One year on, iOS 26’s Liquid Glass reshapes everyday UI, while promised Apple Intelligence remains delayed and incomplete.
A year after iOS 26 landed, the most heated online arguments about Apple’s newest look have started to fade. What’s left is a quieter, bigger story: Liquid Glass has changed how the iPhone feels, even as the AI future Apple once promised still hasn’t arrived.
When you use iPhone and iPad side by side, iOS 26’s message becomes hard to miss.. On an iPad Pro connected to an external display. a Slide Over window running Drafts shows a clear glass edge. with content behind it visibly blending through.. Colors from other on-screen elements bleed across the glass boundary. making the material feel less like a cosmetic layer and more like a new interaction surface.
Liquid Glass is described as a platform-wide shift that goes beyond iOS 26 alone. but its impact is especially obvious on the Home Screen and Lock Screen.. Apple apps moved quickly to adopt the material. with popover lists appearing smoky and reflective. and icons and buttons taking on a more distinct glassy edge.. The visual behavior is also interactive: when elements overlap. you can see underlying layers through the glass. and when you grab something. it warps and shifts with your interaction.
The design philosophy behind Liquid Glass emphasizes minimalist presentation paired with flashy visuals.. Sliders behave like bubbles, and more elements drift into menus as you operate the interface.. The driving force behind it is Apple Silicon. and the review claims Apple’s own implementation is tied to that hardware capability. with some other devices reportedly unable to replicate it.. After a year. the author says they still enjoy the departure from earlier. flatter iOS visuals. even while acknowledging flaws remain.
One of the most practical changes highlighted isn’t the look by itself, but how the interface responds.. The review points to moments like tapping a button and having the menu appear precisely where you tapped. suggesting Liquid Glass isn’t only about aesthetics—it’s also about making UI gestures feel more direct.. The Home Screen and Lock Screen also offer different ways to present that material. including the option to keep icons completely transparent or tint them to match a chosen color.
Still, the review’s frustration is that Liquid Glass appears to be heading toward permanence rather than user control.. After months of iOS 26 updates. the author says small refinements have arrived. but there’s been no meaningful option to turn the material off.. Apple. the review notes. has also made it clear that Liquid Glass is expected to become mandatory for all apps soon. which means the tradeoff between readability. style. and interaction is becoming less optional for users.
That shift is visible in how people around the author noticed the new interface.. Several users in their personal network reportedly didn’t just notice Liquid Glass—they liked it and used the added customization options that came with it.. Yet the review draws a line between “noticed” and “transformed. ” arguing that iOS 26’s customization has a narrower scope than it could be.
Beyond a transparent icon setting for the Home Screen and a new clock style on the Lock Screen. the review portrays iOS 26 customization as closer to a baseline update than a leap.. The author appreciates Apple’s yearly effort to move customization forward. but calls iOS 26’s changes “bare minimum.” There’s also a belief that Liquid Glass may have absorbed much of the design attention that might otherwise have gone into deeper personalization features.
On the Lock Screen. the new clock is singled out as the standout feature. especially for how it shrinks as notifications are scrolled.. The review also gives Apple Music design updates credit. calling out animated Lock Screen art as part of the improved look of the iPhone experience.. Even so. the author says iOS 26 still holds back on practical power-user needs. including a desire for more Focus Modes and more Focus Filters for system actions.
Several workflow issues also surface in the customization section.. The author says using unique wallpapers and icons requires too many menus. and they dislike that wallpaper creation can depend on needing to use images from the Photos app.. A more streamlined system is suggested in the form of routing personalization through a file system approach or even a dedicated customization repository.. The review also mentions rumors suggesting AI-driven iPhone customization. which it frames as a potential future path to reduce the friction of doing everything through manual steps.
Alongside the system-wide changes to visuals and personalization. iOS 26’s biggest day-to-day upgrade—at least from the author’s perspective—leans toward social communication.. The Phone app receives a unified layout that initially annoys some users but becomes hard to revert once you use it.. Spam is said to stop cluttering recent calls, and accidental taps that lead to dialing someone are reduced.
The redesign uses Contact Posters within the unified Phone experience.. The review notes that the contact card becomes the center of the experience when you tap a recent call. and that long-press actions can jump directly into a video call or an iMessage chat.. At the same time. the author argues there’s still redundancy in Apple’s broader social offering. expressing the view that Phone. FaceTime. and Contacts could be unified even further under one main system of contacts.
Call Screening is described as one of the most impactful features in the iOS 26 social push.. It works by having Siri filter incoming calls. asking the caller for a reason. with the interaction visible on the Lock Screen so the user can decide whether to answer.. The review also stresses that it’s not perfect: the author’s number ends up on spam lists that rotate through many phone numbers. including “loan application status” style robocalls.. In those cases, Call Screening reportedly fails to catch the calls in a way that matches the author’s expectations.
