Transparent icon look in iOS 26: Apple complements light and dark with “clear”

Apple was once known to give its users a few ways to change the design of the user interface of computer, telephone or tablet. Depending on the platform, special apps jumped in if this was technically possible. Apple has become more accessible here since iOS 18 and iPados 18: For example All icons (almost) arbitrary Color. With iOS 26, IPADOS 26 and MacOS 26, Apple puts another shovel on the subject of user interface configurability: Thanks to “Liquid Glass” design, things are now possible that you would not have expected. The icons are an extreme example: In addition to the standard bright and dark mode (plus additional coloring on request), you can now also make them completely transparent.

Everything so nicely transparent

On the iPhone you have a homescreen that looks very unusual: you can see more from the background image than from its apps. The optionally displayable widgets are also transparent, the control center is already by default. After the first experiments with the new “Clear” mode for the icons, however, the question arises as to why it should be activated at all. In particular, older eyes recognize almost nothing without reading glasses.

App icons can only be recognized by the label or only slightly offset by symbols that are offset by the background. All of this looks like a UI demonstration from a university design course, even if the glass effects may impress including dynamics. After all, nobody is forced to use the clear look. It is a “completely new type of configuration” of the design, says Apple. The IT comedian Sam Tucker on YouTube asks in a good moodas one calls “transparent glass”. “Ah, that’s right! Windows!”

Not just on the iPhone

There are no transparent icons under iOS. On the iPad and the Mac, they can also be activated in Ipados 26 or MacOS 26 TAHOO, If you want that. Furthermore, for the first time you can also color the folder directly from the system and provided with an emoji print, so far it has been needed to do your own tools.

Both functions are not the only controversial current design decisions from Cupertino. The famous Finder icon was also inverted for no apparent reason. The bright side is now dark and vice versaafter decades of consistency.