Hello everyone and welcome to the channel. Today Apple released the first developer beta of iOS 26 that I have here on my 16 Pro Max. This is not an in-depth video by any means, but I wanted to show you how the new liquid glass UI looks and I will also show you some really cool features along the way. So without further ado, let's jump in. Before starting, there are some important things you need to keep in mind.
First, this update is massive. It's 15.43 GB and it took me more than an hour to install on the 16 Pro Max that has the most powerful CPU. And also, the update is very buggy and it's not recommended to install on your daily driver. And now, let's start by talking about the new liquid glass design language of iOS. Let's start with the lock screen. And the first thing you will notice here is the widgets area now shifted towards the bottom for easier reachability. and you can see more of your wallpaper. Secondly, the new liquid glass effect as you see here makes the controls more transparent. And when you expand something like the control center, you will see how it exactly looks. In my opinion, it's a little bit too transparent because I can see a lot of the wallpaper, which I think it's a little bit distracting in my opinion. And I hope if Apple can make it more opaque to help with the readability, but I really like how they designed the items.
They look exactly like a glass as the name suggests. This will take us to the new customization options under the lock screen. And by the way, this is how the notifications look with the new design language. So let's go to the customization options. And the first thing I want to show you here is how you can customize the clock. Now first when you choose the default font, you will immediately get a handle at the bottom right corner that will allow you to resize it. So you can do this and make the clock much bigger or smaller. But once you change the font to anything else, the handle will disappear. You will also notice here that when I drag my finger over the slider, it has this really cool bouncy animation. And it looks like a water drop that you are moving over the slider. And then we have the color options. But we also got a brand new tab here called glass.
So if you want to use the solid option, which is the old one, it's still transparent but not as transparent as the glass option. Now let me try to make the clock bigger to show you how it interacts on the lock screen. So I will make it that big and then tap on done and then go back to the lock screen. You will see here that when I swipe up to expand the notifications the clock becomes smaller until it disappears completely if you have more notifications in this area. The second thing I want to show you is how you can activate this new spatial 3D effect on your wallpaper. So you need to tap on hold, go to customize, and you will see a new button over here that will turn the effect on or off. This is on and this is off. Also keep in mind that if you have the effect activated when you swipe up to expand the notifications like this, it will stop temporarily until you dismiss the notifications and then it gets back to normal. And the last thing I wanted to show you in this area is the media controls.
As you see, they are very transparent now. And when you tap on the album art, this is how the clock animates in and out. So that was a quick look at the new lock screen design. Now let's talk about the home screen. You'll notice here, even though I have the same effect activated, but the wallpaper on the home screen doesn't move as much, but there's something else really cool happening here. When you look at the icons, you will see a light reflection. So when you take a look at the Apple TV or the wallet, you will see that the edges will reflect the light which looks really nice in my opinion.
And also the app icons look completely different. As you see here, they have different designs. And this is a quick look at everything. It gives you the same glass effect. Even the third party apps are adhere adhering to the new design language. And when you try to edit the home screen and then tap on customize, you'll notice here that we have a new option called clear. When you tap on clear, all the icons will look like a sheet of glass on your home screen. And this is how it looks. All the app icons will adapt with the new clear option as you see here. And it looks really nice. Let me also show you the rest of the theming options to give you an idea about how you can customize your home screen.
You'll notice here that now we have two options, light and dark. So you can pick the clear option and make it dark or light. And this is the difference between the two or you can set it to auto and let the system decide based on the wallpaper. Then we have tented which also got light and dark and then auto. And when you go to dark, you will see the same thing. You can make it auto or always like this. In addition to the rest of the options we already have, you can remove the app titles like this or change the brightness using this button.
So I decided to keep it on the new clear option to get more familiar with it. And let me show you something really nice. When you try to expand the notifications, as you see here, I have this rainbow around the glass edge, which mimics what happens in real life. And it feels like a sheet of glass moving over the icons as you see here. And once I release my finger, the icons disappear in a new animation like this. But it's a little bit buggy. As you see here, the clock takes some time to reposition itself.
Overall, I like the new design language, but I still don't like how it looks in the control center, especially with the home screen because the icons, as you see, they are visible and makes the whole experience very distracting in my opinion. So, I think Apple needs to work on this. Now, let's talk about how this new design is implemented inside apps. And one of the best examples is Apple photos. You will see here that Apple decided to go with minimal navigation bars to make the experience more of a full screen experience. And once you start scrolling, things will adapt. Now I have the different options to sort the photos. And once I keep scrolling, as you see, things become more transparent.
And when I scroll down, it becomes more solid if I have a completely white background. And this is how it looks. We also got a brand new animation here. Everything is more bouncy when you tap on it. And when I tap on the select button, you will see even some light reflections over here. That looks really cool. And then we have the collections page which doesn't look different from what we used to have. It has the same solid background, but only the navigation bar at the bottom will adapt based on what's behind it. So if I have some photos behind it, this is how it looks once I scroll down. It becomes more solid. And this is how you can access the search.
Let me also show you how it animates when I open and close photos. As you see here, the buttons at the top will animate in this new bouncy way. Let me also show you more apps to get a better idea about the new design. Here we have the phone app. And now when I tap on the options at the bottom, as you see, I'm getting this new bouncy animation that looks like a water drop.
And when you go to search, it shows the tab you came from and adapts accordingly like this. We can also add the favorites to the top of the page. It gives you five items per row. And when you tap on the filter button, you can choose between the new design or the classic. And this is how it looks. So I think the new design makes more sense. Moving to Safari, you will see the same design change. The navigation bar at the bottom is now transparent based on the content behind it. So when you have a lot of colors behind the navigation bar, it will become transparent and move to solid if the background is solid.
And this is how it animates when you tap on the ellipses. The camera app also got a complete redesign and the first thing you will see here at the bottom is the photo and video tabs only. But once you start scrolling, it will reveal the rest of the options. At the top right corner, we have quick toggles, one for the flash and if the night mode is available, you can toggle it from here. We also have the this grid icon that will show you the rest of the options in this new floating transparent card. And on the left, you have some toggles as well for the resolution and format. And when you go to the video tab, you can also adjust the format, resolution, and frame rate, which looks very similar to 1 UI in this area. And then I started to notice also that the zoom slider is much more precise with iOS 26 when compared to iOS 18. And the last app I wanted to show you in this chapter is Apple Music. As you see, it looks really cool. Everything is transparent here at the bottom. And when you go back, you will see that the now playing bar will animate to the center and hide everything else.
And if you want to reveal the options, you need to scroll back up. And this is how the new now playing screen looks. And when you go to the lyrics option, that's where you can find the karaoke slider. So you can mute the singer completely or adjust the volume the way you want. So it has some really cool features, but I will make another video to talk about all the new features in detail. But this one is just a quick overview to give you an idea about the new iOS 26. But before ending this video, it's also worth mentioning that the phone is noticeably warmer than expected since I installed this build. It's as warm as playing a heavy game on the 16 Pro Max. So, I'm not sure what's going on here.
Is it because of the new animations are more power hungry or the phone is trying to settle things down. So, I will give it some time and see what's going to happen. But either way, I don't recommend this build on your daily driver. I came across a lot of bugs while filming this video, so you need to keep that in mind. So, that's pretty much it for today. That was my first impressions video about iOS 26. Please let me know in the comments if you like the new liquid glass design language or not. And stay tuned for my upcoming videos because there are a lot coming comparing what we got with the competition to see how they stack against each other.
But for now, thanks so much for watching and see you in the next.