Because of those misses. the author describes a daily loop of letting the phone ring. dismissing. blocking. and reporting as spam.. They say they like Call Screening and do not want to turn it off. but they also believe the older “send unknown callers to voicemail” option was more efficient for their own needs.. They propose a middle approach where Siri screens calls only from numbers that fall into a “might be known” category while dismissing truly unknown numbers immediately.
FaceTime gets a similar redesign to the Phone app, using Contact Posters in a grid.. The review also highlights a video-message style feature that shows a thumbnail when someone leaves a FaceTime video message. described as voicemail-like but in video form.. The author says they like the setup but find it annoying that the feature seems limited to when the recipient doesn’t answer. and they wish for a way to send video messages on demand rather than only in that constrained scenario.
Messages is portrayed as another major upgrade that many users would notice quickly.. The review says Messages introduces a new layout that separates unknown texts, promotional messages, and potential spam into categories.. It also adds backgrounds for every chat. grouping utility with a stronger visual cue to reduce uncertainty about where a message is coming from.
Group chats gain typing indicators, and the author notes that polls can be used to collect votes from participants.. The review praises chat backgrounds as especially fun in group conversations. framing them as an extra verification layer that helps confirm you are typing into the correct thread.. The author also adds a design aside that Apple Vision Pro can place backgrounds on a separate layer. creating an effect that’s described as “extra cool.”
The iOS 26 review then shifts from communication tools to Apple’s app lineup. separating what the author calls core iOS 26-focused additions from other updates that continued later.. The review names four main apps to focus on: Apple Games. Apple Journal. Safari. and Wallet. while also pointing out that additional work on iOS 26 exists. including a mention of Apple’s new Creator Studio that the author chooses not to cover here.
Apple Games is positioned as a promising idea that didn’t become the go-to hub the author wanted.. The app integrates with Apple’s social features such as SharePlay, FaceTime, and Messages, and it shows Game Center data.. But the review says it still feels underdeveloped. lacking real awareness of the games the author plays or might want to launch at the moment.
The author also points to what they see as gaps in Apple Games’ usefulness. including the absence of emulation or streaming apps.. If it’s not from the App Store or Apple Arcade, the review claims it isn’t represented.. The author compares the experience to browsing someone else’s iPhone rather than a home base like a modern console menu that surfaces recent games and followed news.
Journal is described as having received more genuinely meaningful updates.. The author says Apple Journal now works across iPadOS and macOS and supports multiple journals.. The review emphasizes that it’s not just a simple note-taking app. because it can generate entries using device information. with suggestions tied to Apple-related events like Fitness workouts. Music listening. Photos captures. and Maps visited locations.
However, the review also lists limits.. Suggested entries are only tied to Apple-based events. and the author says there is no straightforward way to archive entries from third-party apps into Apple Journal.. They describe using Day One as a backup path and note that Apple has not provided an official sync mechanism for those imported journal entries.
The review goes further into what that means in practice: the author tried a trusted-person shortcut to generate entries with images and text. which they say worked only partially.. They spent time comparing what synced correctly and what didn’t. editing incorrect sections and deleting mismatched entries from Day One to keep data consistent across journaling workflows.. They also mention that they still have a large backlog to review, made manageable only by the new multiple-journal approach.
Multiple journals are then broken down into different uses: a default journal for day-to-day entries. an “Imported” journal for Day One entries. a Memories journal for writing based on photos or past dates. a Dream journal for surreal dream capture. and an additional experimental Minecraft journal that includes screenshots and cataloging for specific interests.. The author frames Journal as enjoyable and encourages people to use it.
The social future for Journal is where the author’s preferences start to spill into a broader vision.. They propose the idea of shared journals where people could submit entries containing the same data available to regular entries. react and comment. and co-create micro-community timelines.. The review also ends up with a more realistic request: giving users the ability to name location pins in journal map entries automatically. such as changing an address to “Home” without needing manual correction each time.
Safari’s changes are treated as an extension of the Liquid Glass theme. especially the shift toward a bottom address bar that is compact and designed to keep content visible.. The review argues that when parts of the page sit behind the address bar. it isn’t usually a problem because scrolling continues.. The bottom bar is described as having distinct control areas: back and forward buttons. a central address bar. and an ellipsis menu.
In keeping with Apple’s approach to gestures, the review details how the bottom bar supports shortcuts and long-press actions.. Long pressing the back or forward controls brings up a recents popover. while the ellipsis menu provides tab controls. bookmarks. and a Share Sheet. with the author noting they would prefer the Share Sheet button be more visible.. The address bar itself is described as capable of shrinking away during scrolling. which the author says improves focus on page content and amplifies full-screen behavior through transparency.
The review also describes multiple layers of complexity in Safari’s menus.. Long pressing the address bar surfaces options such as window controls, copying, a Share Sheet, and Voice Search.. Voice Search is described as speech-to-text in the address bar that triggers a web search using the default engine.. The review further highlights a left-side control that behaves differently depending on whether it’s tapped or long-pressed. sometimes offering Reader Mode or other shortcuts.
