Apple has reduced the Liquid Glass effect in iOS 26 Beta 3 following user complaints that have been coming since the first beta. Liquid Glass, introduced with iOS 26 in June, is a translucent effect that reflects and refracts surroundings. Apple described it as a “visually dynamic system that puts more emphasis on content while breathing new life into App icons, widgets, and system controls.”
Apple dialled down the liquid glass effect in iOS 26 Beta 3 after it toned it down in Beta 2. While Beta 2 improved readability to some extent, especially in the Control Centre, Beta 3 majorly reduces the liquid glass effect across the whole user interface. For instance, the navigation bar in Apple’s streaming music app doesn’t show the liquid-flowing like effect in the background when scrolling. Instead, there’s a more solid white effect.
Notifications are also less translucent than before, as the background of the notification boxes has been further darkened, which in turn results in even better readability than Beta 2. All these changes makes it look more like frosted glass instead of “liquid glass,” which is also why those who liked the previous implementation are now upset with Apple.
This marks a notable shift in what Apple first announced at WWDC’25 and what is now being shipped to the users. Of course, this is a beta version and there’s a good chance that Apple will consider the feedback and could find a middle ground that implements liquid glass without compromising in other areas like readability.
It is clear that Beta 1 had the worst implementation of liquid glass due to the issues which users faced with reading content on the display but Beta 2 made it much better. The Liquid Glass effect in iOS 26 Beta 3 shows that Apple is constantly working on the design after listening to feedback. iOS 26 is still a couple of months away from stable release so we might see other changes in the upcoming beta releases.