At WWDC25 we launched a new type of Lab event for the developer community - Group Labs. A Group Lab is a panel Q&A designed for a large audience of developers. Group Labs are a unique opportunity for the community to submit questions directly to a panel of Apple engineers and designers. Here are the highlights from the WWDC25 Group Lab for Design. Can you expand on how Liquid Glass helps with navigation and focus in the UI? Liquid Glass clarifies the navigation layer by introducing a single, floating pane that acts as the primary navigation area. Buttons within this pane seamlessly morph as you move between sections, and controls can temporarily lift into the glass surface. While avoiding excessive use of glass (like layering glass on glass), this approach simplifies navigation and strengthens the connection between menus, alerts, and the elements that trigger them. What should I do with customized bars that I might have in my app? Reconsider the content and behavior of customized bars. Evaluate whether you need all the buttons and whether a menu might be a better solution. Instead of relying on background colors or styling, express hierarchy through layout and grouping. This is a good opportunity to adopt the new design language and simplify your interface. What are scroll edge effects, and what options do we have for them? Scroll edge effects enhance legibility in controls by lifting interactive elements and separating them from the background. There are two types: a soft edge effect (a subtle blur) and a hard edge effect (a more defined boundary for high-legibility areas like column sorting). Scroll edge effects are designed to work seamlessly with Liquid Glass, allowing content to feel expansive while ensuring controls and titles remain legible. How can we ensure or improve accessibility using Liquid Glass? Legibility is a priority, and refinements are ongoing throughout the betas. Liquid Glass adapts well to accessibility settings like Reduce Transparency, Increase Contrast, and Reduce Motion. There are two variants of glass: regular glass, designed to be legible by default, and clear glass, used in places like AVKit, which requires more care to ensure legibility. Use color contrast tools to ensure contrast ratios are met. The Human Interface Guidelines (HIG) are a living document offering best practices. The colors and materials pages are key resources. Do you have any recommendations for convincing designers concerned with consistency across Android and Web to use Liquid Glass? Start small and focus on high-utility controls that don't significantly impact brand experience. Native controls offer familiarity and predictability to users. Using the native controls makes sure your app feels at home on the device. Using native frameworks provides built-in accessibility support (dynamic type, reduce transparency, increase contrast). Native controls come with built-in behaviors and interactions. Can ScrollViews include Liquid Glass within them? You can technically put a glass layer inside a scroll view, but it can feel heavy and doesn't align with the system's intention for Liquid Glass to serve as a fixed layer. Think of the content layer as the scrolling layer, and the navigational layer as the one using Liquid Glass. If there is glass on the content layer it will collide into the navigational layer. What core design philosophy guided the direction of iOS 26, beyond the goal of unification? The core design philosophy involved blurring the line between hardware and software, separating UI and navigation elements from content, making apps adaptable across window sizes, and combining playfulness with sophistication. It was about making the UI feel at home on rounded screens. Can we layer Liquid Glass elements on top of each other? Avoid layering Liquid Glass elements directly on top of each other, as it creates unnecessary visual complexity. The system will automatically convert nested glass elements to a vibrant fill style. Use vibrant fills and labels to show control shapes and ensure legibility. Opaque grays should be avoided in favor of vibrant colors, which will multiply with the backgrounds correctly. What will happen to apps that use custom components? Should they be adapted to the new design within the next year? The more native components you use, the more things happen for free. Standard components will be upgraded automatically. Look out for any customizations that might clash. Think about what is the minimum viable change, where your app still feels and looks very similar to what it did. Prioritize changes in core workflows and navigational areas. There are a number of benefits to using native components including user familiarity, built-in accessibility support, and built-in behaviors and interactions. Will Apple be releasing Figma design templates? Sketch kits were published on Monday and can be referenced. The goal is to ensure the resources are well-organized, well-named, and easy to use. It's a high priority.

