Forget Google's Material 3 Expressive, Apple's "Liquid Glass" iOS 26 could be the real game-changer

Later today we'll see the next generation of macOS, iOS and iPadOS unveiled during Apple's WWDC keynote. And they're likely to look very different from the current versions.

Apple is reportedly undertaking a "dramatic" visual redesign of its iPhone software, thought to be iOS 26, and its other operating systems too.

According to Mark Gurman at Bloomberg, the new look makes extensive use of what Apple calls "liquid glass" – a much more modern take on the glassy design Apple wowed us all with the Aqua interface in Mac OS X. It's also similar to what we've seen in the Apple Vision Pro headset.

Apple isn't the only tech giant giving its operating systems a visual refresh this year. Google's already unveiled its own, with Material 3 Expressive starting to appear in the wild. And it seems that the two firms are going in very different directions.

What to expect from Apple's new look and feel

The new interface will be adopted across all of Apple's operating systems, including iOS 26, of course. We should also see it change the look of iPadOS, tvOS, visionOS, watchOS, macOS and CarPlay.

Those operating systems will all be updated in the autumn, but we should get a good look at at least some of them later today during the Apple event.

According to Gurman, the new controls "have the sheen and see-through visuals of a glassy surface". They will include transparency and shine effects in controls, toolbars and in-app interfaces.

He also says that the design will be expanded into hardware, with the 20th anniversary iPhone getting curved glass sides around the entire display. It will also sport "extraordinarily slim" bezels and no Dynamic Island or notch.

Apparently, Apple internally calls the new phone "Glasswing" – a kind of butterfly with transparent wings. It's expected to be one of the 2027 refresh devices.

The new interface is likely to play a very big part in today's Apple event. It's likely to completely transform the Apple UI across all of its devices and make them even more visually different from Google's platforms.

I hope you like it, because if history is any guide then you're going to be looking at it for a decade. Apple's last major interface overhaul was iOS 7 way back in 2013.