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                iOS 26.1 to Add Optional Opacity to Liquid Glass

   Adam Engst

   I rarely cover beta releases, but after putting hours into '[1]How to
   Turn Liquid Glass into a Solid Interface' (9 October 2025), I would be
   remiss in failing to share that Apple has taken user feedback into
   account, acknowledging that many people find that Liquid Glass's
   excessive use of transparency hurts interface readability.

   In iOS 26.1 beta 4, Apple introduced a new screen in Settings > Display
   & Brightness > Liquid Glass, offering a choice between Clear, which is
   the current Liquid Glass setting, and Tinted, which increases opacity
   and adds more contrast. The screen displays a preview of how you can
   expect toolbars to change.

   As you can see in the Notification Center screenshot from my previous
   article, the Tinted version on the right is far more readable. It
   places a light, opaque background behind notifications and swaps the
   white text for black. (That's in Light mode; in Dark mode, they gain a
   darker background and retain the white text.) However, the Notification
   Center pane of glass is also lighter, which can make the Flashlight and
   ChatGPT buttons somewhat less readable than the default Clear version
   on the left.

   I also took a Clear/Tinted screenshot of a particular photo on my Lock
   Screen after updating to iOS 26.1b4. The Clear version on the left has
   so much white in the upper third that 'Enter Passcode' and dots are
   completely invisible, and the 3 is difficult to make out. In contrast,
   the Tinted version reduces the overall brightness to make everything
   readable.

   If Howard Oakley is right (see '[2]Predicting When We'll See OS 26
   Updates,' 26 September 2025), Apple will release iOS 26.1 on 27 October
   2025. I haven't seen any indication that macOS 26 Tahoe has received a
   similar Tinted option for its implementation of Liquid Glass, but we
   can hope it will appear soon.

References

   Visible links
   1. https://tidbits.com/2025/10/09/how-to-turn-liquid-glass-into-a-solid-interface/
   2. https://tidbits.com/2025/09/26/predicting-when-well-see-%ef%a3%bfos-26-updates/

   Hidden links:
   3. https://tidbits.com/uploads/2025/10/Liquid-Glass-Clear-Tinted-scaled.jpg
   4. https://tidbits.com/uploads/2025/10/Liquid-Glass-Tinted-setting-1-scaled.jpg
   5. https://tidbits.com/uploads/2025/10/Liquid-Glass-Tinted-setting-2-scaled.jpg

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