iOS 27 might include a Liquid Glass slider, but should it?

Apple named Steve Lemay its Vice President of Human Interface Design last December, following the departure of Alan Dye to Meta. At the time, this led to speculation that Apple might walk back its Liquid Glass design language under Lemay’s leadership.

In yesterday’s edition of his Power On newsletter, Mark Gurman said this isn’t in the cards. Apple is, however, revisiting a setting that could let some anti-Liquid Glass iPhone users scale back the design.

According to Gurman, not only will iOS 27 not include any big changes to Liquid Glass, Lemay himself “was a driving force behind Liquid Glass and was deeply involved in its development.”

During development of iOS 26, however, Gurman says that Apple started working on a “system-wide slider that would allow users to finely control the level of the glass effect.”

Apple ultimately implemented this slider on the lock screen clock, but hit “engineering challenges” when trying to expand it system-wide. Those challenges reportedly impacted “app folders, the home screen and navigation bars.”

For iOS 27 coming later this year, however, Apple seemingly hopes to make this a system-wide option:

If Apple manages to make that systemwide control work in iOS 27 as desired — alongside broader engineering improvements — the entire conversation around Liquid Glass could once again change dramatically.

9to5Mac’s Take

Apple has been impressively responsive to some of the criticisms of Liquid Glass.

• iOS 26.1 added a new Settings toggle to give Liquid Glass a more tinted look system-wide.
• iOS 26.2 added more granularity to the Liquid Glass slider for the time on the lock screen.
• iOS 26.4 lets you disable some of the brighter highlighting effects of Liquid Glass.

In my opinion, Apple shouldn’t add a system-wide slider for Liquid Glass in iOS 27. It should continue making refinements to the interface, fixing the quirks, and improving legibility in select areas.

I think a system-wide slider has the potential to make Liquid Glass messier and create half-baked UI elements at both ends of the spectrum.

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