{"id":49670,"date":"2025-10-16T15:12:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T19:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=49670"},"modified":"2025-11-26T15:12:52","modified_gmt":"2025-11-26T20:12:52","slug":"how-to-turn-liquid-glass-into-a-solid-interface","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/16\/how-to-turn-liquid-glass-into-a-solid-interface\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Turn Liquid Glass Into a Solid Interface"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adam Engst<\/a> (Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n

Apple’s new Liquid Glass interface design brings transparency and blur effects to all Apple operating systems, but many users find it distracting or difficult to read. Here’s how to control its effects and make your interface more usable. Although the relevant Accessibility settings are quite similar across macOS, iOS, watchOS, and tvOS, I separate them because they offer different levels of utility in each.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

For those who take a lot of screenshots, like I do, Reduce Transparency is essential because it ensures that all screenshots have a consistent background. It would be highly distracting if screenshots had noticeably different colors due to being taken over different wallpapers or windows.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

I find the Increase Contrast setting jarring, but it might be a significant help for those with low vision.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

I can’t recommend turning off Liquid Glass entirely in this way. Although it does make macOS 26 look more like macOS 15, it suffers from several glaring mistakes that Apple has no incentive to fix. Stick to Reduce Transparency and add Increase Contrast if your eyes would appreciate it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

There are lots of good comparison screenshots.<\/p>\n\n

John Gruber<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

A useful guide for today — and, I bet, a useful look back at the first versions of Liquid Glass for the future.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Nick Heer<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

A notable issue with these settings is that some properties of Liquid Glass are not truly the fault of transparency. Instead, a Liquid Glass element — like Control Centre<\/a> — might be reflecting the colours around it, giving the impression of translucency without actually being translucent. This effect does not appear in window-specific screenshots when you have “Reduce Transparency” turned on so, as Engst writes, it makes it better for creating screenshots for documentation. But it does mean that, while the “Reduce Transparency” setting is literally true, it feels dishonest.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Rosyna Keller<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Don’t forget you can override and set Reduce Transparency on a per-app basis<\/a>[…]<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Craig Hockenberry<\/a>:<\/p>\n

If you think that turning on Reduce Transparency will fix all the problems with Liquid Glass, you’re wrong.<\/p>

Here’s a standard bar button item drawn with reduced transparency. It goes from being dark (the system setting) to light the first time you use it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Howard Oakley<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

This still has no effect on controls below the toolbar, and fails to demarcate text entry fields or the list view below.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Mario Guzmán<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\nEwww. When you enable reduce transparency in iOS accessibility settings, certain things are just so bad. Look how the back button touches the background border at the bottom now.<\/p>

\nSigh.\n<\/p>

\nApple really said “you don’t get world out class design if you enable any of the accessibility options.”\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Der Teilweise<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

It’s almost comical if you think about Apple marketing Liquid Glass to bring “more focus to content” and switch between [on<\/a>] and [off<\/a>].<\/p>\n

The later one shows more content or the same content bigger in almost all parts of the screen: Look at the calendar in the top left (even the iCal icon shows the more useful “Wed” instead of “Oct”) or the sidebar.<\/p>\n

Event the main content gets a few pixels extra space – obscured content behind the sidebar does not count IMHO.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n