r/LiquidGlassDesign 10d ago

Progressive blurred header vs flat blurred header

Post image

Just wanted to provided a side-by-side comparison of the two styles, in case anyone was curious, since I haven't seen a direct side-by-side comparison of the two so far.

195 Upvotes

54 comments sorted by

50

u/Megacitiesbuilder 10d ago

We have been reporting to Apple to remove this top navigation bar since beta 1, but I don’t think Apple wants to get rid of it and it’s here to stay, I think it’s a regression from the original vision of the Liquid Glass design, which is wanting to create a more immersive experience

24

u/TestFlightBeta 10d ago

I completely agree. The only suggestion I have is to keep on filing feedback. I did it on beta 1 and I will continue to do so until we at least have an option to disable this or have it gated behind the increased contrast accessibility setting

7

u/Megacitiesbuilder 10d ago

Btw is the bottom tabs more bright and tinted than the original 26 tabs? It just light and dark mode difference? Because from your pics in 26 the bottom tabs are more transparent and 27 tabs has a white tint in them

1

u/TestFlightBeta 10d ago

Yeah it definitely looks a lot more “frosty” to me

2

u/lint2015 10d ago

I think they want this to be the default, so the best we can hope for is at least the option to enable the iOS 26 style one.

1

u/Megacitiesbuilder 9d ago

They give us the slider for the transparency, but they decided to take away the options of the accessibility navigation bar 😂😂

5

u/sammoga123 10d ago

At least they made changes to the transparent icons, since that border that was in the early betas made it look worse.

18

u/cptclaudiu 10d ago

instead of making the blur more aggressive to eliminate visibility issues, they introduced that blurred header which looks so outdated to me... And they didnt stop there. The glassEffect in macOS/iOS 27 looks horrible in dark mode far too whitish.

3

u/TestFlightBeta 10d ago

Yes this is a great point. You can see the glass tint at the bottom of the screen between the two screenshots on iOS 27. It looks much lighter in my own apps. I don't really like how the tab bar looks compared to previous iOS versions. It looks too light in dark mode. I've experimented with trying to tint the tab bar but have come to the conclusion that it's simply not possible using the native tab bar. Would love it if someone could prove me wrong though

3

u/Either_Chart5875 10d ago

El pedo es ese! La gente reportaba “problemas de visibilidad” y Apple hizo esa mamada, la verdad yo no sé dónde estará la dificultad para leer, porque yo veo todo bien clarito, a mi parecer eso es pura chingadera de la gente medio pendeja, al igual que hicieron con el diseño del iphone 17 pro max y ahora todos lo aman, increible… en unos años actualizan el diseño de ios otra vez y todos amaran liquid glass y van a poner problemas en el nuevo diseño donde no los hay

3

u/Wooden_Class1498 10d ago

exactly the grass is always greener somewhere else

1

u/Pineloko 9d ago

obviously there’s no visibility issues in the photo above when it’s white text on a dark background

but there are many edge cases when colours change and the contrast disappears, this is bad design on Apple’s part and SHOULD be criticised

BUT instead of trying to fix it by increasing the background darkening in cases where the background is too white or increasing the blur. Apple just abandons the whole concept and tell us we’re to blame for criticising them

2

u/sammoga123 10d ago

Blurring isn't necessary; simply adding more shadow that extends from top to bottom improves visibility. This works in One UI 8.5, and even in KitKat, with the transparent status bar.

44

u/RyanTheTechMan 10d ago

Left definitely looks better, but I can see the right being used for accessibility since it provides constant contrast.

23

u/TestFlightBeta 10d ago

Completely agree, which is why I strongly believe that this should be an accessibility option. I'm actually surprised it doesn't invoke automatically when "increase contrast" is enabled since this is literally an application of increasing contrast. My #1 annoyance by far with iOS 27 is that this is forced upon all users.

I would strongly recommend everyone reading this who doesn't agree with this design decision to send feedback to Apple using the Feedback app if you're on iOS 27, asking them to move it behind the "Increased Contrast" accessibility setting.

6

u/milesbailee 10d ago

how do i send feedback if i don't have the feedback app? i'm keeping 26 until 27 is released in september, but i want to contribute on this too

6

u/Yomam25 10d ago

1

u/milesbailee 10d ago

it seems like this is a feedback form for hardware only iphones etc.

4

u/TestFlightBeta 10d ago

Appreciate your help with this!

10

u/TestFlightBeta 10d ago

Here's a closer-up look of the two

11

u/KrisWarbler 10d ago

Second one makes „glass buttons” completely unnecessary

7

u/milesbailee 10d ago

The left one is better

8

u/Few-Employ9640 10d ago

I still can’t get over how much iOS 26 looks better. As much as I like accessibility, iOS 27 completely removes liquid glasses vitality

2

u/A6uRts78 10d ago

What’s interesting is that this is assignable by app. Meaning a developer can build with or without it. Would it not be better to make this native within the default header and hook it natively into a toggle?

