Apple on Monday previewed a beautiful new software design that makes apps and system experiences more expressive and delightful while being instantly familiar.
It’s crafted with a new material called Liquid Glass. This translucent material reflects and refracts its surroundings, while dynamically transforming to help bring greater focus to content, delivering a new level of vitality across controls, navigation, app icons, widgets, and more.
For the very first time, the new design extends across platforms — iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, watchOS 26, and tvOS 261 — to establish even more harmony while maintaining the distinct qualities that make each unique.
“At Apple, we’ve always believed in the deep integration of hardware and software that makes interacting with technology intuitive, beautiful, and delightful,” said Alan Dye, Apple’s vice president of Human Interface Design.
“It lays the foundation for new experiences in the future and, ultimately, it makes even the simplest of interactions more fun and magical,” Dye added.
Inspired by the depth and dimensionality of visionOS, the new design takes advantage of Apple’s powerful advances in hardware, silicon, and graphics technologies.
By using Liquid Glass materials and the new and updated controls, developers have the opportunity to refresh the design of their apps to make every user interaction even more intuitive and delightful.
Liquid Glass uses real-time rendering and dynamically reacts to movement with specular highlights. This creates a lively experience that makes using iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV even more delightful, said the company.
“Controls, toolbars, and navigation within apps have been redesigned. Previously configured for rectangular displays, they now fit perfectly concentric with the rounded corners of modern hardware and app windows — establishing greater harmony between hardware, software, and content,” Apple informed.
Tab bars and sidebars have been redesigned with the same approach. In iOS 26, when users scroll, tab bars shrink to bring focus to the content while keeping navigation instantly accessible. The moment users scroll back up, tab bars fluidly expand. In iPadOS and macOS, updated sidebars make apps like Apple TV even more immersive.
