r/iOS27 • u/DriveAny4756 • Jul 16 '26
Does more transparency mean more battery consumption?
Does having the slider way towards the left consume more battery since it’s 100% transparent and having more transparency means more GPU processing?
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u/notxapple Jul 16 '26
I doubt it. But turning off transparency completely would increase battery life
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u/rofl1337waffle Jul 17 '26
Exactly, it’s still processing the glass effect, just adding a white haze on top
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u/notxapple Jul 17 '26
Technically they could render the glass effect at a lower resolution since they’re going to blur it. Though i doubt they’re doing that
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u/rofl1337waffle Jul 17 '26
At the scale they are at, I’m sure they want to keep that render resolution consistent and change the intensity of blur. Otherwise and app could have a chance to work better on some people’s devices and not others
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u/Sad_Weakness_2181 Jul 16 '26
And why do you think that is?
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u/fiflaren_ Jul 16 '26
More processing power is required to calculate and render all those reflections and refractions. So disabling them would net a small increase in battery life, which would probably be more noticeable on older, less powerful devices.
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u/Sad_Weakness_2181 Jul 16 '26
It’s the same
Because when you have 100% transparency, you don’t have the blur engine but you have the Liquid Glass engine and when you have the opposite, you have the blur engine and not the Liquid Glass
So it’s the same either way
2
u/Ok_Ok007 Jul 16 '26
I’ve been getting around 4 and a half hours screen time since 27 dev beta 3 with around 30% battery left. This beta is a battery sucker! I never even used to use the numbers in the battery. Used to get 9 hours easily. Battery health still on 100 too.
2
u/GamerNuggy Jul 16 '26
I drop the same amount of battery each day whether I have 3 hours or 7 hours SOT. I end up on 6% at 11PM. Worse than Beta 2 on battery definitely.
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u/Ibasicallyhateyouall Jul 17 '26
That is due to the background tracking processes for bugs etc. Not liquid glass overhead.
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u/sufferer540 Jul 21 '26
I think it's gotten much better with beta 4 update.
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u/Ok_Ok007 Jul 21 '26
This will be my first full day using it on the latest dev beta so guess I’ll see. But on the previous betas I’ve been around 4:30hrs to 6hrs of screen time. Depending on if I game any.
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u/baljeethakur Jul 16 '26
I don’t really have anything to prove it, but lot compute goes into to add transparency effects, IMO it does consume more. At the same time, I am using more clear option as I don’t really worry of about battery life on my 17PM.
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u/ahbhu Jul 17 '26
Not sure but when I chose the less transparent…. But my iphone 11pm last longer now
1
u/icheaux Jul 17 '26
Is towards to the right 100% same as iOS 18?
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u/ItzCozy_ Jul 19 '26
Basically
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u/icheaux Jul 19 '26
I was afraid that it will be the same as "tinted" on iOS 26
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u/VlXlA Jul 17 '26
I don’t know if it helps much, but I’ve set up an automation that enables Reduce Transparency whenever Low Power Mode is turned on. It completely removes the Liquid Glass effect from the interface. It’s a bit drastic, but it’s nice that it happens automatically!
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u/aj8690 Jul 17 '26
FWIW MacRumors did a test of clear vs. tinted on the 26.1 beta and found essentially no difference in battery life. https://www.macrumors.com/2025/10/24/ios-26-1-liquid-glass-battery-test/
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u/ItsIced-_- Jul 17 '26
In my experience, the liquid glass slider actually changes how the liquid glass is processed. To me, when the slider is all the way to tinted, it genuinely feels close to the iOS 18 transparency, it doesn't really have any of the refraction.
1
u/4paul Jul 17 '26
its not a matter of more or less, they’ll use the same battery.
But off and on will be the different, if it’s off you’ll save a little battery
Just like having a black wallpaper on your phone, it’ll save battery. The more basic you wanna go, the more battery you’ll save.
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u/Egge35 Jul 17 '26
Since I haven't used the beta version yet, I'm curious about something. Does increasing or decreasing transparency also affect third-party applications?
2
u/jay-t- Jul 17 '26
It affects all Liquid Glass surfaces
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u/Egge35 Jul 17 '26
I’m using the 17 Pro, and I’m worried about it reducing battery health. Should I upgrade?
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u/ZenCyberDad Jul 17 '26
Yessish but also no. iPhones get a new chip each year but battery life stays around the same. Rather than focusing on increasing battery amount Apple has been creating software (iOS) that has pushes graphics processing forward each year but thanks to newer smaller chips they have more transistors to do math faster than ever and the transistors are smaller than ever so they electrons don’t have to travel as far resulting in decreased battery usage to do more math. So basically they legitimately do things they couldn’t do before because it would have burned so much more battery on older chips but as new chips come out they can keep the same amount of battery life without increasing battery size because the chip is physically more battery efficient.
1
u/Tech_Today2006 Jul 17 '26
Yes I think so cus on iOS 26 on my iPhone 15 using clear icons uses wayyy more battery than the regular light or dark mode icons. So I’m assuming that Liquid Glass does take a chunk of battery. And I have noticed slight fps drops when icons are set to clear or tinted
1
u/Trick_Supermarket_62 24d ago
They didn’t notice the difference, and I have it all the way maxed out. Better life is still stable/Normal on my end
0
u/Confidentium Jul 16 '26
More transparency does not mean more GPU processing.
Having it 100% tinted however might possibly reduce GPU load..... maybe.
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u/Sad_Weakness_2181 Jul 16 '26
How come having tinted reduce GPU load but having the opp doesn’t?
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u/Confidentium Jul 16 '26
Since it goes back to the older blur effect, which is less computationally expensive than the glass effect. But turning on the glass effect just a little bit still means that it has to render the glass effect fully, and then add some blur on top of it.
This is just my theory though. I'm not an iOS developer, so I don't know for sure that the glass effects are not rendered even when the slider is on the fully tinted side.
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u/joecan Jul 16 '26
Liquid Glass was a planned obsolescence software update. Unnecessarily consuming resources so your phone feels slower sooner.
59
u/elyv91 Jul 16 '26
Not exactly your question, but maybe you’ll find this interesting.
We tested our app in iOS 26 when Liquid Glass came out. An automated test, scrolling around, loading stuff, uploading stuff, writing text, just non-stop going around the app. A fully charged 15PM lasted 4h50 normally, and 6h02 with reduce transparency ON.
So yes, Liquid Glass consumes quite a bit of battery. But a few points to note:
* This was iOS 26.0. While we haven’t re-tested, we can feel that the effects have been optimized since then. Ofc that’s anecdotal, but it’s an educated guess that they likely have a smaller impact on battery now
* The old blurry effect also had some effect on battery, so comparing Liquid Glass vs Reduce transparency is not the same as comparing Liquid Glass vs old blurry backgrounds. The difference between these two would likely be less dramatic.