Apple introduces new software design

Apple (AAPL) previewed a new software design aimed at making apps and system experiences “more expressive and delightful” while being instantly familiar. It’s crafted with a new material called Liquid Glass. This translucent material reflects and refracts its surroundings, while dynamically transforming to help bring greater focus to content, delivering a new level of vitality across controls, navigation, app icons, widgets, and more. For the very first time, the new design extends across platforms – iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, watchOS 26, and tvOS 261. The company says “the new design takes advantage of Apple’s powerful advances in hardware, silicon, and graphics technologies. The new material, Liquid Glass, is translucent and behaves like glass in the real world. Its color is informed by surrounding content and intelligently adapts between light and dark environments. Born out of a close collaboration between the design and engineering teams, Liquid Glass uses real-time rendering and dynamically reacts to movement with specular highlights. This creates a lively experience that makes using iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV even more delightful.” Controls, toolbars, and navigation within apps have been redesigned. Previously configured for rectangular displays, they now fit perfectly concentric with the rounded corners of modern hardware and app windows. Tab bars and sidebars have been redesigned with the same approach. For developers using SwiftUI, UIKit, and AppKit, an updated set of APIs make it easy to adopt the new design.