How Bad Is Liquid Glass in iOS 26? #lowvision

Vision Forward's Tech Connect

Have you heard about Liquid Glass yet? Not to worry! Our Assistive Technology Specialists: Cory and Luke, are bringing everyone up to speed on this interesting feature now included in the new iOS 26!  Change can be good, but it isn't always for the better! For iPhone users with low vision or blindness, the new iOS 26 presents some serious issues. Today we are going to walk you through how to customize various settings of your iPhone display to better account for this new factor.  Join us and learn everything you need to know about iOS 26's Liquid Glass!  0:00 Start 2:30 Home Screen, Changing Wallpaper, Customize App Transparency  3:25 Control Center, Reducing Transparency in Settings 4:40 Email Display Settings, Switching between Light or Dark Themes 5:45 Messages, Scroll Blurring, Background Color, Type Box is Transparent! 8:45 Wrap-Up Review, Take away Thoughts, Free On Demand ACVREP Credits  We at Vision Forward would be happy to answer any questions that you still have about Liquid Glass and other iOS 26 features or other Apple products down in the comments!  Contact Vision Forward Association:  Call us: (414-615-0103)  Email us: infocus@vision-forward.org  Visit us online: https://www.vision-forward.org   Online Store: https://www.vision-forward.org/store  Vision Forward's Tech Connect continues to bring you the information you need to make the most out of your devices. Our experts know there are many factors to consider, so if you have any follow up questions please post them in the comments and we will help you find the assistive tech that's best for you.    Want more Tech Connect in your life? Try us Live! Be sure to join us for the upcoming YouTube Live! show on July 17th at 11am CST.   Looking for the full playlist? https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdZ61dAGaL_k3I-_LcTPozan9upCqY8Yc   Catch-up with our most recent Tech Connect Livestreams!   Can Luke Stump Cory? First Look at iOS 26 with VoiceOver! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72I7ZPn1LzY  Apple's WWDC with Carrie Morales from Carrie on Accessibility!  https://www.youtube.com/live/vR4vMPV0yYI  Odyssey By HumanWare with Rachel Ramos! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pnnkDtGWTY   Hable Easy with Freek van Welsenis!  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIUdBKLg2mU   Sign up for free on our LMS and you'll get access to full webinars eligible for free on demand ACVREP credits! https://techconnect.vision-forward.org/login/index.php   Webinar Teaser: "Dictation And Screen Reader use in Windows 11" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad9_4pCvYYs   #assistivetechnology #lowvision #OpticalCharacterRecognition #apple #technology #blindness #blindtech #lowvision #vision #sightloss #blind #smartwatch #accessibility #tipsandtricks #blindtech #lowvision #iphone #applevisionpro #apple #magnifier #assistivetechnology #CCTV #free #audiodescription  #accesible #accessibility #magnifcation  #Blind #iphone #ios #bluetooth #mobility #eyesight #wearable #technology #maculardegeneration #lowvision

Transcript

00:00we've applied liquid glass to this video will you be able to see us let's find out

00:12hey all welcome back to another tech connect today we are taking a look at something it is

00:18that is the talk of the town it's the internet buzz buzz buzz every single video that's released

00:23in the last two weeks is about this it is has it been two weeks i think it's been two weeks

00:27we are looking at liquid glass this is the new design language or new kind of design motif

00:36yeah you like that that apple introduced at wwdc we want to find out yes what how's it going to

00:44affect our low vision users good bad ugly sad beautiful we're not even sure we're about to

00:51find out this is the big beautiful uh operating system yes one big beautiful operating system

00:56stick with us let's find out how it works okay gory well i've got liquid glass on my phone because

01:03i signed up as a developer and managed to get the beta and we're going to take a look at see what

01:08it looks like so first of all i'm here on my home screen and uh currently we are set up with the icons

01:14as clear so this means that they are essentially transparent and i have a wallpaper as my background

