Apple unveiled the new iOS 26 operating system at the WWDC 2025 event in Cupertino on Monday. The biggest single change made by the iPhone maker this year is the implementation of a new ‘Liquid Glass’ look across the UI which the company says makes the system experience “more expressive and delightful”.
While Apple may be busy espousing the benefits of the new UI, users on social media seem to be strongly against the changes made by the company this year.
Netizens react to Apple’s new changes:
Users across various social media platforms pointed out that the transparent theme adoted by Apple in the new UI will lead to readability issue especially when any of the UI elements are put in front of a white background.
One user on Reddit expressing their frustration with the new UI wrote, “Please for the love of god, make the “frosting” level customizable. It;s a cool look, but if your BG is busy at all, this is going to be an accessibility nightmare.”
“I‘m probably getting old, with bad eyesight, so this looks like it‘ll be an accessibility nightmare for me. Hope they tone the effect down (make it more milky glass / opaque) or give options to tone it down.” added another user
Yet another user stated, “The notifications on lock screen promotional images looks like hell to me, I can barely make out the text content with the excessive transparent look.”
Meanwhile, a Reddit user who had already installed iOS 26 Developer Beta on their phone stated that things were perhaps even worse than some people had imagined. They stated, “There a lack of contrast everywhere in the beta. Notifications are so hard to read even”
Yet another user wrote, “Apple has always focused on making best experience for users, but after today’s wwdc, I really felt there’s nothing great tbh, it’s just redesigning entire UI with glass transparent, I’ve expected at least a few features on apple intelligence.”
One user explained that a similar fallout also happenned when Apple made its last big UI change with iOS 7 arond a decade back. They wrote, “Similar thing happened when iOS 7 launched with terribly thin typefaces. iOS 8 and 9 dialed back the thinness to help with accessibility. I’d expect them to do the same in the future, but also would’ve expected them to have learned their lesson.”