94Ha Viewpoint
At the annual developer conference (WWDC 2025), Apple brought the largest visual design change since the release of iOS 7 in 2013 – the “Liquid Glass” design language. This design will be applied to Apple’s entire operating system, and it is also the first time that Apple has unified the interface language of iOS, macOS, iPadOS, watchOS, tvOS and even visionOS.
According to Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering, the so-called “liquid glass” is a translucent material that uses a composite rendering mechanism of “reflection + refraction + dynamic deformation” to create a visual texture similar to real glass. It can automatically adapt to changes in light in the environment, has the characteristics of “bendable, light, and flowing”, and floats on the APP like glass.
In terms of technical implementation, Apple has greatly reconstructed the UI rendering process in the layer structure, combining GPU-based real-time Gaussian blur, ray tracing (simplified refraction mechanism) and material reaction APIs. This combination allows LiquidGlass to present natural dynamic transitions when users scroll, switch windows, and change device postures, rather than static filters.
To put it in more popular terms, using Apple’s new system with a “liquid glass” effect is like covering the screens of mobile phones, tablets, and computers with a layer of “flowing” glass jelly.
As for the purpose of using “liquid glass”, Apple said that it is to make the interface controls lighter, so that users can focus more on the content itself.
Taking the iOS26 lock screen as an example, the time font will shrink intelligently according to the wallpaper content, and the background will automatically adjust the transparency and blur according to the protagonist image, so that the user’s eyes can focus on important information. In iPadOS/macOS, the sidebar and menu bar are more like floating panes, which can refract the background and reduce visual interference.
By simulating the optical properties of glass, the navigation bar, icons, widgets, etc. can present a glossy and flowing feeling while maintaining a clear display of the content. In dark mode, its transparency will automatically decrease to 35% to ensure that the text content is still clear and readable.
This design requires high real-time rendering performance. Apple uses its own Metal 4 engine to optimize the underlying computing power of the GPU to ensure that these dynamic refraction and blur effects do not affect the smoothness of the system.
From an ecological perspective, liquid glass is a key step for Apple to unify the visual experience of its devices.
With the spatial glass effect in visionOS, Apple wants to build iPhone, iPad, Mac, Watch, TV and even Vision Pro into a visual platform with a “common language” so that users can “feel the same” when switching between different devices.
Some analysts believe that the “liquid glass” design is consistent with the “transparent and light” concept of Apple’s rumored iPhone 20th Anniversary Edition (codenamed “Glasswing”) to be launched in 2027, which may pave the way for hardware with no physical buttons and gesture interaction in the future.
After the official release of the system in the fall of 2025, the adaptation efficiency of Apple’s developer ecosystem, the system performance in light-transmitting/transparent mode, and the feedback from low-vision users are all worth paying attention to. This will determine whether “liquid glass” is a temporary show of skill or a key sign of Apple’s move towards a perceptual intelligent platform.
