Full transcript of “iPadOS 26 - Liquid Glass?”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:01 [Music] I immediately downloaded the developer beta version of iPad OS 26 when it first came out. I was genuinely excited for all the promised improvements. Now, this is my third video in a row on iPad OS 26, and that's mainly because there are so many changes this go around. My last two videos covered various new features that I think will really move the iPad forward. And by really move it forward, I mean, you know, act much more like a
0:47 computer, allowing it to be a productivity machine rather than just a content consumption device. I won't say I've avoided it, but the one thing I've not really mentioned is the new look Apple is calling liquid glass. I have a few thoughts. Hi, my name is Rich. I make easy to follow videos on how to use your iPad and iPhone without going nuts. And frankly, a big part of the not going nuts requires stripping away a lot of the visual clutter that I think makes using the iPad more difficult. I'm all about clean interfaces and screens that make using the iPad a joy rather than a frustrating chore. So, like my last two videos on iPad OS 26, this video is not really a how-to video as much as a showand tell. I thought I'd take a few
1:33 minutes and cover the iPad's new look and what Apple calls liquid glass. It's a pretty bold change and one that frankly I'm undecided about, but I know it's early in the beta cycle, so what we cover today will only be improved over time. By the way, many of you have asked about the new version being called iPad OS 26. You probably have iPad OS 18 or even an older version on your iPad. Apple decided to rename all of their operating systems to the year they'll mainly be used in. You know, kind of like cars. All the 2026 models will be coming out this fall, just like this new operating system. So, the question for me about Liquid Glass is, is this an improvement or just a change? And I think the best way to determine that is to lay two iPads side by side and take a
2:19 look. One with iPad OS 18 and one with iPad OS 26. After that, you can be the judge. Okay, let's jump in. Okay, I have two iPads side by side. This one with the blue screen is iPad OS 18. This one with a purple screen is iPad OS 26. And the first thing you'll notice is I have the uh icons set to large. So, they're large here and they're large here, but they're two different sizes. So, I don't know if large is not working on iPad OS 26 or not, but that's something that I hope will change on the new version to match the old version because I do like the larger icons. But, let's take a look at some of the changes here. I'm going to tap and hold on both of these. And if
3:05 we go to up to edit, you'll notice even the the word edit, I mean the little icon up here has changed. The liquid glass has kind of a a see-through look to it with a perimeter around it. And then the word edit up here is just a with a gray background. Honestly, I can actually see the older version better than I can see that version, but I guess it's just a matter of taste. that that's sort of the design language that runs through everything. But if we tap and hold and I go on edit, you'll see some changes right away. For one thing, you'll see that we have add widget, customize, and edit pages. And over here, we have add widget, customize, edit wallpaper, and edit
3:52 pages. So, they've added some new functionality here by allowing you to edit the wallpaper, and that's what it comes down to. Now, if we go to add a widget, I think both of them look pretty much the same. I can't really tell that much of a difference in the two. All of that kind of looks the same. So, I don't think there's big changes there with liquid glass. If we go back to edit again and we tap on customize, here's where you'll begin to see some changes. So down here you have the choice of choosing light or dark icons, whether they change automatically, whether they're tinted, and whether
4:37 they're small or large. Over here, it's renamed, but it's essentially the same thing. You get default, which is light. You get dark, and then you get a new something here, which is clear. That's new. And then tinted you get, and this is something that I think is an improvement here. If you choose dark, you can choose always or auto. So, if it's during the daytime, uh maybe it it switches to the lighter icons or if you leave it on always, it always goes dark. And again, you'll notice you've got a little sun icon right here that you can tap on to make the screen just a tad brighter. The same as you have over here. If you notice when we go small over here, you'll see that the icons are about the same size as large. Here, you
5:25 don't have uh the word large or small. You just have a larger icon and a smaller icon. And the one that's colored in is the one that's chosen. So, if you'll notice, I've got a little square, a larger square that's colored in. If I tap on that now, the little one. But, you didn't see anything change here. At least I didn't. So, I don't think that's working yet. So hopefully Apple will get that fixed and we'll be able to turn those uh icons into large icons like over here. I think that's just something that they need to work on. Um, another thing you can tell is in the dock you have sort of a dark uh background around the icons. Here it's more transparent. You have what looks like a little shimmer of glass
6:11 around the outside. But I'm not sure which one I like the most. I I like both of them honestly. But I guess I can see the old version a little bit better than maybe the new version just because of the darker background. Again, if we tap and we hold on it and we go to edit, we can go to edit pages. And here you can do the same thing over here. So nothing there has changed. But now with Liquid Glass and iPad OS 26, you can now go in and actually edit the wallpaper. So here is a way to do that. You can change the color of it gradient. You can choose a photo, something like that if you wanted to.
