- Liquid Glass will reportedly remain a feature in iOS 27
- Apple is developing a system-wide slider to control its intensity
- iOS 27 will prioritize performance and stability over flashy features
Unless you’re running an outdated version of iOS on your iPhone, you’ll know that Apple dramatically overhauled the look of its operating systems in 2025, and the company’s Liquid Glass interface looks set to remain a feature of iOS 27.
In his latest Power On newsletter, Bloomberg tipster Mark Gurman argued that Liquid Glass “isn’t going anywhere anytime soon” despite early-childhood issues around interface readability and the surprise departure of Apple’s top software design brass late last year.
Instead, the company will reportedly focus on performance improvements and stability in iOS 27, as well as the long-awaited overhaul of Siri and its integration with Google Gemini. “There’s not much time to ditch liquid glass, though [Apple] would,” Gurman joked.
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However, there is a treat for those who deal with Liquid Glass’s occasionally unreadable widgets, menus and app icons: according to Gurman, Apple could introduce a system-wide slider that allows users to fine-tune the intensity of Liquid Glass in iOS 27.
Apple was able to implement such a feature for the lock screen clock during the development of iOS 26, but “ran into technical challenges when trying to expand it across the entire system.”
If the company can figure out a way to make this intensity slider apply to elements like app folders, app icons, and navigation bars simultaneously, then iPhone users will have much more control over the appearance of Liquid Glass across their iPhone.
Of course, users already have several settings for changing Liquid Glass at their disposal, including ‘Increase Contrast’, which makes interface elements more defined, and ‘Reduce Transparency’, which – surprise! — removes almost all translucency from iOS 26.
Apple’s upcoming iOS 26.4 update will also add the ability to disable Liquid Glass highlights, so the company is clearly aware that its new transparent interface — at least in its default mode — won’t work for everyone. However, a system-wide slider works as an upgrade on all three of these settings.
In iOS 27, then, Apple sounds like it’s doubling down on Liquid Glass customization while prioritizing stability under the hood, Mac OS X Snow Leopard-style. And in truth, we’re more than happy that the company is focusing on experience-enhancing bug fixes over experience-altering design changes this year.
Apple is expected to announce iOS 27 at WWDC 2026 in June, with the new operating system set to debut in the iPhone 18 Pro series in September.
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