iOS 26.1 Lets You Make the Liquid Glass Design on Your iPhone Tinted or Clear
Apple released iOS 26.1 on Monday, November 3, more than a month after the company released iOS 26. One of the major changes this update brings to your iPhone was a redesign of Liquid Glass and the iOS 26.1 update brings a new way to adjust this design. The update also brought a few other changes to your device, including a new security setting to help keep your device updated and secure.
You can download iOS 26.1 now by going to Settings and typing General. Then select Software updatefaucet Update now and follow the prompts on your screen.
Here are the features that the iOS update now brings to your iPhone.
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Another way to adjust liquid glass
With iOS 26.1, Apple lets you adjust the liquid glass design of your iPhone even more. If you enter Settings > Display & Brightness > Liquid Glassyou can choose whether the new design is transparent or tinted.
“Clear is more transparent, revealing the content underneath,” Apple writes for the setting. “Tinting increases opacity and adds more contrast.”
Changing Clear or Tinted appears to only adjust certain elements of Liquid Glass, like your Notification Center and some search bars on your iPhone. However, this doesn’t seem to change the Liquid Glass items on your home screen. But there is another way to adjust Liquid Glass on your home screen.
To adjust Liquid glass on your home screenlong press on your screen, tap To modify in the upper left corner of your screen, then tap Personalize. From there, make your app icons light or tinted, then you can tap Light, Dark, or Auto at the bottom of the Customize menu to adjust the Liquid Glass elements on your Home screen.
You can also go to Settings > Accessibility > Display and text size then press the button to Reduce transparency to adjust the new design.
People have had mixed reactions to the Liquid Glass design. Some people on Reddit point out that the design may have readability issues, while others like it, calling it modern and fun. If you don’t like the look of Liquid Glass, this iOS 26.1 setting might change your mind.
No matter how you feel about Liquid Glass, you should always download iOS updates to implement the latest bug fixes and security patches. The digital security of your iPhone is more important than the (reasonably customizable) visual interface of your device.
Automatically install security enhancements
Apple introduces a useful security setting in iOS 26.1 that lets your iPhone download and install security enhancements all alone. You can find it by going to Settings > Privacy & Security > Background Security Improvements.
“Background security enhancements provide additional protection for your iPhone between software updates,” according to Apple. “In rare cases of compatibility issues, these security enhancements may be temporarily removed and then improved in a future software update.”
This feature reminds me of Apple’s Quick Security Responses. The company introduced RSRs in 2023 as a way to quickly deploy security patches to devices. While it’s a good idea in theory, Apple hasn’t used iOS RSRs since releasing iOS 16.5.1(c) in July 2023.
It’s not a flashy setting, but it’s useful and lets you stay on top of small security updates without doing any extra work. Once enabled, this setting takes care of the rest, so you don’t need to check your iPhone daily for new updates regarding potential security issues.
Stop accidentally opening your camera with this new toggle
The iOS 26.1 update also introduces a toggle that could prevent you from accidentally opening your camera from your lock screen. To find this toggle, go to Settings > Camera and scroll to the bottom of the menu. There you will see a toggle for Swipe the lock screen to open the camera.
“Swipe left on the lock screen to quickly access the camera,” Apple writes for the setting.
Haptic control of phone calls
In iOS 26, there is a new option to turn off haptics when your iPhone connects or drops a call. This way, your iPhone doesn’t vibrate and make you think you’re receiving another message or notification every time you receive or hang up a call.
To access this setting, go to Settings > Applications > Phone and press the Haptics to fall over.
Local capture options
Local Capture is an easy way to record high-quality video and audio recordings of video calls on your iPhone, and iOS 26.1 introduces a Settings menu for the feature. To find the setting, go to Settings > General > Local Capture. The menu gives you the option to select a save location for your recordings, as well as a toggle that lets you record audio only when using Local Capture.
“Add Local Capture to the Control Center to record your own audio and video during a call for saving and editing later,” Apple writes in the Local Capture settings page.
New accessibility option
The iOS 26.1 update introduces an option to prefer single-tap actions over sliding actions on your iPhone screen. You can find this option by going to Settings > Accessibility > Touch and scrolling to the bottom of the page.
Alarm gets another update
One of my favorite little upgrades in iOS 26 was the ability to change the snooze duration of your alarm. In iOS 26.1, Apple is making it harder to accidentally dismiss your alarm. Once you update to iOS 26.1, you now have to swipe to stop your alarm rather than pressing a button. This can be annoying if you’re trying to turn off your alarm quickly or it can help you make sure you’re actually awake before turning off your alarm.
Change songs in Apple Music
Apple Music has a handful of new features in iOS 26, but iOS 26.1 doesn’t change much to the app or service. Instead, the update lets you edit songs in a new way.
With iOS 26.1, instead of pressing the next or back buttons to change songs, you can swipe left or right on the song title from the music player in Apple Music. You can do this when the player takes up your entire screen or when you’re browsing Apple Music and the player is small and near the bottom of your screen. The song title even seems to jump left or right when you change songs now.
More Live Translation Languages
iOS 26.1 update adds more languages to the new Live Translation feature. Apple introduced this feature to iPhones and AirPods with iOS 26 and the iOS 26.1 update lets you use it with these languages.
- Chinese (Mandarin, simplified)
- Chinese (Mandarin, traditional)
- Italian
- Japanese
- Korean
Apple Intelligence in more languages
If you have an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone, iOS 26.1 brings AI features to these languages.
- Chinese (traditional)
- Danish
- Dutch
- Norwegian
- Portuguese (Portugal)
- Swedish
- Turkish
- Vietnamese
New video cleaning bar
The iOS 26.1 update also brings a small change to the video scrollbar in Photos. If you go to Photos and watch a video, you’ll notice that the bar at the bottom of your screen is more compact and more aligned than the old scrollbar, which had the play/pause and volume buttons above the bar.
This is another small change that you may not even have noticed.
iOS 26.1 Release Notes
Here are the full release notes for iOS 26.1.
This update adds new languages for live translation with AirPods, a new tinted option for Liquid Glass, and other features, bug fixes, and security updates for your iPhone.
This update includes the following features and improvements:
The Liquid Glass setting gives you the option to choose between the default clear look or a new tinted look that increases the opacity of the material in apps and notifications on the lock screen.
Live translation with AirPods support for Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Japanese, Korean, and Italian.
Apple Music MiniPlayer swipe gesture to move to the next or previous track.
Support for Apple Music AutoMix over AirPlay.
Gain control is available for external USB microphones when recording with local capture.
Local capture files can be saved to a specific location.
Manual recording of workouts is available directly from the Fitness app.
New camera setting to enable or disable lock screen swipe to open camera.
Improved FaceTime audio quality in low bandwidth conditions.
Communications safety and web content filters to limit adult websites are enabled by default for existing child accounts ages 13-17 (age varies by country or region).
For more information about security content in Apple software updates, please visit: https://support.apple.com/100100.
Some features may not be available in all regions or on all iPhone models. To learn more, please visit: https://apple.com/ios/feature-availability/.
Software updates, like this one, add new features and improvements that may affect performance and/or battery life. To learn more, please visit: https://support.apple.com/125039.
For more iOS news, here’s my take on iOS 26, other ways to reduce liquid glass on your iPhone, and how text filtering works in the update. You can also check out our iOS 26 cheat sheet.
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