macOS 27 will reportedly feature a “slight” Liquid Glass redesign to address some of the complaints with macOS Tahoe. Apple will seemingly address the readability and transparency issues that currently plague the Mac operating system.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman says the redesign will not be dramatic. If anything, the “goal is more of a cleanup and refinement effort.”
macOS 27 should address Liquid Glass’ readability issues
As part of iOS 26, iPadOS 26 and macOS 26 in 2025, Apple introduced its new Liquid Glass design language, which makes generous use of transparency and “glassy” effects.
While it looks great in demos, the design did not translate well to real-world usage, with the transparency creating readability problems. On Macs, this is evident in Control Center, Finder, Apple Music and select other first-party apps.
Despite the criticism, Apple does not intend to do away with Liquid Glass or make any radical changes to it in iOS 27.
On macOS 27, though, the company will introduce a “slight redesign” to address user complaints. It will address the “shadows and transparency quirks,” says Gurman in his latest Power On newsletter.
Apparently, the design changes in macOS 27 are how Apple’s design team “intended” Liquid Glass to look from the start. But the software engineering team delivered a half-baked implementation in macOS 27, preventing the design from fully coming together.
iOS 7 deja vu?
This won’t be the first time Apple has made minor design tweaks to its operating systems after a big visual overhaul. It followed a similar approach following the release of iOS 7 in 2013. iOS 7’s radical redesign replaced skeuomorphism with a flat look based on simpler app icons, vibrant colors and lots of white space. The next year, the company fine-tuned the design in iOS 8.
Gurman says Apple will also squash bugs and improve performance and battery life as part of macOS 27. The other major highlight will supposedly be new AI features, with the revamped Gemini-powered Siri taking center stage.
Rajesh has been writing about consumer technology for over a decade, with a strong focus on iPhones, Macs and Apple’s ecosystem. He enjoys digging into Apple software updates, hardware changes, and discovering new Mac apps that make work faster and more enjoyable.
