How to disable liquid glass in iOS 26?

Chilll wrote:

It seems Apple’s putting what they want NOT what we want on these phones after all we are the ones buying the phones. I hope apple developers REMOVE that bs glass. Most of us hate it.

Henry Ford said "If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, 'A faster horse!'". As with every update including iOS 18, there are always users who say they don't like it. Nothing new here. Some just don't like change at all, and if OS 26 was the same thing as iOS 18, then there would be complaints that Apple is not innovating and their design is stagnant. Everyone has their own opinion on what they want, and not everyone is going to be happy. Maybe you are just looking for a faster horse and maybe someone else is looking for innovation. You do have the choice to update the software or not. Choose wisely, because once you do there is no going back.

Up until now I gave apple benefit of doubt. But now i am sure that ios 26 is a step backward for sure.

The UI still has accessibility issues in my opinion. The only thing good is the bouncy animation. The media player looks hedious. It used to be so sleek and felt just right in ios 18.

It is a request, please remove liquid glass

Bonniejane7 wrote:

Will try to go back to iso 18

As I am sure you are aware from reading the posts here, there is no supported method to downgrade back to iOS 18. For those that have tried the so called "workarounds" for downgrading found on the internet, it has left them with a device that no longer backs up to iCloud and resulted in other iCloud syncing issues. That is not something you would find recommended here, especially when it could lead to data loss.

I have slightly impaired sight. The downgrade to ‘liquid glass’ makes an iPhone unusable for me, even with the transparency set to the minimum allowed. There is no ‘depth’ of contrast and the screen now looks almost uniformly grey.

Seems accessibility is no longer a concern.

You have no other choice. Public beta was available for the last few weeks which is ideal for people with sight and hearing limitations which could have been reversed.

Feed back here https://apple.com/feedback

On an older iPhone 14 here. Updated my iOS to Liquid Glass and it feels like a step backwards to the Aqua days. The “bouncy” animations are completely unnecessary and serve absolutely no purpose. Despite turning on “Reduce Transparency”, it still makes things slower and harder to read.

There are also weird layout moments. For instance, the screenshot attached below shows how my headers look in Messages. Why is the initials icon overlapping the contact’s name? How do I fix that? And how do I turn off Liquid Glass COMPLETELY?

How does a $3.8 Trillion company make a decision like this?

[Edited by Moderator]

why can't they just clearly allow you to only choose security updates or at least give you a clear and easy way to go back to at least the most recent screen display before the update. it's so frustrating and irritating when they do this. all the apps now have weird layouts and non-intuitive ways of doing things. i'm seriously rethinking the apple ecosystem.

[Edited by Moderator]

RaeRaeRae123 wrote:

Liquid glass makes me dizzy and sick to my stomach. This will definitely help reduce me using my iPhone.

The only thing that slightly helps is changing the background to a solid color.

How do we request a change from apple? Don’t want a product that makes me physically sick.

Read the thread.

Of course, dark is worse than light (I.e. black screen rather than grey screen with a few shadows). My eyesight isn't particularly poor in the great scheme of things, most day-to-day activities are fine.

I too am experiencing visual issues with the Liquid Glass. Everything is a bit blurry as is I’m looking through glass at fish in a fish tank. I did workaround, it doesn’t help. Nothing is clear and crisp. My phone is essentially unusable at this point. I don’t know what to do. My company requires our devices to always be updated.

Martyn2605 wrote:

Of course, dark is worse than light (I.e. black screen rather than grey screen with a few shadows). My eyesight isn't particularly poor in the great scheme of things, most day-to-day activities are fine.

Different people find different things helpful. Not everyone has the same needs or preferences.

I just want to agree with everyone in this thread, I do not like the Liquid Glass effect and would like the option to turn it off completely! It is much harder for me to read text and just give a blurry pastel look to everything. I really hope apple responds to feedback and makes a change. I am a lifetime iPhone user and this just feels like a marketing gimmick to offer something different from the competition rather than a substantial practical improvement.

Convoy84 wrote:

I just want to agree with everyone in this thread, I do not like the Liquid Glass effect and would like the option to turn it off completely! It is much harder for me to read text and just give a blurry pastel look to everything. I really hope apple responds to feedback and makes a change. I am a lifetime iPhone user and this just feels like a marketing gimmick to offer something different from the competition rather than a substantial practical improvement.

The interface prior to iOS 26 was also unpopular when it was first introduced.

Kurtosis, I looked this one up too— the jump from 18 to 26 is not skipping versions, but a change in format to a ‘year’ version format, similar to how car manufacturers put out 2026 cars sometime late in 2025. Though, I know this doesn’t solve the issue for which we all came to this discussion thread…

ThePhysic wrote:

Kurtosis, I looked this one up too— the jump from 18 to 26 is not skipping versions, but a change in format to a ‘year’ version format, similar to how car manufacturers put out 2026 cars sometime late in 2025.

That's exactly what Kurtosis12 said. He explained there is no 19-25, that the numbering skipped from 18 to 25.