iOS 26.1 Update Now Available with Customizable ‘Liquid Glass’ Design
Apple released iOS 26.1 today, offering users greater control over the aesthetic of their devices with a new transparency setting for the recently introduced “Liquid Glass” design.
The update, available for eligible devices starting November 4, 2025, allows users to adjust the opacity of the translucent effect via Settings > Display & Brightness > Liquid Glass, choosing between “Clear” and a more opaque “Tinted” option. Previously, adjusting transparency required accessibility settings that largely disabled the effect. This change addresses user feedback regarding readability, as some found the initial translucent design made interface elements difficult to see.
Beyond the visual tweak, iOS 26.1 introduces several new features, including the ability to swipe left on the lock screen to quickly open the camera app (Settings > Camera > Lock Screen Swipe to Open Camera) and local audio/video recording during video calls – a feature previewed at the Worldwide Developers Conference in June. The update also expands language support for Apple Intelligence to include Chinese (Traditional), Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Portuguese (Portugal), Vietnamese, and Turkish, with live translation now available for Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Italian, Japanese, and Korean. Additional quality-of-life improvements include gesture controls for Apple Music and a slider to dismiss alarms, preventing accidental taps.
Apple also included the option to automatically install security improvements with this release, bolstering device protection. Users can update their devices by navigating to Settings > General > Software update. This update comes as Apple continues to refine its user interface, aiming for a balance between modern aesthetics and practical usability, a key factor in maintaining its competitive edge in the smartphone market, according to industry analysts at Statista.
Apple officials stated that further updates addressing user feedback and expanding functionality are planned for the coming months.
Apple’s latest iOS update, available for eligible devices from Monday, doesn’t introduce any major features, but it does bring one highly-requested tweak: the ability to change the transparency of the translucent liquid glass design.
If you didn’t like the look of iOS 26, all you could do so far was to reduce transparency via the accessibility settings, which pretty much turned off the liquid glass overlay. With iOS 26.1, we now get a new menu to retain the look while increasing opacity.
You can head to Settings > Display & Brightness > Liquid Glass to select either the original “Clear” option or a more opaque “Tinted” option. You can also see a preview of each option when you’re selecting them.
Liquid glass was the company’s biggest design overhaul since its move to a flat design back in 2013, but similar to most changes of this scale and significance, not everybody has been on board.
Some people said the more translucent design made various parts of the interface harder to read, including notifications or navigation controls in apps, while others professed their love for the attention to detail and the new look, which felt like a much-needed update to an interface that had grown stale over the years.
Besides the transparency settings, iOS 26.1 also lets you tweak what gestures do on the home screen: You now get an option to open the camera app by swiping to the left on the lockscreen. You change this by going to Settings > Camera > Lock Screen Swipe to Open Camera.
IOS 26.1 also gives users the ability to locally capture audio and video while recording a video call. This can be useful if you’re recording a call or podcast on the move. The company announced this feature for iPadOS in June during the Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC).
Techcrunch event
San Francisco
|
October 13-15, 2026
The update also brings support for eight new languages for Apple Intelligence: Chinese (Traditional), Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Portuguese (Portugal), Vietnamese and Turkish. The company is also adding live translation support for five new languages: Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Italian, Japanese and Korean.
We also get some quality of life improvements, including gestures to change songs in Apple Music; a slider to stop alarms instead of a button so you don’t accidentally shut it off; and an option to automatically install security improvements.
You can update your device by going to Settings > General > Software update.