The problem is the same in all of my applications. To reproduce it, in iOS 26, set the dark mode in the Brightness and display settings and in Accessibility, Display and text size, activate Increase contrast and bold text. With these settings, all the controls will be surrounded by a thin white line. When in the app a keyboard is dispayed, the thin white line does not appears correctly around the keyboard like in the capture joined, it is present on top and partially on bottom but not on sides

I am looking for guidance on how people have solved this problem/use case. What is the best way to structure a seat based subscription app that an organization can pay for seats for all their users, can be distributed via mdm or via app store and is easy (low friction) to get paid for and started for small companies? I market to a business to buy my app, they want it installed on all 25 devices they have. They use ABM to acquire 25 licenses with and MDM to distribute. The app is currently free to download so ABM charges $0 but has a paywall to use. The paywall is a RevenueCat one and no user account is needed. All entitlements and free trial work great. When it is deployed to the 25 devices, they can either sign up with their own AppleId and own/company credit card, or use a company appleid and company card for all 25 devices to solve the issue but neither are great. Doubtful they would want to pay their money for a company required app on a company phone (don’t blame them). If they share an appleid, my MRR drops to 1/25th since they will just share the purchase. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

hi all, i have dating app, approved in google store, and working website but i cant get approval from apple review team ( Guideline 4.3(b) - Design - Spam) can someone help/suggest how to solve it our app has 2000 clients already

Hello everyone, In the current iOS version, changes in the "liquid glass" light shining effects can repeatedly be observed on older iPhone devices (12/13/14). This change is often seen after the device is rebooted or after a SystemMemoryReset.ips (System Analysis Data). It changes very often... I'm not currently working on apps myself, but perhaps someone has ideas for the upcoming updates involving Liquid Glass. (please also check the screenshots)

Hi there. Our designer is designing our app in Figma with the navigation element with compact size navigation bar, and large title. I couldn't find an API to actually configure the nav bar to be compact while keeping the large title enabled. Figma uses the libraries provided by Apple so it's weird I can't find such configuration in iOS26. I'm adding a screenshot of the options in Figma. First option is: Large size & large text. The one our designer is using is compact size & large text.

Does iOS 26 support HDR images for app icons to be rendered in High Dynamic Range for Springboard or not?

Building an app to edit the various parameters of digital musical instruments. A typical user would have perhaps max 6 instruments, out of the hundreds of possibilities. Would like to structure the app with a global window, menu, etc which would be a free download. The user could download editor inserts for their particular set of instruments and ignore all of the others. The downloaded editors would show as options in a menu. It seem like more than a widget but less than a library. Building a monolithic app containing all possible editors doesn't seem like an option, but separate full-app editors for each piece of gear doesn't sound right either. Any suggestions out there? Thanks very much Brian

I noticed a discrepancy between the Material specifications for tvOS on the Developer page and the naming in the Design Resources (Sketch files). Which one should we consider authoritative? Apple developer design web page：https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/materials design resource（sketch）

Post: In macOS 26 Betas 1–3, the system applied an automatic dark-mode fallback for app icons. This ensured consistency across the Dock and Finder even when developers hadn’t provided dark assets. Since Beta 4, this fallback was removed. As of Beta 7, icons now rely entirely on developer-updated assets. The result is mixed light and dark icons in the Dock, breaking visual consistency and making app recognition slower in dark mode. Observed behavior: • Icons without dark assets are displayed in their original light version. • Some apps (e.g. Final Cut Pro) show a gray border treatment that feels inconsistent with the rest of the UI. • The fallback applied in Betas 1–3 is completely absent. Expected behavior: System should provide a fallback rendering until developers supply proper dark assets, or offer a toggle in System Settings → Appearance (e.g. “Force Dark Icons”). This is still present in Beta 7. Is there any plan to restore the fallback mechanism or provide a user option?

I have accidentally missed the sign up window for the UX Writing lab by 1 hour, but I'd still love to join it if at all possible. I have had this lab several times in the past and it was always very informative. I have a time tracking app that helps people make the most of their time. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/timelines-time-tracking/id1112433234 I'm looking for guidance on how to improve copywriting in my onboarding sequence, on my paywall, and overall throughout the app. Thank you for considering. My Apple ID is lukas[at]glimsoft.com.

Hi everyone, since updating to Xcode 26 Beta 3, I’m seeing some really strange behavior. I just changed the color of a Color asset in my SwiftUI view – literally just switched from one named color to another – and suddenly: • Previews stopped working completely, with vague or no error messages. • Even when I changed the color back to what it was before, the previews still refused to build. • In addition, Xcode no longer restores the open tabs/windows when reopening the project. It just shows a blank editor every time I open it. This all happened without touching any project settings or code structure – just a simple color swap. Has anyone else run into this with Xcode 26 Beta 3? Would love to know if it’s a known bug or if there’s a workaround (besides nuking Derived Data, which I’ve already tried). Thanks!

