Apple’s controversial “Liquid Glass” translucent UI effect, which drew heavy criticism for poor legibility in its initial release, has seen major improvements in the iOS 27 developer beta. While the new transparency slider lets users dial the effect from strong glass to fully opaque, 9to5Mac’s Ben Lovejoy found that Apple also refined the blurring and rendering under the hood. Even with Liquid Glass maxed out, text and interface elements remain perfectly readable in challenging scenarios (like overlapping black text), effectively resolving the biggest pain points of the original implementation.
Liquid Glass was the most contentious UI change Apple has introduced in many years. While many of us really liked it, there was a sizable chunk of the Apple user base who absolutely hated it.
To be … clear, the first implementation was very bad… The company initially responded with a toggle, while iOS 27 offers a more flexible solution in the form of a slider. At one end, the glass effect is very strong, and at the other, the glass is frosted to such a degree that it is essentially completely opaque. This is indistinguishable from switching off the effect completely.
I decided to experiment with it, starting with the effect maxed out. I was expecting to later adjust it, but instead found that Apple has made a number of changes to the Liquid Glass implementation which means that everything remains perfectly legible even with maximum transparency.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s Liquid Glass fixes in iOS 27 add up to a solid win for fans of the design — and potentially a sign that Apple could push the effect even further in future updates.
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