Apple is sticking with one of its most controversial ever design decisions, according to a new report.
Last year, Apple released iOS 26 and with it “Liquid Glass”, a new design that changed the look of the iPhone as well as its other operating systems.
Apple said that the new design helped highlight the content within the phone as well as updating its look. But it received criticism from many users, who complained that it was visually unappealing and made their devices harder to read.
That criticism seemed to have reached its crescendo at the end of last year, when Apple’s head designer Alan Dye left for Meta, and was replaced by long-time Apple designer Steve Lemay. That led to speculation on whether Apple could roll back the decision and bring back some of its older design.
Now a new report from Bloomberg indicates that will not happen. Mr Lemay had been a “driving force” behind the new design and helped lead its development, he reported.
But the upcoming version of the iPhone software – which will be named iOS 27, in keeping with the company’s new policy of referring to updates by the coming year – could include a slider that will allow users to turn down the glass effect, Bloomberg reported.
Apple had already worked on a slider to turn it down in the existing iOS 26, he reported, but only included it on the lock screen. It struggled to implement the slider while getting it to work with other parts of the design of the menus, the report said.
In the time since, the company has introduced a “reduce transparency” setting that also turns down some of the glass effect.
Bringing the feature to the rest of the design, as well as focusing on other design improvements, could mean that the conversation around the new design might “once again change dramatically”, said Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, who has a track record of reporting upcoming Apple changes before they are officially announced.
