Apple's iOS 26 UI mixes usability issues with Vista-style nostalgia

Apple's iOS has only ever known one break in terms of user interface: in June 2013, exactly 12 years ago, the company presented iOS 7, which moved away from the skeuomorphism of the first iPhone years and introduced a new, "flat" look. The next big step is now coming with iOS 26 and its "Liquid Glass" design, which was unveiled this week. According to Apple, this should lay the foundations for the next iPhone decade. The first few hours with the new UI, which has been available as a beta for developers since Monday, show that the changeover will probably be more difficult than expected: The changeover will probably be more difficult than initially thought. Even if the design appears to change only marginally at first glance, Apple is intervening in the system in many places. Meanwhile, users are joking on social media that Apple's glassy look is based on Windows Vista from 2006, once the arch-enemy of macOS, whose interface was called "Aero Glass".

Glassy: Not always good for the overview

Anyone working with the pre-release version of iOS 26 will recognize the design changes with the first few clicks: Icons have been adjusted, the familiar iOS buttons are elongated, many UI elements automatically move downwards, corners of pop-ups and other control elements are more rounded. At least the icons are not circles, as many a rumor cook had predicted. The control center is a bit odd, depending on which wallpaper and icon arrangement you use: If you pull it down as usual, you are faced with a glass wall. Individual areas are not recognizable as buttons. The situation is similar for apps with a colorful background: in Apple's weather application, the bar for changing the location view is not visible on the first visit because it blends so much into the background.

The same applies to the control area in the Apple Music app, which has also slid downwards and is barely visible depending on the background, especially if no music is currently playing. Apple has also tweaked the fonts. Some headings are now bold, but still quite small. The back button in the system settings looks very bright, as if it were displayed in HDR mode. Apps with monochrome backgrounds look the least "different", as the glass effect is barely visible there. Some users are likely to turn this off anyway, which will be possible via the accessibility settings – People with only slight visual impairments may already be bothered by the new transparency.

iOS 26 is still in its infancy

However, it is also clear that iOS 26 is still in its infancy. Apple will learn from the beta phase that has now started and eliminate the worst design flaws. Nevertheless, it is astonishing that problems such as the lack of visibility in the Control Center do not seem to have come to the attention of the design team. A little tweaking of the background would already help here. Did Apple perhaps want to be particularly effective and stand out as much as possible from iOS 7? We don't know. The beta is not really stable anyway, there are still crashes in some areas. But sometimes it's not a bug at all, it's just that you can't find the element you're used to because of the glass effect.

Apple has taken on a lot with Liquid Glass; in addition to iOS 26, all other operating systems have also been adapted. It remains to be hoped that the company will devote sufficient resources to this. What's more, did users really ask for such a redesign? Didn't they want better AI and, above all, Siri? Apple has decided otherwise. Users will now have to get to grips with a new UI.

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