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In macOS 26 Betas 1–3, the system applied an automatic dark-mode fallback for app icons. This ensured consistency across the Dock and Finder even when developers hadn’t provided dark assets.
Since Beta 4, this fallback was removed. As of Beta 7, icons now rely entirely on developer-updated assets. The result is mixed light and dark icons in the Dock, breaking visual consistency and making app recognition slower in dark mode.
Observed behavior:
• Icons without dark assets are displayed in their original light version.
• Some apps (e.g. Final Cut Pro) show a gray border treatment that feels inconsistent with the rest of the UI.
• The fallback applied in Betas 1–3 is completely absent.
Expected behavior:
System should provide a fallback rendering until developers supply proper dark assets, or offer a toggle in System Settings → Appearance (e.g. “Force Dark Icons”).
This is still present in Beta 7. Is there any plan to restore the fallback mechanism or provide a user option?
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RSS for tagExplore the art and science of app design. Discuss user interface (UI) design principles, user experience (UX) best practices, and share design resources and inspiration.
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Hello,
I used icon composer to create an icon for my Mac OS app and it seemed to have worked. I see the app icon everywhere except for window expose or stage manager.
Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated!
At WWDC25 we launched a new type of Lab event for the developer community - Group Labs. A Group Lab is a panel Q&A designed for a large audience of developers. Group Labs are a unique opportunity for the community to submit questions directly to a panel of Apple engineers and designers. Here are the highlights from the WWDC25 Group Lab for Design.
Can you expand on how Liquid Glass helps with navigation and focus in the UI?
Liquid Glass clarifies the navigation layer by introducing a single, floating pane that acts as the primary navigation area. Buttons within this pane seamlessly morph as you move between sections, and controls can temporarily lift into the glass surface. While avoiding excessive use of glass (like layering glass on glass), this approach simplifies navigation and strengthens the connection between menus, alerts, and the elements that trigger them.
What should I do with customized bars that I might have in my app?
Reconsider the content and behavior of customized bars. Evaluate whether you need all the buttons and whether a menu might be a better solution. Instead of relying on background colors or styling, express hierarchy through layout and grouping. This is a good opportunity to adopt the new design language and simplify your interface.
What are scroll edge effects, and what options do we have for them?
Scroll edge effects enhance legibility in controls by lifting interactive elements and separating them from the background. There are two types: a soft edge effect (a subtle blur) and a hard edge effect (a more defined boundary for high-legibility areas like column sorting). Scroll edge effects are designed to work seamlessly with Liquid Glass, allowing content to feel expansive while ensuring controls and titles remain legible.
How can we ensure or improve accessibility using Liquid Glass?
Legibility is a priority, and refinements are ongoing throughout the betas. Liquid Glass adapts well to accessibility settings like Reduce Transparency, Increase Contrast, and Reduce Motion. There are two variants of glass: regular glass, designed to be legible by default, and clear glass, used in places like AVKit, which requires more care to ensure legibility. Use color contrast tools to ensure contrast ratios are met. The Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) are a living document offering best practices. The colors and materials pages are key resources.
Do you have any recommendations for convincing designers concerned with consistency across Android and Web to use Liquid Glass?
Start small and focus on high-utility controls that don't significantly impact brand experience. Native controls offer familiarity and predictability to users. Using the native controls makes sure your app feels at home on the device. Using native frameworks provides built-in accessibility support (dynamic type, reduce transparency, increase contrast). Native controls come with built-in behaviors and interactions.
Can ScrollViews include Liquid Glass within them?
You can technically put a glass layer inside a scroll view, but it can feel heavy and doesn't align with the system's intention for Liquid Glass to serve as a fixed layer. Think of the content layer as the scrolling layer, and the navigational layer as the one using Liquid Glass. If there is glass on the content layer it will collide into the navigational layer.
What core design philosophy guided the direction of iOS 26, beyond the goal of unification?
The core design philosophy involved blurring the line between hardware and software, separating UI and navigation elements from content, making apps adaptable across window sizes, and combining playfulness with sophistication. It was about making the UI feel at home on rounded screens.
Can we layer Liquid Glass elements on top of each other?
Avoid layering Liquid Glass elements directly on top of each other, as it creates unnecessary visual complexity. The system will automatically convert nested glass elements to a vibrant fill style. Use vibrant fills and labels to show control shapes and ensure legibility. Opaque grays should be avoided in favor of vibrant colors, which will multiply with the backgrounds correctly.
What will happen to apps that use custom components? Should they be adapted to the new design within the next year?
The more native components you use, the more things happen for free. Standard components will be upgraded automatically. Look out for any customizations that might clash. Think about what is the minimum viable change, where your app still feels and looks very similar to what it did. Prioritize changes in core workflows and navigational areas. There are a number of benefits to using native components including user familiarity, built-in accessibility support, and built-in behaviors and interactions.
Will Apple be releasing Figma design templates?
