iOS 26: This is what the new iPhone home screen looks like
Apple’s new Liquid Glass design is immediately noticeable on the home screen of iOS 26 after unlocking the iPhone. However, the degree of change is customizable. Here are all the changes to the iPhone’s main interface.
Apple iOS 26 Liquid Glass Design
By default, app icons have a layered design with subtle depth. They look like several glass panes stacked on top of each other, creating a glass-like, translucent appearance.
Apple has Liquid Glass app icons for apps like Safari, Maps, Photos, the App Store, Mail, and more. Third-party app icons adopt the same aesthetic, and no update is required for apps with simple designs on solid backgrounds. Such icons already have a Liquid Glass look.
The Dock is transparent and blends into the background behind it, as does the Search button. App folders have a frosted glass design that changes color depending on the background image. When you edit your home screen, the buttons you interact with also appear transparent.
Interface elements such as the Dock, folders, and the search button have a light effect that changes as you move your iPhone, giving them the appearance of real glass.
Light Mode, Dark Mode, and Tinted Mode
The Apple iOS 26 Liquid Glass effect is visible in both Light Mode and Dark Mode. The icons still have the same stacked glass look, just with a lighter or darker background.
Apple has technically changed Light Mode to “Standard Mode” in the customization settings, where you can adjust the color (long-press the display and tap “Adjust”). By the way, with tinted icons, the multi-layered glass look isn’t as obvious, but it’s still there.
There are new “Always” and “Auto” toggles for activating persistent light or dark styles, or for adjusting them based on time. The “Small” and “Large” buttons for changing the icon size have been moved to the top right corner of the customization interface.
Tinted mode looks different in iOS 26 than in iOS 18. Instead of displaying icons with a black background and colored graphics, icons in Light mode take on the full color you select with white graphics. In Dark mode, backgrounds are significantly darker than the color you select, but not completely black.
Clear Icons
Apple added the “Clear” icon option in iOS 26, which is available alongside Standard, Dark, and Tinted versions. As the name suggests, Clear features a striking liquid glass look with completely transparent icons. The icons adapt to the color of your background image, with white text and white designs.
The “Clear” setting has the options “Light” and “Dark.” Light looks like frosted glass, while Dark looks like tinted glass. If you’re fully committed to Liquid Glass and your iPhone, if the icons look significantly different, select “Delete.”
Widgets
Widgets are somewhat similar to icons in terms of their aesthetics, but overall they hardly differ from the display in iOS 18 in standard mode.
When the “Clear” option is enabled, widgets are transparent and have a more consistent design that matches your wallpaper.
Wallpaper
You can edit your wallpaper in iOS 26 directly from the Home screen. Long-press the display and then tap the new “Edit Wallpaper” option.
The Wallpaper interface allows you to change the image you use on the Home screen. However, this does not affect the Lock screen. For example, if you have a photo set as your wallpaper, you can change the color, choose a gradient, or select a photo. You can also turn blurring on or off for images.
Wallpapers play an important role in iOS 26, as they affect the color of the Dock, folders, and icons depending on your settings.
Control Center
The Control Center uses Liquid Glass. So the functionality is the same, but the overall appearance is different. Compared to the Control Center of iOS 18, the Control Center of iOS 26 is designed differently. The version provides depth to the icons with the Liquid Glass lighting effect.
The symbols are so tinted that they look like frosted glass, and some of the underneath buttons to adapt the control center were adapted to the updated appearance. The symbols are slightly larger, and some of the bar -shaped symbols for volume, brightness and other settings are round.
Other Homescreen elements in iOS 26
The Dynamic Island, the communication center, the gestures for long and the app library, apart from the optics, have not changed. The folder of the app library are transparent, the search bar rounded off and the widgets have a glass look with different intensity depending on the symbolic color selected.
The symbols in the app library are also a bit larger and have less distance between them.
Web apps
If you add a website to your homescreen, in iOS 26 it is always opened as a web app. In iOS 18 web apps were available on the homescreen, but we had to configure web developers in such a way that they work as web apps.
If websites were not configured correctly, they were opened in Safari when they were added to the Start screen. Now a website is opened as a dedicated web app, even if it has not been explicitly set up.
The “Open as a web app” option can be deactivated when adding a website to the homescreen if you prefer to open websites in Safari.
