Out of curiosity, today I made the mistake of updating from iOS 18.7 to iOS 26.1. The new “liquid glass” aesthetic is arguably more attractive, but Safari — even in this .1 release — still feels quite glitchy and half-baked.
Please see the attached screen recording of me navigating the Austrian public broadcaster’s website, www.orf.at, simply by swiping back and forth and tapping on links. Notice the white, semi-transparent gradient Safari displays behind iOS' status bar at the top (to keep it readable especially when overlaying images). Usually, Safari displays a translucent background gradient behind the status text/icons. When swiping back, this gradient sometimes disappears; when tapping a link or swiping forward, it usually reappears — but not always.
If you tap a link quickly and then swipe back, occasionally a larger and less transparent gradient may
appear. The only way to “fix” this seems to be swiping back to the home screen and relaunching Safari (or swiping slightly back and forth again).
Can you reproduce this glitch? And how does an issue like this make it past QA?
Please see the attached screen recording of me navigating the Austrian public broadcaster’s website, www.orf.at, simply by swiping back and forth and tapping on links. Notice the white, semi-transparent gradient Safari displays behind iOS' status bar at the top (to keep it readable especially when overlaying images). Usually, Safari displays a translucent background gradient behind the status text/icons. When swiping back, this gradient sometimes disappears; when tapping a link or swiping forward, it usually reappears — but not always.
If you tap a link quickly and then swipe back, occasionally a larger and less transparent gradient may
appear. The only way to “fix” this seems to be swiping back to the home screen and relaunching Safari (or swiping slightly back and forth again).
Can you reproduce this glitch? And how does an issue like this make it past QA?
