Why you’re looking at Apple’s Liquid Glass UI the wrong way

Since its announcement at WWDC in June, Apple’s new Liquid Glass UI design for its 2026 (and beyond) operating systems has proved polarising. With its transparent, content-manipulating effects and reactive components, it’s a bold step away from the flat, static look we’ve grown accustomed to since Apple launched iOS 7 back in 2013, and an even bolder progression from the skeuomorphic designs we were used to before that.

But what if we’ve been looking at Apple’s Liquid Glass in the wrong way? This isn’t about surface-level design trends or flashy animations. It’s about the future of technology and how we interact with it.

Apple’s Liquid Glass design language was launched yesterday with iOS 26, and as the world installs this new design system onto their phones, watches, headsets, tablets, laptops, and TVs, it’ll take time for users to adjust to this new look and way of interacting with their devices.

What many people haven’t yet realised is that the way we interact with our devices is changing. With virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) becoming more prevalent, the line between the real world and the digital world is beginning to blur more and more. The VR industry is expected to be worth $123bn by 2032. To put that into context, it was only worth $16.32bn in 2024. So, the transition in UI design as we focus more on VR & AR is inevitable, and likely for the good of the usability of those devices in the future.

When Apple launched the iPhone in 2007, we were at a similar juncture for UI and UX, but we didn't realise it at the time. We’d been using clunky phones with physical keyboards and untouchable content for decades, and suddenly we had a device where we could touch the content we were interacting with. Note-taking, calendars, compasses, and more. Getting users to understand this resulted in skeuomorphic design – a style that brought relatable, understandable, real-world context to digital applications and interactions. It was about educating users in a manageable way that didn’t feel a million miles away from using a real notepad or a real calendar.

After six years of training us, Apple made the move away from skeuomorphic design across to flat design with iOS 7. That style has developed, changed, and grown into what we’ve now become familiar with in iOS 18, macOS Sequoia, and visionOS 2. Liquid Glass might look like pure visual polish, but it’s doing something much more important: teaching us a new way to interact. Just as skeuomorphism helped us move away from physical buttons to touchscreens, Liquid Glass is quietly preparing us for a future that isn’t restricted to screens at all. We’re moving into a new era where digital worlds are layered over the real world, and how we interact with it depends on more than just our fingertips. This shift needs a different kind of interface. One that listens, watches, and responds. It feels alive. This is where multimodal UI design comes in.

Multimodal UI design language relies on more than just a single input, like touch. It’s built around voice, gaze, movement, and touch. It’s this that bridges the gap between what we know as an OS, and what an OS will become. Take visionOS, or Meta Horizon OS. Both are examples of multimodal interfaces. Not only is the content overlaid onto the real world, it’s controlled by the direction you’re looking, or by your voice as you ask it to perform an action or task. And, especially in vision OS, these overlaid interface elements are designed to interact and work with the world around them, rather than just sitting on top. 

Liquid Glass isn’t just multimodal, it’s reactive. Built around a system of free-floating elements and components, the interface dynamically adjusts to how you use it. These elements aren’t locked to a fixed screen either; they appear when you need them and fade away when you don’t.

It’s this fluidity that makes Liquid Glass the ideal UI for overlaying on the real world. Elements can subtly sink into the surroundings when idle and reappear when they’re relevant. If your environment changes, the UI responds and reveals what’s behind it by taking a step back. It’s a design system that’s as understanding and perceptive as you are.

Apple’s approach is also about unifying an experience across their device ecosystem. As all these devices begin to merge into a spatial realm, consistency will be key. Liquid Glass isn’t limited to iPhones; it’s become the universal design language used across all of Apple’s devices. This is an important shift. Historically, Apple has tended to update the iPhone and iPad visual designs ahead of the Mac. For example, when Apple launched its flat design system with iOS 7, macOS Mavericks still maintained its skeuomorphic design. The fact Apple is rolling Liquid Glass out across its entire suite of operating systems sends a clear message: this is the future, and it’s starting now.

In contrast, Google has taken a very different approach with its latest design system, Material 3. Its punchy colours, expressive typographic treatments, and bold graphic devices feel optimised for rectangular screens. Perfect for phones and tablets. But as we move into a world where interfaces begin to extend beyond the screen, this look and feel will quickly fall behind and become limiting.

Material 3 is firmly rooted as a visual language for traditional devices. It’s difficult to imagine these vibrant, highly-saturated colours and decorative sticker-like layers translating to spatial environments or multimodal interfaces where the UI has to adapt to different lighting, varying depths, and real-world context.

Compared to Apple’s Liquid Glass design system, Material 3 feels like it was designed solely for mobile-era aesthetics. We imagine it’ll only be a matter of time before Android follows suit.

Despite its future-focussed foundations, Liquid Glass is a polarising design language, and this is primarily for two reasons: accessibility and its association with past design trends. Stylistically, it’s been compared to Windows Vista, which launched in 2007 with a new design style called Aero. Aero marked a dramatic move away from the blocky era of Windows XP, and just like Liquid Glass today, it divided opinion. But the intent behind Liquid Glass is very different to Windows Vista. Windows Vista was about reskinning a system users were already very familiar with to make it feel more modern. Liquid Glass is about the shift from screens to spatial, immersive experiences.

Accessibility is a much bigger concern. With its glassy, translucent design, Liquid Glass definitely poses some issues with legibility and contrast, especially against high-contrast backgrounds. This is surprising coming from Apple. They’ve long been seen as leaders when it comes to inclusive design; it’s one of their core values.

However, it’s important to remember that Apple gives users a deep level of accessibility customisation so they can hone their devices to work for them. And Apple has always made iterative improvements as time goes on. Remember when iOS 7’s animations were making users motion sick? Or when users said the system typefaces were too thin? Apple responded by adjusting the design language.

Liquid Glass is following a similar path. We’re entering uncharted territory with spatial, multimodal user interfaces. There will be missteps. But just as with past transitions, refinement will come with time, and with real-world feedback from users pushing the boundaries of how we interact beyond screens.

While Apple Vision Pro has been a slow burner, it’s still early days for spatial and multimodal UI design, but one thing is clear – the UI of tomorrow won’t live on screen. We’re moving into a new era where interfaces live around us, watching, listening, and responding as we interact with them and the world around us. And design systems won’t just be about aesthetics or branding; they’ll need to feel native and reactive to real-world environments, natural movement, and human behaviour.

Liquid Glass is the start of a much bigger shift in design and how we interact with our devices. By introducing translucency, depth, and movement into today’s rectangular screen boundaries, it’s preparing us all for a world where interfaces are responsive and immersive, and not restricted to a glass rectangle.

Brands that embrace multimodal, spatial design languages now will be the ones who lead in the years ahead as our digital and physical worlds blend together. And users will expect that to feel natural. As for designers and developers, those of us who understand this early and adopt this design ethos will define what’s coming next.