Apple said yesterday that iOS 26 was its biggest update to the look and feel of the iPhone since iOS 7, with the same visual design language used across all of the company’s devices.
It’s certainly a pretty drastic change, depending on how far you want to look at it. For example, in addition to the ‘Tint’ options we got in iOS 18, there’s a new ‘Clear’ option to make all our app icons monochrome glass – which you can see above…
Like the tint, I have to wonder how many people would actually use it, but it’s definitely an interesting look at what happens when you turn the looking glass up to the max!
As before, long-press an empty part of the home screen to bring up the Edit button at the top left, then tap Customize to bring up this menu:
Select Clear, and this is what you get.
But you don’t have to change the default appearance to see the glass elements. Here’s a look at some of Apple’s app icons with subtle new 3D effects — starting with how they look in the dock:
On the home screen:
And in folders:
It doesn’t appear that Apple brought any third-party developers into the first developer beta, as other code appears unchanged.
Notifications have a frosted glass appearance:
The Camera app has a simplified default UI, with only photo and video options:
Tapping and holding gives you access to the rest:
At the top, there’s a simple settings screen that displays your current settings:
Clicking this expands it into a clickable control panel:
Other apps follow the same approach, where things scale as you need them.
Floating tab bars above content naturally have a consistent look across apps.
Of course, this is only the first developer beta, and a lot could change – but what are your first impressions of the look? Please share your thoughts in the comments.
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