The day has come, iOS 26 It is already available and last night I left my cell phone updating while I slept. I did not installed the public beta, so when I woke up I have encountered A totally changed mobile. With the illusion of who opens new shoes, I have begun to navigate All news And these are my first impressions.
Liquid Glass is more than icons (and less bad)
Design is the great novelty of iOS 26. This is the most important change since iOS 7 in 2013, there is nothing. Apple has redesigned the entire interface, menus and native apps with the new design language to which Liquid Glass have baptized. My feeling in these first hours is that I had a wrong idea. Let’s see why.
Icons by omission, dark, translucent and tired.
The most striking thing is that we can now change the icons and, in addition to putting them with a light or dark background, it allows us to make them completely transparent. Transparent icons completely change the interface and is the first thing I have tried. I think it took three minutes to return to the “by omission” mode.
Beyond tastes, transparent icons make everything be applauded and cost a lot to differentiate some apps from others. A design that costs us to read, is not a good design. If I had left them, I would have ended up getting used to where each app is, but it seems to me an unnecessary effort for something that I also do not find it especially groundbreaking. More than iOS, they remind me of any Personalized android theme.
They called her Liquid Glass because “I can’t find my apps” it didn’t look good.
The icons are optional, but transparencies affect the entire interface. My partner Ricardo was in charge of trying the beta when she was announced and had to suffer a much less polished interface. The contrast problem has been minimized And now notifications and other elements are more legible. Of course, if you choose a clear wallpaper, readability worsens. I recommend betting on a rather dark background.
The Glow is subtle, but left over in normal icons
What is still there is the effect Glow Around buttons and icons. With transparent icons it is necessary for us to see the edges well, but in normal icons with a clear background It gives the feeling that the edge is not well defined. Again, it is perceived more if we use clear wallpapers, even becoming annoying, as if there were a glare effect.
Another striking novelty of the new design is the lock screen, especially the New elongated watch. This has seemed more interesting to me and I have left it configured. In addition, the depth effect is very achieved and is especially good if you use a portrait or a photo of your pet as a wallpaper.
I had come countless times the starting screens with transparent icons and, without realizing it, I had formed the idea of the interface was going to be illegiblebut beyond the icons, I think the design language is consistent and there are very interesting changes in some apps.
Camera app and photos
System applications have also been redesigned for the new visual language of Liquid Glass and I want to stop especially in the camera app and the APP photos.
The camera app has changed a lot
The first thing you think when opening the app is what has happened to the portrait or slow camera mode. Apple has reduced the options that are seen on screen to video and photo, which now look larger. Only when you slide on them the others appear. I don’t think it’s an especially intuitive solution, But it is not a drama either.
The camera options has also changed and now a floating window with quite large round icons is deployed. Design is coarse, although a priori it seems quite a lot more comfortable than the previous one. However, I find it inconsistent that these buttons are so large and instead the direct access to the flash or the night mode (up to the right) are tiny. In fact, trying to open the emerging menu I have activated the flash unintentionally. The good news is that we can also open it sliding from the bottom.
The APP photos makes more sense in iOS 26.
On the other hand, the photos apptho has received a redesign that I loved and that It finally makes sense. I had become accustomed to using it in iOS 18, but it has been to install iOS 26 and realize that The previous version was a real disaster. With iOS 26 we have two eyelashes again, one with all the photos in chronological order and another with the collections, that is, albums, memories, prominent photos, etc.
The interesting thing about this second tab is that it is customizable. If we go down to ‘reorder’ we can choose what we want to be shown above. If you let us eliminate some of these options, it would be ten, but at least we can leave them folded so that there is not so much noise.
Most accessible menus
Settings, notes and app store with the search at the bottom.
Another novelty of the new interface is that the Search Bar in the system apps and menus is at the bottom. Here is a lot more comfortable access to it With one hand, especially if you have an iPhone of the biggest.
