Recommended public approach for a glass-like effect on iOS 16–25.

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Hello, we are updating our application to adopt the new Liquid Glass design introduced in iOS 26 with UIGlassEffect and UIGlassContainerEffect. Since our minimum supported version is iOS 16, we'd like to provide a visually similar effect on earlier iOS versions using only public APIs. Could you please advise the recommended App Store–compliant approach? In particular: is there any public API on iOS 16–25 that provides a system glass effect comparable to UIGlassEffect? If not, is the recommended fallback to use UIVisualEffectView with UI BlurEffect, plus custom borders and decoration? Would a custom implementation using Metal or Core Image, relying only on public APIs and application-owned content (for example, our chat wallpaper), be acceptable for App Store distribution if it is used solely to achieve a visually similar appearance? Are there any public APIs, sample code, or best practices that Apple recommends for approximating the Liquid Glass look on iOS 16–25 without private APIs? Our goal is to fully comply with App Store Review Guideline 2.5.1 and ensure the approach we choose follows Apple's recommendations. thank you

We understand that responses on the Developer Forums do not constitute formal App Review pre-approval. We are specifically seeking guidance on the recommended use of public APIs and any known compliance concerns.

Answer 1

DTS Engineer OP

Apple

1h

Thanks for the post.

Thanks for your post, but you are going to 16 to 25? You means 26? That’s a typo?

UIGlassEffect, UIGlassContainerEffect, and the SwiftUI glassEffect(_:in:) modifier was introduced in iOS 26 and have no back-ported equivalent.

Please read the Adoption Liquid Glass guide at https://developer.apple.com/documentation/technologyoverviews/adopting-liquid-glass it will walk you through all the styles and changes

You’ll find the part about supporting previous versions Meet Liquid Glass - WWDC25 - Videos

https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2025/102/

if #available(iOS 26, *) {
    view.backgroundConfiguration = ... // or use UIGlassEffect / glassEffect(...)
} else {
    let blur = UIVisualEffectView(effect: UIBlurEffect(style: .systemThinMaterial))
	//UIBlurEffect: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uiblureffect

    // custom border/shadow layers here
   // UIVibrancyEffect.init(blurEffect:): https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uivibrancyeffect/init(blureffect:)
   //UIVibrancyEffect.init(forBlurEffect:style:): https://developer.apple.com/documentation/uikit/uivibrancyeffect/init(forblureffect:style:)

}

Building your own blur/refraction/specular-highlight visual effect using Metal shaders or Core Image filters these are fully public APIs intended for exactly this kind of visual processing, this is a completely normal use case for Core Image/Metal and doesn't touch anything private.

I would recommend to go over this links when working with Liquid Glass.

Applying Liquid Glass to custom views: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swiftui/applying-liquid-glass-to-custom-views
glassEffect(:in:): https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swiftui/view/glasseffect(:in:)
GlassEffectTransition: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/swiftui/glasseffecttransition

Hope this helps

Albert  WWDR