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 have a look at visionOS and a few of the design particulars that Apple would possibly undertake based mostly on present rumors and leaked data.
1. Translucency
Inside Apple, the iOS 26 redesign mission is named “Solarium,” which supplies us some perception into Apple’s focus. A solarium is principally an all-glass room that is designed to let in quite a lot of gentle.
Since launch, visionOS has had menus and interface components which might be translucent as a result of in an AR/VR atmosphere, individuals want to have the ability to see their environment as a lot as attainable to really feel immersed.
The translucent design components in visionOS higher mix into the background for an unobtrusive look, letting colour and lightweight from the actual world mix by means of. It isn’t exhausting to image how this kind of translucent design would work properly in apps like Photographs, 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 actually floating within the open area round you, whether or not you are your environment by means of the passthrough digital camera, or a digital actuality background.
In iOS 26, Apple may replicate this impact with shading and shadowing that makes interface components look barely raised over the content material within the background, for a tender, blurred depth impact.
visionOS has quite a lot of top-aligned toolbars quite than backside bars, so it is attainable we’ll see iOS shifting that approach too.
3. Rounded Buttons and Interface Parts
iOS already has rounded squares and rounded rectangles for icons, notifications, menus inside apps, search bars, and the entire card-style interfaces that we’re used to, however visionOS is even rounder. The floating navigation bars in iOS might be pill-shaped with extra starkly rounded edges.
visionOS additionally has extra dramatic rounding on the corners, and the app icons are totally spherical. iOS 26 might be rounder usually, extra intently matching a few of the shapes in visionOS. Leaker Jon Prosser has claimed that there will likely be an choice for spherical app icons, however it’s not clear if Apple would wish to go in that path for iOS as a result of Android has lengthy used spherical app icons. The enduring squircle has been considered one of many design options distinguishing iOS from Android.
4. Glassy Look
With its translucency, the visionOS interface can look nearly like frosted glass. Apple’s WWDC 2025 design includes 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 truly 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 means of menus and home windows. Glass adapts to background colour and supplies distinction for app content material whereas additionally taking into consideration individuals’s bodily environment. Apple may use an analogous materials design in iOS 26.
5. Delicate Lighting Modifications
In visionOS, the translucent interface components can work together with lighting situations of the room the consumer is in. That does not translate to the iPhone, however iOS is outwardly going to have some refined gentle results that can emphasize the translucency and glass-like design.
In visionOS, the home windows additionally forged shadows which might be responsive to move 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. In truth, Prosser claims there is a glint on the Lock Display’s Flashlight and Digital camera (or personalized) buttons when shifting the iPhone.
Apple may use dynamic shadowing in apps and for widgets, and adaptive colour may additional the impact by permitting interface components 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 as a result of 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 may undertake streamlined navigation and menu components for a much less cluttered look.
visionOS makes use of cleaner fonts, bolder textual content, and elevated line peak, which can or might not translate to iOS.
Apple is probably going taking a great have a look at navigation, menu choices, and format, as a result of one of many major features of the redesign is extra cross-platform cohesion, in accordance with Bloomberg‘s Mark Gurman. He says that iOS 26 will likely be “less complicated to make use of, sooner to navigate, and simpler to be taught.”
Design Consistency
It isn’t simply iOS 26 that is being overhauled. The visible adjustments and tweaks to menus, buttons, and navigation may also 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 pointers and assets 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 about 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’ll be able to 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.