I previously described my hopes for iOS 19, noting that I was looking for a more incremental design change. My opinion was that changing around layouts and design at the same time would be too big of a burden for developers at this time.
After watching the keynote, we now know that the new operating system version is actually called “iOS 26”, and I believe we got just that sweetspot I described before. The new system design, called “Liquid Glass”, adds glass and liquid effects to many animations and interactions. Still, it keeps the components roughly the way they were before. Considering the amount of visual changes, apps will probably have a relatively easy time adopting the new design. However, this does not mean that it will come for free.
I see a few areas that are particularly work-intensive when using the system-provided components:
- Tab and navigation toolbars, since they no longer obstruct the content below them and get moved out of the way.
- Tab and navigation toolbar items, since they can now define groups and spacers between them, requiring a bit more work to make them feel at home on iOS 26.
- Similar, developers will need to ensure content is not obstructed when scrolled below sidebars.
Of course, custom UIs will have to be adopted. This will be the biggest effort, since developers will need to start using new components and modifiers like glassEffect(_:in:isEnabled), and adopt the correct animations. I believe this enables powerful interaction models which will require some attention from the developers, especially since there will only be few examples of best practises, but can give you the visual edge when iOS 26 launches later this year.
Overall, the new design changes seem well-made and not too overwhelming for third-party developers. It remains to be seen how well the migration can be done since most developers will not be able to adopt the new APIs just yet, making backward-compatibility a key factor. I will start looking into ways to adopt the iOS 26 changes into our app at work, as well as Bandwidth Monitor. Stay tuned for those updates in the fall!