Sketch kits were published on Monday and can be referenced. The goal is to ensure the resources are well-organized, well-named, and easy to use. It's a high priority.
I can't find any documentation on design guidelines for "Login with Game Center" button. My app allows users to "Play as Guest" or "Login with Game Center". Since Apple provides somewhat strict guidelines for designing "Sign in with Apple" button, i was wondering how to design the button for Game Center login. Should i use Game Center icon. And will Apple review reject this?
Hi guys, I've exported the images with transparency for a Vision OS icon but I still keep getting a weird shadow on the top of the icon when I focus on it.
Do you guys had this issue before?
Hi,
Just want to check is there a requirement for Apple that for App Digital Wallet provisioning that Apple Pay button is not more than 2 taps away from Home Screen?
The newest iOS 26 CarPlay upgrade seems more like a downgrade with vehicles from Subaru with the 11.6 inch vertical infotainment display.
Such a big screen, but only one widget shows at a time additionally, prior to this iOS update we had three lines of apps on the main page now only two.
also to be noted album art size on all music streaming and podcast apps is extremely small about half the size of what it originally was prior to this update
yes, I tried turning on and off the screen optimization setting and CarPlay. It did not do anything.
Pleeease for the love of any and all things holy, I would really be eternally grateful if Apple decided to release an update that allows users to return to the old the photos app.
Phones and technology are already overstimulating, and by making the photos app one continuous page it is emulating a social media app. The continuous page makes it much more overwhelming and confusing to find photos.
Change and innovation is great! There are some changes that I enjoy from the ios 18 update, such as the little text enhancers that can emphasize certain words. However, the photos app was fine the way it was. If anything, Apple should allow the PAYING customers to choose how they would like their photos app (keeping the customizable option).
also my battery which is normally super great is suddenly not as efficient…reminiscent of past devices I’ve had from Apple.
Hi everyone,
I’m currently testing iOS 26 on my iPhone as part of the developer program. According to Apple’s documentation and demo materials, a new screenshot animation was introduced in this version. However, when I take a screenshot on my device, the animation remains the same as in previous iOS versions.
I’ve double-checked that I’m running the correct build of iOS 26, and I haven’t found any settings that might enable or disable this feature.
Is anyone else experiencing the same issue? Could this new animation be device-specific, region-limited, or require additional configuration?
Any insight would be appreciated!
Thanks in advance,
Alonso Rivera
I am trying to resize a Window Form after it loads and have done quite a bit of searching for code to do it.
Here is one code snippet that works to size the form during the design phase.
self.view.window?.contentMinSize = CGSize(width: 1100, height: 310)
I have tried code like below to increase the window size after the Form loads
if let myWindow = self.view.window ?? NSApplication.shared.mainWindow
{
// Increase window size and position after it loads
let newRect = NSRect(x: 100, y: 100, width: 1400, height: 900)
}
It seems that this code not only changes the Form size after loading, but also changes the size of the Form in Main.swift, which is something I don't want.
I read elsewhere that I had to disable constraints to resize the Form, so I tried code below.
let tableView = NSTableView()
tableView.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
let newRect = NSRect(x: 100, y: 0, width: 1100, height: 600)
myWindow?.setFrame(newRect, display: true)
That code did not seem to do anything as well.
Also, the Form displays in the lower left of the screen.
Note that main reason I want to resize the Form after loading is to keep it smaller during design development. The same goes for the NSTableView, which I have not gotten to yet.
In my application, I am creating a simple NSMenu with NSMenuItems. The title of the NSMenuItems are adapted to the system language. So, when the system language is an RTL language (right to left), I want my NSMenuItem to be aligned at the right.
I can't see anyone talking about this, or any option that could make me achieve that easily.
NSMenuItem* item1;
NSMenuItem* item2;
item1 = [[NSMenuItem alloc] init];
item2 = [[NSMenuItem alloc] init];
item1.title = "foo";
item2.title = "bar";
item1.action = @selector(fooAction);
item2.action = @selector(barAction);
NSMenu *menu = [[NSMenu alloc] init];
[menu addItem:item1];
[menu addItem:item2];
Hello everyone,
I'm very impressed with the Liquid Glass design introduced in iOS 26, especially how native app icons automatically adapt to the system's display mode (dark or light).
This brings me to a question: Is it possible to make a website shortcut icon created via Safari's "Add to Home Screen" feature adapt to Dark Mode in the same way?
For native apps, we can use tools like Icon Composer and asset catalogs (Assets.xcassets) to provide different icons for each mode. It would be a huge improvement for web clips if we could achieve the same with existing web technologies like apple-touch-icon or the Web App Manifest.
If anyone has figured out a way to do this, I would greatly appreciate it if you could share your knowledge.
Thanks in advance!
