Apple's 2025 slate of operating system major version releases (26) all incorporated a substantial shift to a new design language, called Liquid Glass. This is by far the most significant change to the look and feel of these operating systems since way back in iOS7.

While the actual operating systems themselves were immediately transformed on updating to one such version, third party apps follow a different script. Firstly, no apps are required to use Liquid Glass in any components they produce themselves and, secondly, adopting it for use in your app requires updating to use the latest versions of iOS/iPadOS in order to gain access to the underlying technology.

Whilst the initial global reaction to Liquid Glass covered a broad spectrum, we're seeing more and more apps adopt it, and users naturally becoming more comfortable with it as a result. We're thus planning to make the move to utilise Liquid Glass in early 2026. This document serves to outline our thinking and plans about what you can expect. Note that the designs shown here are not finalised and thus subject to change, but in most case are pretty close to what you can expect.

As you may know, one of our core practices in building Bolt has been to use system-provided components where possible. There are many reasons behind this: they're familiar to users, they're robust and well-tested and (we assume) Apple conducts substantial research into ensuring they're building what users want.

Some examples of system provided elements in bolt apps are the tab bar, navigation bar/toolbars and settings screen/s. Components we've build ourselves, such as the subscription screen or audio player have been designed in a way to look cohesive with the system-provided ones. 

What this means is that when we adopt Liquid Glass a lot of the app's components will automatically take on the new design. We'll still need to test they work across our customer's diverse use cases but in general we can assume they'll work as expected. Other components have been redesigned by us to remain consistent and, indeed, be elevated beyond their current UI.

Key points

1. This won't be a choice you need to make. The entire platform on iOS will get Liquid Glass and all apps that update to the Bolt version that introduces it will utilise Liquid Glass everywhere.
2. This will not change for users on iOS versions below 26. Their apps will continue to have the current UI experience and function as they do right now
3. We have no plans to “fake” Liquid Glass on Android. We're in the process of adopting the much more iterative Material 3 Expressive design language. This does mean that your Bolt apps are going to look more different across platforms than they have in the past, but we believe this is a good thing, they'll feel more at home on each platform rather than trying to fit in on both with one design.

What you (don't) need to do

• Here’s what to expect when Liquid Glass is introduced:
• No manual redesign required — system components will update automatically when your app moves to iOS 26.
• Bolt custom components (e.g. subscription screens, audio player) will be upgraded by our team to align with Liquid Glass.
• Brand theming remains supported, although fewer UI elements are customisable (for example, tab bar colours will no longer be brandable).
• If you use custom icons or colours, you may want to review how they appear within the new, lighter system UI.

You don’t need to redesign your timeline cards or article templates for your app to feel in keeping with Liquid Glass. These components are primarily content-focused and already sit comfortably within the new design language.

Perhaps the most important thing to understand about Liquid Glass is that there's effectively less stuff. Components like tab bars take up less space and the entire language is designed to give your content more space to shine. One potential drawback is that this reduces the amount of app stuff that needs to be themed to your brand guidelines. This is clearer in the designs in this doc. Whilst this might initially feel like a step back, Apple's guidance is essentially that users aren't coming to your app to look at tab bars, they're coming to be immersed in your content and storytelling. We're still ensuring that everything that can be themable will be so you will still have some tools to play with. Of course we'll also be updating Pugpig Design Kit accordingly.

Things to consider

While you won't need to do any significant work to prepare for Liquid Glass, there are a few things worth reviewing to ensure your app looks its best.

Tab bar icons

The Liquid Glass tab bar has a translucent, floating appearance, which means the background behind your icons is now glass rather than a solid brand colour. Because of this, filled (solid) icons work significantly better than outline icons in this context. If your tab bar icons are currently outline-style, we'd recommend swapping them for filled equivalents. This is the single most impactful thing you can do.

Colours

With the new translucent UI, colours behave differently to how they did on a flat background. We'd recommend reviewing:

• Icon tints on the tab bar and toolbar - check these look clear and distinct against the glass background
• Active/selected state colours - these should still be set to your primary brand colour and will continue to apply

Note that the tab bar background colour is no longer configurable. Apple controls this as part of the system design. This is intentional and consistent with how all iOS 26 apps behave.

Fonts

Your existing font configuration will carry over as is. Liquid Glass doesn't change font rendering, but because the overall UI is lighter and more open, bold and well-weighted fonts tend to work best and be more legible. If your app uses a very light font weight, it's worth checking legibility in the new environment.

Accessibility

Some users will have Reduce Transparency enabled (Settings → Accessibility → Display & Text Size) which softens the glass effect across the whole iOS system. Your Bolt app will respond to this setting automatically and will continue to look and behave as expected.

Liquid Glass UI Update Summary

If you have any questions or thoughts about this change, don't hesitate to get in touch with your CSM.