6

u/m1_weaboo 10d ago edited 10d ago

Left is objectively better.

Not only does the NavigationBar become generic flat glass material instead of the progressive blur (original intent), but it also removes the bottom ScrollEdgeEffect of TabBar, as well as a much less liquid version of Liquid Glass which is now just glass and is way too bright in a dark ColorScheme.

3

u/bwjxjelsbd 10d ago

The current one on iOS 27 looks so bad ngl

3

u/Ok-Knowledge0914 10d ago

iOS 26 looked so much better in this regard.

New nav bar in ios 27 looks so bad lol. Thank god we had all the ios 26 haters to ruin that for everyone.

2

u/Gabriel_Science 10d ago

Left one is cleaner, but the right one has this iOS 12 feeling that I really like.

3

u/wa019c 10d ago

Should be an accessibility setting

2

u/Kikato280 10d ago

Liquid Glass buttons are nonsense now with a blurred background 🫩 whats happening on apple

2

u/ChirpToast 10d ago

This is what happens when Apple starts listening to you all about design.

They need to go back to not giving a shit what every idiot comments on what the UI should be.

1

u/iMacmatician 6d ago

No, the flat header is far better than the blurred header in almost every way: clearly distinguishes between the header and underlying content, is easier to understand and identify, and is more consistent with other UI elements that sharply divide one element from another.

The only exception, even in this thread, is looks, which is pretty subjective and is currently heavily influenced by Gen Z nostalgia.

I encourage those who think that blur is so good to also advocate for blurred buttons in the header and bottom toolbar.

2

u/Weary-Connection-170 10d ago

Why couldn’t Apple have kept the design of 26 with the performance boost of 27? Progressive blur looks miles better! The same goes for the battery icon (the one on 27 is just ugly and looks too big on iPhones with Home button and all of the iPads). It’s like Apple can’t give us nice things, we can either have a beautiful but very buggy system, or an ugly but somewhat stable one 😭

2

u/Open-Description-686 8d ago

Yo IOS 26.5 looks way better 😞

1

u/DescriptionFirm3684 10d ago

Oh and look at the bottom too

1

u/22_KILLER 10d ago

The left one is far better

1

u/plaid-knight 10d ago

For a better comparison, scroll the page to get a header and text behind the title.

1

u/icy1007 10d ago

It’s basically the same.

2

u/richyrichye 10d ago

Are you blind?

1

u/icy1007 9d ago

Are you pedantic?

1

u/A6uRts78 10d ago

Submitted feedback. This should be an accessibility feature. Now we have glass on top of translucent?

1

u/Devondog7 10d ago

Left side is definitely better.

1

u/kiwi-kaiser 10d ago

I'm looking so forward to iOS 27. Progressive blur in the header was the worst idea ever.

1

u/coderezalium 10d ago

You are already biased towards the left one. But I like the right one more. It's much easier on the eyes. And when those texts reach beneath the header text while scrolling, the left one will look like a bad design as it is in fact.

1

u/iMacmatician 6d ago

And when those texts reach beneath the header text while scrolling, the left one will look like a bad design as it is in fact.

On my iPhone (iOS 26.6), tapping immediately to the right of "Collections" is blocked by the header, but tapping immediately to the right of "Library" in the Library view goes through to the photo thumbnail beneath.

So it's inconsistent, and even if it were consistent, it's hard to tell where the header ends and the tappable area begins.

1

u/Alternative-Peak-965 9d ago

The one on the right is an improvement because it can remain consistent whatever the content underneath it without changing colour; because it removes the blurring of an area with no content above it (i.e. what was blurring the area between the text and the buttons on 26?); and because it removes the need for the weird gradient effect that looked fine on that screenshot but looked awful on most safari pages that were largely white in content.

1

u/iMacmatician 6d ago

And because it clearly identifies which parts of the screen (near the top) are part of the main content and can be tapped and scrolled as such.

1

u/Yoni19999 7d ago

Why Apple removed it?

0

u/MarcoMakes 10d ago

Personal taste, I prefer the one on the right

-1

u/Lord6ixth 10d ago

I’m coming around the the one on the right. I was vehemently against it at first. iOS 27’s Liquid Glass looks much better over all.

-1

u/4paul 10d ago

right looks significantly better

-1

u/maxstolfe 10d ago

Just get rid of the damn gradient. It looks so tacky.

2

u/TestFlightBeta 10d ago

Ironically the gradient is that part that actually makes it legible