Background

Liquid Glass is Apple’s new unified design material/language across iOS 26, iPadOS26, and macOS Tahoe 26. It is a translucent, glass like material that refracts/reflects surrounding content and reacts dynamically to motion and context. Apple has updated controls, navigation, toolbars and iconography to be crafted from this material. This means updated APIs for Swift UI/UIKit/AppKit.

Why Switch?

1. Platform consistency & User expectations: iOS 26 released in September 2025 and many third-party apps are already adopting the look; if we stay off-style our app will start to seem dated. We’ve already had one user ask when we will adopt liquid glass.
2. Native components & tooling: Apple is providing updated components/materials and an Icon Composer specifically for Liquid GLass, making adoption the easier path for new OS releases.
3. Cross-platform unification: Apple positions Liquid Glass as its broadest design update ever intended to harmonize experiences across all Apple platforms– so aligning now reduces future rework
4. Interest from Partners: Apple has already reached out to ask if we’ve switched. Should we make a timely switchover it increases our chances of the app being promoted and ranking well in the store

When should we switch

XCode 26 will be required starting April 2026 for updates, which includes requiring apps to support for liquid glass.

Annual Plan

KR 3.3 Engaging core audiences
Our objective is to demonstrate a practically significant increase in logged-in reader retention.

Overall Hypothesis-
If we update the Wikipedia iOS app to adopt Apple’s new Liquid Glass design system, we will avoid potential compliance or compatibility issues that could block future app submissions or updates to the App Store

Phases

This work will be broken into 6 phases. Subtasks of this epic will include the details of the work of those phases.

Below are the hypotheses for these phases:

• If we audit our UI against iOS 26’s Liquid Glass system and decide fallbacks for users on older versions, we’ll identify where custom components conflict with Apple’s patterns—allowing us to learn how much redesign is needed, what theming can be standardized, and how to maintain visual consistency across OS versions.
• If we update color roles, typography, and motion to align with Liquid Glass standards and redefine component defaults and tab bar behavior accordingly, we’ll ensure the app feels native to iOS 26 while maintaining consistency and performance across older versions.
• If we create Liquid Glass–ready icon variants and regenerate widget and notification assets following Apple’s new depth and transparency standards, we’ll ensure our visual system aligns with iOS 26 while maintaining brand consistency and technical readiness for integration.
• If we replace custom backgrounds and blur layers with Liquid Glass materials and adopt updated system components and dynamic transformations, we’ll achieve a more native, cohesive, and performant visual experience aligned with Apple’s design principles.
• If we conduct exploratory testing across translucency, rendering, accessibility, and regression on iOS 26 and prior versions, we’ll validate that the Liquid Glass updates preserve readability, performance, and compliance without introducing regressions or visual inconsistencies.
• If we conduct internal dogfooding followed by a phased beta and public release, we’ll validate stability, visual polish, and user reception of the Liquid Glass updates—ensuring readiness for the full rollout by March 28.

Release

March 28 2026