The Safari customization is also presented as flexible but, in the author’s words, a bit fidgety.. The author notes that the menu is filled with Safari Extensions and configurable controls. plus a bottom-right ellipsis option that opens a page menu with site-specific options and an edit function for the previous menu.. The author doesn’t think iPhone Safari has reached a stable final form and argues it could evolve further.
There’s also a parallel drawn to Apple Vision Pro’s Immersive Browsing in visionOS 26. described as combining elements of Apple News’s format and Reader Mode without ads.. The author says they’d like something similar to evolve into iOS Safari. even if it would not include Vision Pro’s 3D effects. framing it as a potential enhancement to browsing rather than a replacement for existing simplicity.
The AI story returns at the end. and it’s where the iOS 26 review most clearly diverges from what people expected.. The review states that Apple pulled back Apple Intelligence during WWDC 2025. and that the keynote still referenced the technology but didn’t overpromise.. Still, the author argues that the bigger problem is the ongoing delays in AI features promised in earlier plans.
Live Translation is cited as an example of a useful AI-powered tool. with demos described as promising and expected to improve over time.. Visual Intelligence is also described as integrated into the screenshot tool, including a reverse image search option in the interface.. But the review points to the broader uncertainty around AI readiness and what happens when prototypes meet real-world reliability expectations.
Image Playground and Genmoji are mentioned alongside a new connection to ChatGPT support. though the author says it has not proven useful to them.. They raise privacy discomfort about sending data off-device even with privacy promises between Apple and OpenAI. and they also reference concerns about copyrighted material reportedly used as references in certain generation-style prompts.. The author argues that these issues may still exist even if Apple’s own models improve.
Meanwhile, the review notes that Apple opened third-party access to Apple Foundation Models, including through Apple Shortcuts.. The author admits they personally missed most of that aspect because they don’t actively use external AI services or have accounts with them.. The review instead points to a closer-to-home use case: FoodNoms. which uses OpenAI models to estimate nutrition values from photos of food or food labels.
The AI thread connects back to the review’s central complaint: Apple Intelligence arrived slower than expected. and the author attributes part of that to inherent risks in AI systems. including hallucination problems.. They also describe a technical mismatch with Siri. suggesting Apple’s plan to layer Apple Intelligence on top of the existing machine learning-based assistant created too many chances for error.. In the author’s view, the only way forward required rebuilding components with an LLM backend.
From there, timing becomes the key narrative driver.. The review says Apple originally appeared to be aiming for a spring release but plans shifted again. including an attempt to use Gemini to train Apple Foundation Models before WWDC 2026.. Cooler heads prevailed, the author says, and Apple showed more restraint, though fans still impatiently awaited AI upgrades.
As of this iOS 26 review. the author claims Apple won’t touch Apple Intelligence or Siri-related changes until after iOS 27 launches in the fall.. WWDC 2026 is described as happening on June 8, after which there will likely be a summer of beta testing.. The review also suggests that the new AI models might not even become available until after iOS 27 is publicly released.. Model updates themselves are framed as part of Apple’s background process. making the timing harder to predict. while developer access during the summer could be the only route for earlier testing.
The author then pivots into an argument about why Apple’s delay could matter strategically.. They say Apple doesn’t need to “participate in the AI race” in the same way as competitors. describing the situation as a bullet dodged in terms of PR and backlash.. They argue that shipping in a hallucination-prone state would have amplified errors when AI is tied to personal data and proactive actions.. The review also compares the risk to earlier backlash around AI-like notification summaries.
Finally. the review anticipates a release scenario in which Apple could deliver a more private. secure. local-first AI platform that can interact with third-party models chosen by the user.. The author expects iOS 27 users to see Apple Foundation Models powering Siri and Apple Intelligence as soon as fall 2026. though they acknowledge that this piece remains a review of iOS 26.
Beyond Liquid Glass and AI. iOS 26’s practical strengths and weaknesses are weighed through the lens of what users actually touch.. The author’s “pros” emphasize Liquid Glass. UI interactions that feel more intuitive. spam separation improvements in social apps. and upgrades to Journal and Safari.. The “cons” include continued absence of key AI features promised in 2024. along with readability issues in some places where Liquid Glass can make elements harder to see.. The review also calls out neglect in other apps, citing Apple Home as remaining untouched.
On the broader product cadence. the author closes by arguing that the update cycle can feel flip-flop: apps getting attention in iOS 26 may be largely ignored until iOS 28. while other changes move into iOS 27.. They expect iOS 27 to focus more on tweaks and adjustments after the upheaval of iOS 26. with the next big AI changes potentially dominating WWDC 2026’s spotlight. for better or worse.
iOS 26 review Liquid Glass Apple Intelligence delays iPhone UI Safari updates Call Screening Journal multi journals