I scroll on my telephone, sipping on an overpriced espresso tonic at a San Francisco café. I watch as glassy notifications pop up on my residence display, one after one other, distorting the highest row of app icons in neat succession. Much like how the glass in my hand refracts the espresso’s colours, the warping impact of Apple’s Liquid Glass tugs on the edges of no matter’s behind every notification, disappearing a second later.
Apple dropped the general public beta for iOS 27 in mid-July, with the software program’s full launch anticipated in September. The beta model of iOS features a new slider for adjusting Liquid Glass’s look throughout your iPhone. Apple’s translucent working system was polarizing when it launched in 2025, with some criticizing how the design impacted textual content legibility. In response, Apple rolled out updates that tampered with the Liquid Glass impact, making the smartphone interface extra opaque.
With iOS 27, Apple offers customers the choice to make Liquid Glass much more clear than its default. Within the present public beta, this alternative is obtainable in Settings underneath the Look tab. Should you faucet on Liquid Glass right here, you possibly can drag it to the left for a extra clear expertise.
Worry not—in case you don’t really feel the identical manner as I do about transparency—you possibly can drag that very same slider to the suitable and increase the general opacity of Liquid Glass. There’s nonetheless the choice to Scale back Transparency and Improve Distinction as nicely.
I instantly cranked my settings to most readability after I downloaded the general public beta and left the setting on for every week to get the total expertise. I perceive why some favor the closely tinted model or want to change it for accessibility causes, but I reveled within the warped colours and characters as I skilled Liquid Glass in its clearest glory.
Early throughout my checks, I discovered myself slowly scrolling up and down on my Slack messages, watching because the names of Slack rooms refracted behind the menu bar on the backside of my smartphone display. I watched because the letters curled into meaningless traces after which reformed, unhurt, on the opposite facet. The extra I stared, the extra whimsical it felt, and the extra I appreciated Apple’s glassy design threat.
The “extra clear” setting makes icons underneath notifications virtually glow with the Liquid Glass impact.{Photograph}: Reece Rodgers
