest Beta 1 and Beta 2 updates have added some cool new features to the mix. Some of the most striking changes have been to Liquid Glass’s interface design, and they suggest that Apple is finally taking some steps to fix Liquid Glass for good.
Liquid Glass has proven divisive since its announcement at WWDC 2025 in June, and part of the problem is that Apple gives you very little control over how the design looks. Since the interface uses glassy elements that can overlap and obscure elements below, this is a problem, but iOS 26.2 goes some way to solving this problem, even if only to a small extent.
In iOS 26.2, there is now a slider to control the transparency of clock numbers on your lock screen. Move the slider all the way to the left and the numbers become almost completely clear. Move it to the right and they become more and more opaque.
It’s a small change, but it’s important, because previously the time could be almost indistinguishable if superimposed on certain background images. Due to the transparency effects of Liquid Glass, the images behind the clock could conflict with its numbers, making it very difficult to read the time.
Improvements in progress
This move follows a similar move by Apple in iOS 26.1, where the company added a toggle to change the operating system’s entire Liquid Glass implementation from completely clear to a little more opaque. While a welcome step, it didn’t go far enough in my opinion – what Apple really needed to do was give users a slider to control Liquid Glass however they saw fit.
Now that such a slider has arrived on the lock screen, I hope Apple eventually sees the light of day and brings this feature to the system as a whole. I don’t mind Liquid Glass itself, but it’s such a radical overhaul – and with so many potential pitfalls – that users should really be able to adjust it as needed in order to avoid the kinds of readability issues we’ve seen so far.
The lock screen slider isn’t the only way Apple has worked on Liquid Glass in iOS 26.2. The company has also adjusted some interface animations so that they now have a more fluid, water-like appearance. One example is opening a menu, as demonstrated by Aaron Perris on
Clearly, Liquid Glass is still a work in progress, and I would expect Apple to continue tweaking it over the coming weeks and months. Hopefully, the company will realize that giving users some control isn’t necessarily a bad thing. If so, I hope a universal slider to change the transparency of Liquid Glass isn’t too far on the horizon.
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