01:20and uh yeah you can kind of see the wallpaper through the apps as if cory they were made of

01:27glass amazing stuff i'm not sure where the liquid comes in though i have to say i'm not maybe because

01:32it's fluid it's change it changes okay i like it so this kind of gives a good idea of what they're

01:38going for with this design as we move uh for example the podcast app over the background we can see how

01:45the lights in the picture behind it are being kind of reflected and diffracted through the light of

01:50the podcast app uh widgets there so it's a pretty cool thing visually uh but not super accessible

01:58because at the moment all of the apps are this same kind of transparent see-through color which as

02:03i'm sure you can imagine cory is not the best contest yeah uh however let's not just give up and

02:08throw our hands up and go to android because we can cory make changes if we don't like things in the

02:14words of david bowie yeah changes is he uh changes exactly all right gotta love a little copyright

02:23strike for each of our videos luckily this isn't our main money-making uh shenanigan all right so

02:29let's just take a look here on the home screen of course we can customize the background you know

02:33the wallpaper so maybe a solid color would make things look a little easier to see but also we can

02:38actually just set the apps themselves to be the regular color so if we hold our finger down on

02:44the home screen then we are able to edit it and we can change the wallpaper like i said but we can also

02:50go ahead and change the apps back to their default color and that's going to be a lot better contrast

02:55now some of them have changed design like the apple apps such as the camera or the mail app and

03:00stuff have changed visual design but now they're back to their regular colors and they really are

03:05perfectly visible in the same way that they would have been previously so uh even though you know

03:11at first glance maybe things are not great we can customize things back to make them visible again

03:18let's take a look at another way that we can do that by changing our transparency options

03:24all right so let's take a look at the control center this is a good place to see where liquid glass

03:29might be a bit of an issue and in the control center uh the background behind the control center

03:34previously was not blurred and people were complaining about that because you could see

03:38the background behind the control center very clearly which made it hard to see the control

03:41center itself now apple have fixed that now so the background behind behind the control center is

03:46blurred however it's still kind of visible through these um through these kind of glass like um widgets

03:54on the screen here right um and that is again in terms of low vision users not ideal because it's kind

03:59of you know a lot of kind of different colors a lot of kind of uh ambiguity ambiguity about uh kind

04:05of what's what so it's a bad motif if you ask me it's a very bad motif so uh luckily we can reduce

04:10transparency in the settings i'm going to go ahead and go into my settings here and uh we're just going

04:16to go ahead and choose the reduce transparency option and if we go back to the control center now

04:20um the apps are now or the widgets there in the control center are a lot less see-through so they stand

04:26out a lot more than they did before and that will apply you know across the whole system in terms of

04:32how opaque uh things are so that's a good little tip if you want to make things a little easier to see

04:39now in some circumstances it can be kind of hard to see some of the elements on the screen

04:44and one of the examples of that is in our emails where at the bottom we have the search bar the

04:50filters and the create new message button and if we are in the display theme of light

04:56so basically with white backgrounds it's really hard to see those elements at the bottom of the

05:00screen especially because they do have that transparency effect and so as we kind of scroll

05:05our emails we can kind of see our emails behind those elements and it makes those elements really

05:10hard to see so one little trick here is we can go into our display settings and change our theme from

05:15light to dark instead and then when we jump back to our emails the background of the emails is black

05:21but those elements the search bar the filters and the create new email button are still white and so

05:27they do contrast a lot better and are easier to see i'm sure that this is going to be the case in

05:31some other apps as well so just bear in mind you can change your display theme from light to dark if

05:36necessary luke i believe you have one more tip for these fine folks that's not a belief i literally

05:43told you that before we started filming behind the scenes everybody um so yeah we're going to take a

05:49look at messages real quick now one of the effects that we get with liquid glass is this blurring um

05:55effect and uh we can see that actually in the messages here so i'm going to open up a message

