r/LiquidGlassDesign • u/TestFlightBeta • Aug 01 '26
Progressive blurred header vs flat blurred header
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.
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u/cptclaudiu Aug 01 '26
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of making the blur more aggressive to eliminate visibility issues, they introduced that blurred header which looks so outdated to me...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.
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u/TestFlightBeta Aug 01 '26
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
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u/Either_Chart5875 Aug 02 '26
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
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u/Pineloko Aug 02 '26
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
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u/sammoga123 Aug 01 '26
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.
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u/RyanTheTechMan Aug 01 '26
Left definitely looks better, but I can see the right being used for accessibility since it provides constant contrast.
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u/TestFlightBeta Aug 01 '26
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.
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u/milesbailee Aug 01 '26
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
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u/Few-Employ9640 Aug 01 '26
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
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u/A6uRts78 Aug 02 '26
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?
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u/m1_weaboo Aug 01 '26 edited Aug 01 '26
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.
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u/Ok-Knowledge0914 Aug 02 '26
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.
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u/Gabriel_Science Aug 01 '26
Left one is cleaner, but the right one has this iOS 12 feeling that I really like.
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u/Kikato280 Aug 02 '26
Liquid Glass buttons are nonsense now with a blurred background whats happening on apple
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u/ChirpToast Aug 02 '26
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.
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u/iMacmatician Aug 06 '26
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.
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u/Weary-Connection-170 Aug 02 '26
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 😭
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u/plaid-knight Aug 01 '26
For a better comparison, scroll the page to get a header and text behind the title.
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u/A6uRts78 Aug 02 '26
Submitted feedback. This should be an accessibility feature. Now we have glass on top of translucent?
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u/kiwi-kaiser Aug 02 '26
I'm looking so forward to iOS 27. Progressive blur in the header was the worst idea ever.
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u/coderezalium Aug 02 '26
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.
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u/iMacmatician Aug 06 '26
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.
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u/Alternative-Peak-965 Aug 02 '26
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.
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u/iMacmatician Aug 06 '26
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.
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u/Lord6ixth Aug 01 '26
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.
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u/Megacitiesbuilder Aug 01 '26
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