Apple adds adjustable Liquid Glass to iOS 27

adjustable Liquid – With iOS 27, Apple lets users adjust the translucency of Liquid Glass, while macOS Golden Gate brings matching Liquid Glass controls under System Settings—an escape hatch for readability that has long dogged the glossier interface look.

A translucent interface can be stunning—right up until you need it to be readable. In iOS 27, Apple gives Liquid Glass a dial.

Users will be able to adjust the translucency of the Liquid Glass effect. On the Mac side, macOS Golden Gate adds its own Liquid Glass controls beneath System Settings, giving people the option to make the look clearer, more opaque, or somewhere in between.

Liquid Glass is still very much part of Apple’s visual language. It’s meant to shimmer through menus and panels and carry a sense of unity across the system. Apple introduced Liquid Glass as a broad design idea—system-wide. designed to feel premium and unmistakably “Apple.” But on real screens. translucency comes with a tradeoff: the more translucent the software becomes. the more it has to fight what’s behind it. Busy wallpapers, crowded notifications, and half-forgotten widgets all become part of the same conversation.

This isn’t just a theoretical problem, either. The readability complaints have already shown up in public discussion. Reddit users and design-focused commenters have pointed to low contrast and notifications that can become hard to read when text has to compete with whatever happens to be behind it.

Apple isn’t the only company that has leaned into the glassy look. Windows Vista ran Aero Glass back when laptops still had DVD drives. Microsoft later revived a frosted style with Fluent Design’s Acrylic material, and Apple itself experimented with translucency in iOS 7. Liquid Glass, though, is positioned by Apple as a richer, more technically dressed-up continuation of that idea. The long-running bargain hasn’t changed: make the interface look expensive, then spend subsequent updates helping people see through it.

Now Apple is putting a lever in users’ hands.

On macOS Golden Gate, the setting can make Liquid Glass more opaque, more clear, or dialed in between those points. Apple’s own framing through the behavior is straightforward: the more opaque version improves text legibility. That matters because readability is the one place where a gorgeous design can’t afford to lose. People aren’t using their computers and phones in dark. controlled demo rooms—they’re trying to read a menu. scan a notification. and move through ordinary tasks without the display turning every interaction into a tradeoff.

There’s a quiet contradiction at the heart of the glassy UI trend. Apple’s willingness to push translucency across the interface says confidence in how it looks. But the need for a “less Liquid Glass” adjustment admits a second reality: not every screen needs the full aquarium treatment. Transparency is charming until the thing underneath starts arguing with the thing on top.

That makes the new control feel less like a cosmetic tweak and more like an acknowledgement of what users have been wrestling with. A visual system this aggressive—one built around transparency—needs an escape hatch before the interface itself becomes difficult to tap through. Apple’s choice gives people control over the balance.

The sequence is plain when the pieces are placed together: Liquid Glass is still the design language across iOS 27 and macOS Golden Gate, but Apple is also responding to the friction created by readability challenges that show up when translucent text sits on complex backgrounds.

In the end, Apple didn’t abandon the look. It made it easier to live with. The best Liquid Glass feature may not be the shiniest one at all—it’s the ability to squint less, when the day’s lighting, content, or notifications make the glass feel like noise.

Apple iOS 27 macOS Golden Gate Liquid Glass translucency readability UI design System Settings