05:59conversation from corey and as we scroll the uh messages at the top and the bottom they're kind of

06:07blurred um as the messages scroll past the top and the bottom of the screen but in the center of the

06:12screen then they are in focus now i had said oh it's kind of weird how they blur there but you

06:16had said corey maybe that might be good for people with a vision impairment just in terms of keeping

06:20them focused on you know the stuff in the middle yeah i feel like it's probably somewhat equivalent to

06:26on uh video magnifiers kind of the lines and blinds feature i i'll be curious though i don't i don't know

06:34if that i'd like to get feedback from people put it down in the comments if you're using a beta version

06:39of 26 how do you feel about that if you're a low vision user yeah something for the individual to

06:44decide but uh one of the cool things that we can do here in messages now is if we have an i message

06:49conversation we're able to change the background of the message conversation and so you could uh here

06:54i've got some weird like uh sky uh motif there's that word again it's a word of the day uh some sky

07:02motif with this message uh conversation with corey but we can go in and let me choose something else i

07:06could choose a color for example so i will choose a uh oh i've got like a bright hot pink here oh

07:12yeah suits uh suits the conversation so we'll go ahead and choose that one and uh now if i go back

07:18to my message conversation i've got this hot pink color so you know there may be a color which works

07:23better for you and enables you actually to see those message conversations more clearly however just

07:28real real quick here corey um this actually is a good example of where liquid glass is quite bad in that

07:35the actual box where we enter our message at the bottom of the screen here you can barely see it

07:40because it's so transparent and it's uh you know really kind of like all of those background colors

07:44are coming through and making that message box hard to see now i did uh go ahead and to uh kind of uh

07:50change my transparencies back to normal again so let me just real quick jump into the settings here

07:55we'll turn on reduce transparency again and that message box box is a little easier to see but still

08:00pretty hard sure yeah i'm curious with this new background uh this option to kind of change the

08:06background if you go out of the conversation and go back to your main list of messages where it shows

08:11you the conversations yeah is my conversation in a pink background here okay so only until you and not

08:18until you actually tap in exactly okay yeah i just thought it might i mean i can see where it might be

08:23cool from an identification purpose to go okay i'm in in the conversation with so-and-so because i see this

08:28color yeah uh it would have been cool if it kind of carried over yeah i agree um anyway so there we

08:35go those are some examples of liquid glass and some of the pros and some of the cons and so let's do a

08:41quick lap up cory all right cory so that was liquid glass now i don't think it's the end of the world

08:47like some people would have you believe um however oh the sky is falling exactly hopefully it's liquid

08:53glass exactly um however you know okay couple of things number one you may have to do some

08:59customization which might be annoying especially if you don't know how to do it um so that is a pain

09:03and also there are some elements which really seem to be pretty bad we especially saw that in the

09:07messages when the message box is kind of you know very very hard to see so there's definite

09:14challenges there but i don't think it's you know gonna be completely unusable or anything like that

09:19and as a at the time of this video there i paid it too so there is some chance now the other thing

09:23we should mention uh for all honesty yes neither of us are low vision yes i'm no vision your normal

09:30vision vision so from our expertise which it's it's you could fill it up with in a glass

09:40it doesn't appear that it's going to be any kind of showstopper or nightmare or anything like that

09:45but put it down in the comments if you are low vision and you're using the beta if you're

09:50struggling with it point out some places where you see it to really be a problem and at the end

09:54of the day you know everybody's vision is going to be different so it's going to vary from person to

09:58person with that being said though if you like the video give us a like if you have got anything

10:03to tell us about anything that's going on in your life or anything about liquid glass put it down

10:07in the comments there and please do subscribe to the channel because those numbers really matter

10:11corey and why not also find more of our content at our lms corey techconnect.vision-forward.org

10:20head to techconnect.vision-forward.org all right it's time for us to go get a drink

10:26and have some liquid glass we'll catch you next time it burns

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