re: IOS 26

I had been using it for a little over a month, and it’s hit or miss with the looks. Readability wasn’t a big concern for Apple. I think they ran out of ideas and Cook seems to push the Vision Pro, so they started with the look of that os and kept adapting it for touch screens and visibility on touch screens (still have some work there).

I only use the glass icons on one wallpaper setting. I like the look on the lock screen, but for all of it you really have to do too much fine tuning per app or lock screen than you should have to do. It’s also difficult to read, and the TVOS is similar but the effect is worse since you can’t just move the tv closer to your face. Even with reduce transparency on and bold fonts on the descriptions are difficult to read 10 to 12 feet away or contain very little in space provided in the show view for each episode that you have to always click on it to get full description pop up.

If you have not done any per-app accessibility settings before this might be the iOS that requires it. For different apps and also for the Home Screen I have different settings with reduced transparency, bold setting, increase contrast setting (which lessons glass background effect in windows or buttons), some different text sizes than the default, and reduced motion settings turned on for an app or two.

The wallpaper including using the bright or darker version of the same wallpaper seems to matter more with iOS 26 with how app icons and the lock screen looks including its readability.