Hi everyone, I’m having trouble getting the new glassEffect() modifier to render correctly in SwiftUI. No matter what I try, it just appears as a solid white background (instead of translucent glass). This happens both in Beta 1 and Beta 2. My setup: • Mac mini (M4 chip) • macOS 26 Beta 2 (Tahoe) • Xcode 26 Beta 2 • Samsung Odyssey G9 57” monitor (super ultrawide) • Using Preview in SwiftUI, I use IOS 26 Beta 2 (not the Simulator) Even when I use Apple’s default demo code like: Text("Hello World") .padding() .glassEffect()

I would really like to be able to categorize my contacts. I work for a grocery store and have contacts from various companies. I would like to be able to categorize them by company or group them as I see fit. Currently, I don't see a way to do this. Please add this in a future update. Having all contacts just alphabetically is not efficient enough. Also, I would like to be able to manually adjust the size of widgets. i.e. If I want more stocks to be visible, I would like to be able to lengthen the height/width of the widget beyond what it currently allows to view more information. Thank you. If you have any follow-up questions, please let me know. Torrey

Hi, I have the following code, which for some reason is not working as expected. I have an .onAppear and a .task function that isn't running, which I can see isn't running because nothing is printing. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you. struct ContentView: View { var body: some View { ZStack { switch view { case .view1: View1() case .view2: View2() case .view3: View3() case .view4: View4() case .view5: View5() default: SubscriptionStoreView(groupID: "") } } .onAppear() { view = .view6 print("test 1") } .task { print("test") await refreshPurchasedProducts() } } func refreshPurchasedProducts() async { // Iterate through the user's purchased products. for await verificationResult in Transaction.currentEntitlements { switch verificationResult { case .verified(let transaction): print("verified") case .unverified(let unverifiedTransaction, let verificationError): print("unverified") default: print("default") } } } }

Can the vehicle‑side UWB module, acting as a Nearby Accessory, perform ranging with multiple iOS phones simultaneously while iOS cell uses background ranging with the vehicle‑side UWB (which involves BLE GATT services)? I mean, when the IOS cell works in the background, it will read the nearby gatt characteristic automatically. If there were multiple phones perform ranging with the accessory, the read characteristic from the accessory side, what shall its content be? Or does the accessory only perform ranging with one phone at a time?

I am working on a Mac App that was developed with Objective C and Interface Builder. In earlier versions of Mac OS the window title was centered. Now in Tahoe it's left-justified. Is there some way to set this? There is no setting for this in Interface Builder and I can't see any way to do it programmatically by reading the developer documentation. Is this even possible?

I've been playing around with iPad PRO M5 13" as part of my goal to implement some music relating SPH particle simulation effects on it - and this involves utilizing tap events also from the incredible looking fresh screen the device has. See more information from here, all should be overreactively implemented but the ideas remain (with almost zero cost copy fragment shader) : `https://youtu.be/ci-GSgQ0wlM` This attached image shows the tap effects implementation brought just bit a little further than in the video.

Hello Apple Developer Support, We initially uploaded our INRx App on a different Apple Developer account for internal testing purposes. Now, we would like to publish the same app under a new Apple Developer account for production, but we're currently facing a design-related rejection during the review process. We believe the app meets all guidelines, and there were no design issues flagged previously when submitted from the testing account. Could you please help us understand: Why the same app is now being rejected for design issues? Is there a way to resolve this while moving the app to the new account? Any advice or clarification would be greatly appreciated so we can successfully proceed with publishing. Thank you!

I have the June 2025 version, but I'd like to find the 2022. There was something removed from the 2022 that I would like to check out.

I’m working with Reality Composer and noticed that images added directly to a scene appear significantly darker when viewed in AR. This seems different from how other objects in the scene respond to lighting, especially under varying real-world light conditions. Is this expected behavior? Are images treated with a different lighting model in Reality Composer? Is there any recommended way to get more consistent light response for image-based artworks?