iOS 26.1 allows you to lower the transparency of liquid glass

Apple’s latest iOS update, available to eligible devices starting Monday, doesn’t introduce any major features, but it does add one highly requested tweak. It has the ability to change the transparency of a translucent liquid glass design.

If you don’t like the look of iOS 26, all you can do so far is lower the transparency in your accessibility settings, which pretty much turns off the liquid glass overlay. iOS 26.1 adds a new menu to maintain appearance while increasing opacity.

You can go to (Settings) > (Display & Brightness) > (Liquid Glass) and select the original “Clear” option or the more opaque “Tinted” option. You can also see a preview of each option as you select it.

Liquid glass was the company’s biggest design overhaul since moving to a flat design in 2013, but like most changes of this magnitude and importance, not everyone is on board.

Some said the more translucent design made various parts of the interface harder to read, such as app notifications and navigation controls, but others professed to like the attention to detail and the new look, which felt like a much-needed update to an interface that had grown outdated over the years.

In addition to setting transparency, iOS 26.1 also allows you to adjust how gestures behave on the home screen. Added option to open the camera app by swiping left on the lock screen. To change this, go to (Settings) > (Camera) > (Swipe lock screen to open camera).

IOS 26.1 also provides the ability to capture audio and video locally while recording video calls. This is useful if you want to record calls or podcasts while on the go. The company announced this feature for iPadOS during the Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC) in June.

This update also supports eight new languages ​​in Apple Intelligence: Traditional Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Swedish, Portuguese (Portugal), Vietnamese, and Turkish. The company is also adding live translation support for five new languages: Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Italian, Japanese, and Korean.

There are also quality of life improvements, such as gestures to change songs in Apple Music. Use a slider to stop the alarm instead of a button to avoid accidentally stopping it. You also have the option to automatically install security enhancements.

You can update your device by going to (Settings) > (General) > (Software Update).