Here’s a First Look at Apple’s New ‘Liquid Glass’ Style
Apple’s user interfaces will feature more transparency than ever before — literally. The company’s new design language, which was announced today at WWDC 2025 and will be featured on iPhone, iPad, Mac, Watch, and other Apple devices, is called “Liquid Glass.” The design incorporates transparency into nearly every aspect of the user experience, which will either be very cool or very annoying, depending on your aesthetic preferences and vision.
This new design language doesn’t feel like a complete overhaul, but rather like a build on the latest UI trends that Apple has been implementing. I’ve noticed that the glassy, transparent effect has been appearing more and more over the years. If the WWDC keynote is any indication, this transparency will be even more noticeable.
Screenshots shown during the presentation show how colors permeate everywhere, from pop-up menus to the address bar in Safari.
Glass will apparently be one of three UI options, along with the traditional light and dark modes, though I’m not sure how those options compare to each other just yet. And there are additional customization options. The changes coming to iOS will allow users to customize the color scheme for icons and widgets in their operating system, based on the hue added to iOS last year. The change, shown in the screenshots shown, makes home screens less cluttered, and potentially reduces the number of impulsive icon taps.
That’s a lot of settings. Those who like transparency will be happy; those who don’t can try other modes.
This is all made possible by Apple’s increasingly powerful processors, which can easily render such effects. I suspect that anyone with an older Apple device will notice the slowdown. Hopefully, the ability to turn off transparency entirely will remain in the Accessibility settings — people with low vision will need it more than ever.