Apple’s Liquid Glass interface improves with release of iOS 26 Beta 2

With Monday’s release of iOS 26 Beta 2, Apple has fixed one of the more glaring issues with Liquid Glass, its divisive new user interface design for the iPhone, iPad, and other Apple devices, announced earlier this month at WWDC 2025.

The refreshed user interface modernizes the operating system’s look and feel with a design system inspired by the optical qualities of glass, including the way it refracts light and its translucency.

However, early iOS 26 testers, somewhat unfairly, were quick to point out the flaws with the updated look in the early developer beta. Though the beta build is not yet finished, users shared screenshots and criticized areas where Liquid Glass fell short in terms of readability and usability.

One of the users’ larger concerns was with how Liquid Glass made the Control Center (the menu accessed by swiping down on the right side of the iPhone’s screen) nearly unreadable. Because of its semi-transparent nature, it was hard to differentiate the Control Center’s buttons and sliders from the icons and widgets on the iPhone’s Home Screen that appeared underneath.

In the newly released beta, Apple has addressed the problem with the Control Center by adjusting the background blur, which better obscures the Home Screen content underneath.

Notifications in the first beta were also hard to read, as many had pointed out. In the updated beta, they’re a bit sharper but still need work, especially for readability on brighter and lighter backgrounds.

These are not likely the final adjustments, given that iOS 26 doesn’t launch publicly until the fall. However, they are indications that Apple is actively listening to early user feedback and making tweaks accordingly.

Also in Beta 2, Apple has added an Accessibility section to the App Store’s product pages, enabled iCloud sync for the Journaling app on iPads, added order tracking features to Apple Wallet, introduced an Apple Music Radio widget, and more.