Apple updates three icons with Liquid Glass to prove it still matters

Yesterday’s public rollout of the iOS 26.1 software update added an easily accessible toggle to tone down the transparency effects of Liquid Glass, the fancy-looking but divisive interface style introduced across Apple’s product ecosystem this summer. In my latest column, I suggested this move sounded like Liquid Glass’s death knell. But Apple isn’t giving up on the design language just yet.

As MacRumors reports, GarageBand, Photomator, and Pixelmator Pro were all given new Liquid Glass-compatible icons for iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS Tahoe, on the same day as the toggle was being added elsewhere. The site adds that similarly updated icons are coming to the App Store, iMovie, Keynote, Numbers, and Pages, but aren’t ready quite yet.

When we say that an app icon is compatible with Liquid Glass, we really mean two things. One relates to the design language’s notorious transparency effects. If you tap and hold on any free space on your iPhone screen, then select Edit > Customize, you can choose for all icons to be either Default, Dark, Clear, or Tinted. The latter two options will cause all compatible icons to be partially see-through with Liquid Glass’s characteristic glassy effect, but for the time being, many third-party apps and even quite a few Apple apps don’t deliver the effect properly. This week’s new icons are designed to do so.

The second is a more subjective trend away from the abstract iconography that became the standard with the launch of iOS 7 more than a decade ago, and back towards more realistic imagery. The new GuitarBand icon, for example, shows a realistic picture of a guitar. You can see the updated iconography on the App Store.

Ultimately it’s hardly surprising that Apple is plowing ahead with its Liquid Glass update plans. For one thing, as I explained in my column, the company was never going to abandon the design language all at once, having put so much marketing weight behind it; for now, the plan is merely to provide the option to tone down the transparency effects, while otherwise maintaining a “business as usual” approach. For another, work on these icons would have begun many weeks and potentially some months ago. Apple is a large cruise liner and it takes time to turn things around.