- Apple will tweak Liquid Glass in macOS 27, a new report claims
- The changes aim to address the most relevant criticisms of the design
- But they will be limited in scope and will not fundamentally change Liquid Glass
It’s safe to say that Apple’s Liquid Glass redesign has proven controversial, and nowhere is that more the case than in macOS 26. But despite Apple seemingly doubling down on its commitment to the glassy user interface, it seems the company is willing to make some concessions to improve the fit and finish of its operating system.
That’s what has been reported in Bloomberg journalist Mark Gurman’s latest Power On newsletter. There, Gurman pointed out that in several aspects of macOS — particularly those with sidebars or dense concentrations of text — “Liquid Glass textures reduce text clarity or create interface confusion.” It’s something that Apple will reportedly address in macOS 27, which will be unveiled at the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 8.
This “minor redesign” will come with fixes for “shadows and transparency bugs,” claims Gurman. This could help address some of the most pressing concerns surrounding Liquid Glass in macOS 26, where glassy surfaces and textures often make text blurry and hard to read.
However, Gurman is adamant that “Liquid Glass itself is not going away,” and instead is merely being “refined.” “The goal is more of a cleanup and refinement effort in line with the company’s broader push to polish its software this year,” he said, adding that similarly small changes are coming to iOS 27 and iPadOS 27 at the same time.
A ‘not fully baked’ implementation
Interestingly, Gurman includes a sort of half-admission from his Apple sources that the company isn’t entirely happy with Liquid Glass. Speaking of the upcoming changes to the design, Gurman says they’re “intended to make Liquid Glass look like Apple’s design team intended from the start. Last year’s operating systems didn’t necessarily suffer from design issues, I’m told, but rather a not-quite-baked implementation by Apple’s software engineering team.”
It says a lot that even Apple’s internal staff is somewhat unhappy with Liquid Glass. The design overhaul has hit the web hard, with loud and frequent criticism of its aesthetic sensibility and its effect on readability. But with no official word from Apple, we’re left to guess how the company feels about its creation.
Still, while Gurman indicates that Apple isn’t completely satisfied with Liquid Glass, the fact that the rumored changes are limited in scope suggests that Apple still believes it’s moving in the right direction. The move fits well with the overhaul goals of Apple’s “27” software releases, which are rumored to focus much more on tweaks and tweaks than sweeping changes and new features.
In addition to fixing Liquid Glass and improving overall performance, Apple is also expected to bring long-delayed Siri features to its Apple Intelligence artificial intelligence (AI) system. If it’s able to do that and make Liquid Glass a little easier on the eyes, it will have gone some way to solving two of the most significant software problems to hit the company in the past few years.
Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews and opinions in your feeds.
