We are seeing some unexpected differences in the appearance of our App when run on a real iPhone (iOS 26 final release) compared to iOS 26 simulators in Xcode 26.
Our App run in the iOS 26 simulators (for any iPhone model we try) shows more Liquid Glass effects / artifacts than when run on real devices:
- In Light Mode buttons in the top Navigation Bar have a surrounding bubble on the simulators. (See attached screen shots.)
- A SwiftUI Picker element shows more elaborate Liquid Glass transition effects.
Also:
- some UI elements are positioned differently on the simulators compared to a real device. (See the search field under the header on the attached screen shots.)
The simulators have in the past been very faithful to the real devices.
Is there a setting that controls this behaviour?
For the simulator I have:
- macOS 26.0
- Xcode Version 26.0 (17A324)
- Simulator is iPhone 15 / iOS 26.0 (23A343)
Real device is:
- iPhone 16e iOS 26.0 (23A341)