Can I keep iOS26 updates but lose the Liquid Glass completely?

[Hallouminati]

Many things look OK to me, but I really dislike the liquid glass. That faint white line around the edge of most things, that moves, really just looks like the designer didn't tidy up the edges and it disturbs me!

Is there a way to completely turn off liquid glass but keep everything else? Only thing I found online was "Reduce Transparency" but that certainly is not a fix.

FWIW, I actually quite like the look on a Mac, just not iPhone/iPads.

Edit" I called Apple and they said no, it isn't possible. He said he would certainly forward my feedback to the relevant team but if this didn't come up in Beta testing I am astounded...yet they chose to continue without a "turn this **** off" button.

 

[petershaw_]

you cant turn liquid glass of beside their feature to disable transparency

 

[Macalicious2011]

you cant turn liquid glass of beside their feature to disable transparency

This is one of the main reasons why i don't want to upgrade. I find 90% useless and distracting. I want a feature for switching it off completley, not just toning it down.

 

[Makisupa Policeman]

The floating media player UI elements are so cheap and bad looking lmao

 

[mashinhead]

I would be very surprised if there isn’t some sort of accessibility setting that might help them

 

[racer1441]

I'm pretty indifferent to the OS. Never really been bothered by it.

Except this year. Bubbles!?!?! Is this my phone or some tacky middle school homecoming dance?

 

[pacorob]

If you’re not a fan of Liquid Glass, whether for aesthetic or readability reasons, Apple has provided a Settings toggles that can help.

Option 1:

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone
2. Go to Accessibility
3. Tap ‘Display & Text Size’
4. Then toggle on ‘Increase Contrast’

Regular Liquid Glass interface (left) vs Increase Contrast (right) (Image credit: Future)

Option 2:

1. Open the Settings app on your iPhone
2. Go to Accessibility
3. Tap ‘Display & Text Size’
4. Then toggle on ‘Reduce Transparency’

Regular Liquid Glass interface (left) vs Reduce Transparency (right) (Image credit: Future)

source: https://www.techradar.com/phones/io...os-26-heres-how-to-make-it-easier-on-the-eyes

 

[Hallouminati]

I called Apple and they said no, it isn't possible. He said he would certainly forward my feedback to the relevant team but if this didn't come up in Beta testing I am astounded...yet they chose to continue without a "turn this **** off" button.

 

[Maverick83]

Reducing Transparency made a big difference for me in terms of readability Thanks

 

[rforno]

Nope, sadly. Cupertino has dictated that you'll take your Liquid Glass and like it!

 

[x86dude]

Thank you for the tips above. 🙂

I have poor eye sight and the reduced contrast makes app icons much harder to see.
Settings icon is like a grey blur.

You’d think Apple would have found this in testing.

My advice is at this stage iOS 26 is not recommended for older folk or with poor eye sight.

 

[dusk007]

To me this reminds me of Microsoft and Vista with some of their UI fails. Like they are so big now that they just have teams doing stuff nobody needs and then they thing given the sunk costs they need to roll it out.
Maybe it is an inevitable result in any company of that size.

I ran with transparency off for a bit but its really just a crutch that just looks worse than before. Liquid glass "normal" is just really not a great design language. The worst of it is the notification screen which coincidentally is the one I look at the most (how did they not fix that in beta, I guess we have to use the "correct" background picture now to make it work). They hopefully will bin it and go back to where they were.
I loved googles Material design and a lot of design changes with modern clean looks but this just goes back to let's do something anything at all to make it different.

 

[I7guy]

To me this reminds me of Microsoft and Vista with some of their UI fails. Like they are so big now that they just have teams doing stuff nobody needs and then they thing given the sunk costs they need to roll it out.
Maybe it is an inevitable result in any company of that size.

I ran with transparency off for a bit but its really just a crutch that just looks worse than before. Liquid glass "normal" is just really not a great design language. The worst of it is the notification screen which coincidentally is the one I look at the most (how did they not fix that in beta, I guess we have to use the "correct" background picture now to make it work). They hopefully will bin it and go back to where they were.
I loved googles Material design and a lot of design changes with modern clean looks but this just goes back to let's do something anything at all to make it different.

My eyes aren’t the greatest and with transparency off it looks like iOS 18.

 

[dusk007]

My eyes aren’t the greatest and with transparency off it looks like iOS 18.

To me it look slike a less polished 18. Just a fair few elements that just look worse. Bearable but still bad and unpolished. The'd also loose those rings around every element and made them proper flat again it would look a lot improved. That is litterally one uneven line of pixels. If they just removed it, would look less like something is wrong with the elements and actually like it should be the way it is.
My eyes still good (thankfully) but therefore to me it looks like it's some knockoff that they didn't quite complete, just made it bearable but not actually clean.