Another change that I liked of the APP adjustments is that now Apps settings are grouped into a block. We no longer have that endless list on the main screen, but is nested in its own section. I think it makes much more sense.
The new safari design can be customized.
Safari is one of the apps that has been completely redesigned and also bets on the search bar and controls at the bottom, with a Very compact and simplified design, maybe too much. I use Chrome, so this change does not affect me, but if you use safari and find it uncomfortable, the good news is that you can return to the previous design.
Clumsy alarm screen
Another change that I have discovered by chance is that now the alarm screen has a new design. The clock looks huge and under it we have two more buttons, one to postpone the alarm and another to stop it. It reminds me of the CE interface for a mobile for older people. It is quite rough, but considering that when we see that screen we are half asleep, it seems to me a success.
NO CALL FILTER, THANKS
The idea is fine, the problem is that it leaves out any number that we do not have in contacts.
It is one of the new functions that arrives with iOS 26. The call filter already tried it with my partner Ricardo months ago and I could confirm that It was like killing gunflowshence I have decided not to activate it. What he does is filter absolutely all the calls of numbers that we do not have in contacts and send them to the live voice mailbox, which will ask the interlocutor the reason for the call. I doubt very much that if the doctor calls me he will talk to Siri before talking to me.
Adaptive battery savings
For some reason, notifications of adaptive consumption come out in English.
Another novelty that premieres iOS 26 is adaptive consumption. Instead of just being able to activate the low consumption mode, this option Makes automatically adjustments depending on the battery we are using. At the moment I have activated it to see how it works and I have asked you to notify me when you make those adjustments.
I have already received a couple of notices and I have not noticed a drop in performance as pronounced as when the low consumption mode active. Of course, for some reason that I do not know, notifications come out in English.
Apple Intelligence: Without further ado
To Apple Artificial intelligence has been choked and The new Siri has not yet been madebut although they continue to the tail in the generative With respect to competition, that does not mean that iOS 26 has no functions of AI.
The screenshot interface allows visual search and ask chatgpt
One of the novelties is The visual search that we can activate from the interface that appears when we make a screenshot. With her we can look for images similar to what we have on the screen and we can also ask Chatgpt, which will answer us taking into account the context of what we are seeing. We can also create events in the calendar if for example we capture a poster of a concert.
Simultaneous translation is another of the novelties that arrive with iOS 26 and, again, it is something that we have for a long time in competitors such as Samsung. I have tried it with my partner Álvaro García de Applesfera in the App Messages and He has done what he promises, without more.
We also have the Playground app to generate images and Smart actions in shortcuts. The latter is what most promises, although for now I have not been able to investigate it thoroughly.
iOS 26, first impressions
The transparent icons are the novelty that all the foci have taken, but in my opinion it is something irrelevant that seems to have put there to support “the greatest redesign in years.” I do not like them, they do not distinguish themselves and I have deactivated them in minutes. We can argue that everything is very integrated and there will be those who find it beautiful, but there is something that is undeniable and is that, with them, IOS not only loses its essence, but visually it is totally flat.
Beyond that, I liked the Liquid Glass interface much more than I thought. At the aesthetic level it is the intermediate point between the totally flat icons that were released in iOS 7 and the extreme scheuomorphism of the previous versions. It has little things to polish, especially at the time of improve the visibility of some transparencies, But it also brings more intuitive menus and some interesting things such as the new lock screen.
The Redesign of the APP photos It is perhaps what I liked the most, while that of the camera app I see it quite rough and not very intuitive. On new functions, do not expect anything revolutionary, especially as far as artificial intelligence is concerned.
I still have to continue trying it more thoroughly, but in this first contact the feeling that I have left is that the design is not as terrible as I expected and The coldest leaves me are the new functions of AI or that call filter that seems to me of everything but practical. What do you think?
Images | Amparo Babyloni, Xataka
In Xataka | Customize your iPhone with iOS 26: How to take advantage of the new icon design and lock screen
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