6:56 And that's a quick way over on iPad OS 18. You have to swipe down from the top. You have to press. You have to go to customize. You have to tap on the lock screen and then you can begin making changes to it. Here you can do it directly from the home screen. Those are just a couple of the changes on the home screen, but you can see how Liquid Glass affects the way the iPad looks. Next thing I want to talk about is just app comparison. So, we've taken a look at the home screen, but let's just take a look at some of the apps. I'm just going to open up calendar on both of them. So, we'll open up the calendar. And here you can begin to see some differences too, although they're sort of subtle. Uh up here you have sort of rounded corners around the day, week,
7:43 month, and year. Uh up here, it's a little more squared off. Uh if you'll notice, the icons are red over here, and over here the icons are white. Um, I'm just going to be honest with you. I can see things on the old version a little bit better than I can see things on the new version, but that's just the way it is. But that's an example of what you see in calendar. Likewise, if you go into Apple Notes, you can see some changes here too. Here you have all sort of white icons. That's a part of the new liquid glass look. Again, you see um the rounded corners and the things that they've changed over here. And I can actually see this a
8:28 little better than I can see this over here. And I can see this a little better than I can see this. So, for me, it's a net positive on Apple Notes and the way they've done that. And it's just going to vary between apps uh how it looks. You know, if we pull up Safari here and Safari here, we've got different backgrounds, but they look essentially the same. The colors and the things are a little bit different, laid out just a little bit different, but I don't see a huge difference right there. Opening up photos, you can see if we open up the same photo here in iPad OS 18, the photo is actually a little bit smaller. Here you get a full screen version of the photo with other photos sort of laid on
9:14 top. Here they've made room down here. And if you'll notice, you have your icons to edit and share and stuff like that down here and up here. U they're up at the top on iPad OS 26 with liquid glass. Again, I actually prefer this version over this version. It gives me a little bit better view of what I'm looking at and what I'm editing. I think that is a good change. I think in the end it's just going to come down to each application, how Apple tweaks it to fit into their new design language. But overall, so far I think it's so good. So where things began to fall down for me a little bit was with control center. If you slide down on the old version of control center, you see that. If you slide down with the new version of
9:59 control center, you see that. And I don't know, maybe my eyes are just getting old, but the background, you know, again, as you're if you're thinking of liquid glass, you're looking through glass, so it's tinted the color uh of what's beneath it. And that's just harder to see in my mind than that. And Apple has tried to fix that in the most recent version uh of the of the beta software. If you go into settings and you go into accessibility and you go into display and text size, you can turn on reduce transparency. And now when you slide down, you see it a little bit better. Let me just get back up here. And you can see how that's
10:45 a hair better. Not a lot better. Not as good as this to me, but it is a little bit better. Likewise, another feature that they have in here is to increase contrast. And when you tap on that, you get a line around that, a line around various things, various objects on the page. If you go over to this and you tap on increase contrast, you'll notice it just increased the contrast. You can see it change ever so subtly there. Hopefully you can see that on camera just a little bit as I go back and forth, toggle back and forth, but it doesn't put a line around it over here. It actually puts a line around it. And I think that's pretty good. And that line
11:33 carries into a lot of different things. Um, I was looking at the music app. It put a box around everything on the left hand side. And I like that. I like that look a lot. That's a little bit easier on the eyes. um over here in Apple Notes, same thing right there. So, it's a good change that they've made in the settings, but that's something that you'd have to dig down to find. And I'm not sure increase contrast is a good clue that by tapping that you get a box around various elements on the screen. So, those are just some subtle differences between liquid glass. All in all, there's not a whole lot to
12:19 talk about here just yet because it's just being cooked, but I think Apple is working on and trying to come up with a new design language to bring some freshness back to the iPad. For me though, the jury is still out. So, I'd really like to know what you think. Be sure to leave a comment below. For me, I remain a bit skeptical whether these changes are actually beneficial, but as I said, this is early in the release cycle, so I don't want to go too hard until the cake is finally baked. Okay, that's it for today. Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you in the next video.