日本語の原文:
iOS 26から導入されたLiquid Glassデザインについて。
ネイティブアプリのアイコンがシステムの表示モード(ダークモード/ライトモード)に合わせて自動で最適化されるようになりました。
そこで疑問に思ったのですが、Safariから「ホーム画面に追加」機能を使って作成するWebサイトのショートカットアイコンは、ネイティブアプリと同じようにダークモードに対応できないのでしょうか?
ネイティブアプリの場合は、Icon Composerなどのツールでアセットカタログ(Assets.xcassets)を使い、モードごとのアイコンを用意できますよね。
Web側でも、apple-touch-iconやWeb App Manifestといった既存の仕組みを使って、アイコンを動的に切り替えられるようになると、Webクリップの使い勝手がさらに向上すると思うのですが
もし、すでに何らかの方法で対応されている方がいらっしゃれば、ぜひその知見を共有していただけると嬉しいです。
Can I use the “apple.intelligence” SF symbol to refer to the functionality of Foundation Models frameworks within my app, or does it specifically refer to Apple Intelligence and not a feature of my own creation that is built upon Apple Intelligence?
Hello Apple Developer Support,
We initially uploaded our INRx App on a different Apple Developer account for internal testing purposes.
Now, we would like to publish the same app under a new Apple Developer account for production, but we're currently facing a design-related rejection during the review process.
We believe the app meets all guidelines, and there were no design issues flagged previously when submitted from the testing account.
Could you please help us understand:
Why the same app is now being rejected for design issues?
Is there a way to resolve this while moving the app to the new account?
Any advice or clarification would be greatly appreciated so we can successfully proceed with publishing.
Thank you!
Hi everyone,
I've noticed that on iOS 26 beta 1 through beta 4, when using a List with the .plain style, the section header overlaps with the cell content below it, as there is no background for the header. This creates a poor visual experience.
Additionally, when using NavigationSplitView on iPad, the second column's list always shows this issue.
Is this an intentional design change, or just a temporary issue? I haven't found a good workaround so far.
Thanks!
FB19066489
let glassView = UIVisualEffectView(effect: UIGlassEffect(style: .clear))
glassView.frame = CGRect(x: 100, y: 200, width: 200, height: 400)
self.view.addSubview(glassView)
Though UIGlassEffect has two variants: .regular and .clear, even the clear one has some blur on the background.
Is there a way to do get absolute no blur? Edges still have the glass effect.
Apple does this in two places:
Camera app:
Text magnifier:
Hi everyone 👋 I’m a new iOS developer working on my first app and I’ve run into a frustrating visual bug involving my app icon during the launch/close transition.
Issue:
When I use Icon Composer (the new tool introduced for iOS 26) to generate my app icon, I consistently see a thin white border or “fringe” around the icon only during the transition animation (when the app opens or closes). It disappears once the animation ends.
What I tested and confirmed:
• I exported the exact same design directly from Adobe Illustrator as a 1024×1024 PNG, fully opaque, RGB color mode, background color filling the entire canvas (no transparency, no borders, no rounded corners).
• When I place that exported PNG directly into the AppIcon asset catalog in Xcode, the icon renders perfectly — no white fringe appears, just a slightly darker shade of blue during transitions (expected and acceptable).
• But when I generate the icon using Icon Composer, the white edge always appears, even if I disable effects, use full coverage layers, or only keep a flat color layer.
Notes:
• Tested on iOS 26 (latest beta) using Xcode 16.
• The issue seems specific to Icon Composer’s export format or metadata — maybe it’s not stripping alpha correctly or something related to the squircle mask?
• I followed all recommended specs: 1024×1024 px, PNG, sRGB, no transparency, exported from Illustrator at 72ppi with solid background.
Even tested without the logo, just the icon made with icon composer
Is anyone else experiencing this issue with Icon Composer exports?
Is there an official recommendation to avoid this during transitions or should I simply avoid Icon Composer for production icons for now and stick with Illustrator / Figma exports?
Thanks so much
Here’s a visual example:
Feedback id: FB16140301
Below are the steps to reproduce the bug in Contacts app.
Open Contacts app.
Now search for a contact and didSelect that contact.
Now slightly hold swipe right(from view's center leading position) as to pop the view but not fully swipe, now release the finger and you can see the back nav bar button missing and tapping the back button position also doesn't perform dismiss action.
Now do fully swipe from left to right to dismiss(pop) current view.
Here you can see the search bar missing.-> That's the bug.
Hi,
Anybody knows will this occurs when using navigationStack at iOS 18.3? The navigationStack not stay at safeareas
the code as simple as that:
NavigationStack(path: $navManager.path) {
VStack {
Text("Hello")
}
.navigationDestination(for: Route.self) { route in
switch route {
....
}
}
}
.environmentObject(navManager)
.environment(logic)
Is it possible to use the new variable draw feature for a custom SF Symbol without it leaving the background behind it when it is not drawn?
I am trying to make a tally icon that is drawn with the variable draw, but it doesn't look good if the tally is visible in the background before it is drawn.