How to disable liquid glass in iOS 26?

Please allow the option to disable the Liquid Glass feature, the flashes of lights when clicking on things is causing me to get severe migraines. None of the settings I have tried have made a difference. I’m very sensitive to changes in lights and/or flashes of lights :(

My screen flickers on the top when changing to another screen after updating to iOS 26. This hurts my eyes, so since updating I don’t want to spend time on my iPhone as i find it very uncomfortable to work with, i get headaches.

I don’t like the liquid glass effect at all. I also don’t like that. I’m seeing the occasional flashing and blinking on certain steps that I’m taking. Lastly, until I turned off the transparency and went to dark mode. The URL on the web browser was very difficult to read.

Apple, if you’re paying any attention to this your .1 release needs to have a way to turn off liquid glass. You may not think so but a lot of us use our devices for serious purposes. Liquid glass is nothing but a gimmick that you put in there for people that want something bright and flashy to be amused by. I need those such things. Apple Intelligence and everything else may be improvements. Liquid glass is nothing more and nothing less than an annoyance. I’d like to see the option to turn it off across all of the operating systems.

Thank you I just checked and Reduce Motion was off. The only good thing with this update is that for the past one year I didn’t get any sound notifications for whenever I got New Mail, i called the apple support they went through some steps with me but couldn’t fix it, still wasn’t fixed after updating few times before this latest one but after this update the sound notifications is fixed. But now we have lost more problems.

The-Friendly-Grizzly wrote:

I don’t like the liquid glass effect at all. I also don’t like that. I’m seeing the occasional flashing and blinking on certain steps that I’m taking. Lastly, until I turned off the transparency and went to dark mode. The URL on the web browser was very difficult to read.

Apple, if you’re paying any attention to this your .1 release needs to have a way to turn off liquid glass. You may not think so but a lot of us use our devices for serious purposes. Liquid glass is nothing but a gimmick that you put in there for people that want something bright and flashy to be amused by. I need those such things. Apple Intelligence and everything else may be improvements. Liquid glass is nothing more and nothing less than an annoyance. I’d like to see the option to turn it off across all of the operating systems.

Apple isn't paying attention here on this user to user only forum. If you want Apple to hear you, use this link --> Product Feedback - Apple

Everything now takes so many more steps to do, how is that an update? To exit a tab you have to click on the bottom right and then…. And don’t get me started on the intrusive positioning of the contact’s name in texts… honestly… what were they thinking? And why does this new view all of a sudden make my phone feel, physically heavier?

All that to say, is there anyway I can revert back to my previous layout and setup of literally everything, not just the display, but the layout of the apps also? Thanks

[Edited by Moderator]

I can’t believe Apple even shipped this!!!

I’m seriously considering returning my new phone just to not have to look at it.

If you follow Apple fan threads where everybody beta tests iOS every year, universally it was despised. You saw maybe one person like it out of 100. It’s not as bad in the transparency element. It just looks terrible. The new camera icon is just ridiculously bad.

I’ve never seen a more ugly UI in my entire life and I’ve lived through the UI of the 80s and the 90s

I really hope that there’s already a massive number of people wanting to get rid of it, but it sends Apple a message and a few updates from now they give people the ability to turn it off and go back to the old look

I’m terrified to see what it does to macOS

Nope. Nice try. If this were anything like aqua, it wouldn’t be revised by pretty much the entire Apple community. People would love to see aqua make a comeback. I’m not one of them, but there are fans of it and those people aren’t fans of this. Let me tell you read any forum about Apple products and you’ll find all the feedback you need to see. Apple should’ve done the same before they shipped this.

CraigMac wrote:

Nope. Nice try. If this were anything like aqua, it wouldn’t be revised by pretty much the entire Apple community. People would love to see aqua make a comeback. I’m not one of them, but there are fans of it and those people aren’t fans of this. Let me tell you read any forum about Apple products and you’ll find all the feedback you need to see. Apple should’ve done the same before they shipped this.

Forums are filled with gruntled people. What about the millions upon millions of people who are seeming happy with Liquid Glass and iOS 26, who aren't bothered to chime in and say "hey, I like this new look?" Your assertion that those who complain should be the primary consideration, honestly doesn't add up or make sense. In fact, the complainers are statistically insignificant as is almost always the case.

sorry I installed iOS 26 liquid glass not attractive messes up my viewing. Also I used to be able to toggle between my email in Yahoo and my Google search now I got a sign into Yahoo every time to get to my inbox.I can’t toggle back-and-forth

CraigMac wrote:

If this were anything like aqua, it wouldn’t be revised by pretty much the entire Apple community. People would love to see aqua make a comeback. I’m not one of them, but there are fans of it and those people aren’t fans of this. Let me tell you read any forum about Apple products and you’ll find all the feedback you need to see.

Some people hated Aqua when it came out and there were the same disgruntled people making the complaints back then who do not like any change at all. The same thing happened when Jony Ivy went to the flat design in the UI to get rid of the skeuomorphic icons. You don't even need to restrict the complaints on the UI, remember when Apple got rid of the floppy disk on the computers, and then the CD drive. Oh, the uproar of complaints how Apple could do something like that.

The one thing that is consistent with all of them is Apple never went back, and competitors jumped aboard to follow suit. Even Google moved away from the skeuomorphic icons just a year later after Apple dropped it and created their own Material Design approach, which was the same thing that Apple was doing with the transparency used in the flat icons, even with the complaints they had received.

I think Steve Jobs said it best himself: “Some people say, "Give the customers what they want." But that's not my approach. Our job is to figure out what they're going to want before they do. I think Henry Ford once said, "If I'd asked customers what they wanted, they would have told me, 'A faster horse!'" People don't know what they want until you show it to them. That's why I never rely on market research. Our task is to read things that are not yet on the page.”

Just wait for the next UI update where users are going to say this one was the best and complain about the next change. It happens all the time, and the cycle continues.

It's usually just complainers that post, so I'll chime in on behalf of my 60 year old wife. She actually needs to take motion sickness pills when we take road trips,( i only say that bc some people mentioned it lol). She loves the new look, didn't want to reduce anything. Says it just seems clearer to her. So, it doesn't have to do with age, but more with people who have trouble adapting to change.

I have played with her phone a little, and don't see the big deal. As long as a new OS doesn't permanently affect my battery life, I can deal with most of it.

Because of the mixed opinions here, is why I believe there should be an option to toggle it on or off. I mentioned how I feel, and others may disagree, which is fine. It is really a personal decision. So I hope that future updates will allow more customizable control.

However, I noticed that people here are only talking about the liquid glass part of the update, but not talking about how the UI of the different apps have changed. There is also no longer a default video player for the Files app. When wanting to watch a video, it randomly selects an app, and you can’t choose which one. That can also include an app that does not even play videos. That is quite a problem.

tgwaste- wrote:

I can not express enough how much I absolutely hate it. This will be the thing that drives me to Android. I can NOT look at this horrible UI every single day.

You are free to choose whatever platform you wish. It makes no difference to any of us here. The only thing that is consistent is your attitude towards Apple. It is hard to take this seriously.

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