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 mitigate the transparency effects of Liquid Glass, the sophisticated but controversial interface style introduced this summer to Apple’s product ecosystem. In my last column, I suggested that this decision spelled the end for Liquid Glass. But Apple isn’t abandoning the design language just yet.

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

When we say that an app icon is Liquid Glass compatible, we actually mean two things. One concerns the design language’s notorious transparency effects. If you long press on a free space on your iPhone screen, select To modify > Personalizeyou can choose all icons to be default, dark, light or tinted. The latter two options will make all icons partially transparent that support Liquid Glass’s signature glassy effect, but at the moment many third-party apps and even a number of Apple apps don’t provide this effect properly. This week’s new icons are designed for just that.

The second is a more subjective trend that moves away from the abstract iconography that became the norm with the launch of iOS 7 more than ten years ago, and returns towards more realistic images. The new GuitarBand icon, for example, shows a realistic image of a guitar. You can see the updated iconography on the App Store.

David Price / Foundry

Ultimately, it’s no surprise that Apple is moving forward with plans to update Liquid Glass. On the one hand, as I explained in my column, the company was never going to abandon the design language all at once, after putting so much marketing weight behind it; For now, the plan is simply to provide the opportunity to mitigate transparency effects, while maintaining a “business as usual” approach. On the other hand, work on these icons would have started several weeks, even a few months ago. Apple is a big cruise liner and it takes time to turn things around.