Liquid Glass has reached its deadline before time: How apple’s IOS 26 Liquid Glass UI is changed after the new beta 3 update.

Since, the release of the first beta, of the new IOS 26 has seen a lot of improvements, but the beta 3 update is out now and Apple has reduced some of the key design elements of liquid glass.

The new IOS 26 of Apple was announced on June 9, 2025 at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). There was a little outcry about the new liquid glass UI update but the third beta’s design updates have quietly toned down the very essence of what made IOS 26 a major design change. It seems like the previous “Liquid glass” software aesthetic has reached its expiry date in the early versions of the software available to the developers community prior to releasing to the public. The approach Apple has decided to take is “much less transparency, more frosted”. Apple began to tone down the glossiness in the beta 2 released of IOS 26, the control centre got a darker blur and a new high contrast mode allowed users to add a border to the glass bubbles.

The new released beta 3, premiered on Monday is even less glassy and adds a significantly bolder tint to its notification, button and navigation bars which results in increased contrast between the text and its background. Apple Music’s bottom navigation bar is now more frosted glass look that now apple is favouring, the change will be more noticeable when scrolling over a background that has a little bit of colour on them. In Safari as-well less of the background come through, the URL bar is more opaque and less prone to any notable shifts in colour.

According to IOS 26 beta 3’s supporters it has become far more usable now, stating that things have become much more readable now for them. The critics on the other hand has labelled it as the loss of bold aesthetics and premium look, considering it as a step backwards and the design looking much cheeper now

What exactly Apple might be trying to do:

Apple is trying to preserve its Liquid glass concept while also trying to make things more readable and something that people can actually use, considering different wallpaper backgrounds and lighting conditions. We can expect more optimisation in the new updates and beta versions as Apple tries to got as much feedback as possible from the developers community and testers before releasing a more refined and polished version of the IOS 26

By Line: Ayush Sachan