With iOS 26, macOS 26, tvOS 26, and watchOS 26, Apple is planning to debut a brand new design that is been described as taking inspiration from visionOS, the most recent working system. With WWDC developing quickly, we thought we might take a better take a look at visionOS and a few of the design particulars that Apple may undertake based mostly on present rumors and leaked data.
1. Translucency
Inside Apple, the iOS 26 redesign challenge is called “Solarium,” which supplies us some perception into Apple’s focus. A solarium is principally an all-glass room that is designed to let in a number of gentle.
Since launch, visionOS has had menus and interface parts which can be translucent as a result of in an AR/VR surroundings, individuals want to have the ability to see their environment as a lot as attainable to really feel immersed.
The translucent design parts in visionOS higher mix into the background for an unobtrusive look, letting coloration and lightweight from the true world mix by way of. It isn’t arduous to image how this type of translucent design would work effectively in apps like Pictures, which we have already seen a mockup of.
2. Floating Navigation Bars and Menus
Floating menus and navigation bars go proper together with translucency. In visionOS, all the things is basically floating within the open area round you, whether or not you are taking a look at your environment by way of the passthrough digital camera, or a digital actuality background.
In iOS 26, Apple might replicate this impact with shading and shadowing that makes interface parts look barely raised over the content material within the background, for a gentle, blurred depth impact.
visionOS has a number of top-aligned toolbars relatively than backside bars, so it is attainable we’ll see iOS shifting that method too.
3. Rounded Buttons and Interface Components
iOS already has rounded squares and rounded rectangles for icons, notifications, menus inside apps, search bars, and all the card-style interfaces that we’re used to, however visionOS is even rounder. The floating navigation bars in iOS may very well be pill-shaped with extra starkly rounded edges.
visionOS additionally has extra dramatic rounding on the corners, and the app icons are absolutely spherical. iOS 26 may very well be rounder usually, extra intently matching a few of the shapes in visionOS. Leaker Jon Prosser has claimed that there might be an choice for spherical app icons, but it surely’s not clear if Apple would need to go in that path for iOS as a result of Android has lengthy used spherical app icons. The long-lasting squircle has been considered one of many design options distinguishing iOS from Android.
4. Glassy Look
With its translucency, the visionOS interface can look virtually like frosted glass. Apple’s WWDC 2025 design incorporates a frosted glass rainbow with shifting pastel colours, which is probably a touch at plans to undertake a frosted, sea-glass-style look that is not too far off from what we have already received in visionOS.
visionOS really makes use of a system-designed materials that Apple calls glass for app home windows. It lets gentle, digital content material, and objects within the environment present by way of menus and home windows. Glass adapts to background coloration and gives distinction for app content material whereas additionally making an allowance for individuals’s bodily environment. Apple might use the same materials design in iOS 26.
5. Delicate Lighting Modifications
In visionOS, the translucent interface parts can work together with lighting circumstances of the room the person is in. That does not translate to the iPhone, however iOS is outwardly going to have some delicate gentle results that may emphasize the translucency and glass-like design.
In visionOS, the home windows additionally forged shadows which can be responsive to go actions. That is not one thing that interprets to iOS, however lighting and shadow results that shift once you transfer your iPhone is a chance. The truth is, Prosser claims there is a glint on the Lock Display’s Flashlight and Digicam (or custom-made) buttons when shifting the iPhone.
Apple might use dynamic shadowing in apps and for widgets, and adaptive coloration might additional the impact by permitting interface parts to mix with wallpaper and shift with ambient gentle.
6. Simplicity
For essentially the most half, visionOS has a simplified design in Apple apps, with an airier really feel because of the spacing that is wanted to make sure individuals have sufficient room to take a look at a button to work together with it. iOS 26 might undertake streamlined navigation and menu parts for a much less cluttered look.
visionOS makes use of cleaner fonts, bolder textual content, and elevated line top, which can or could not translate to iOS.
Apple is probably going taking a great take a look at navigation, menu choices, and format, as a result of one of many fundamental features of the redesign is extra cross-platform cohesion, in keeping with Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman. He says that iOS 26 might be “less complicated to make use of, quicker to navigate, and simpler to be taught.”
Design Consistency
It isn’t simply iOS 26 that is being overhauled. The visible modifications and tweaks to menus, buttons, and navigation may even prolong to macOS 26, and naturally, iPadOS 26. watchOS 26 and tvOS 26 will see design refreshes, too.
Apple will undoubtedly present builders with new design tips and sources to increase the up to date look to third-party apps.
WWDC Debut
The brand new design that we have been listening to a lot about is ready to be unveiled on the WWDC keynote occasion on Monday, June 9. It begins at 10:00 a.m. and whereas Apple will livestream it, if you cannot watch, you possibly can comply with alongside right here on MacRumors.com or on our MacRumorsLive X account. Apple will present builders with the brand new working system updates full with redesign after the keynote occasion, and a public beta will comply with in July. iOS 26 and its sister updates will launch to the general public in September.
