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.

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.

Hello everyone, I’m looking for some advice or shared experiences regarding an app rejection under App Store Review Guideline 4.3(b) – Design – Spam. Our app was rejected and, after an appeal to the App Review Board, Apple maintained that the app “duplicates the content and functionality of similar apps in a saturated category.” We strongly disagree with this classification and are struggling to understand how Guideline 4.3(b) has been applied in our case. The app was developed as an original product: Custom-designed content (including original cards and interactions) A unique visual style and UI A distinct interaction flow focused on encouraging social interaction between users This was not a template-based or reskinned app, nor is it part of a series of similar submissions. We fully respect the App Store Review Guidelines and are open to making adjustments to better align with them. However, what we find difficult is the lack of specific, actionable feedback. We have not received clear guidance on which exact elements are considered duplicative or what changes would meaningfully address the concern. Some of the questions we are hoping the community can help with: In your experience, what typically triggers a 4.3(b) rejection in cases like this? Are there specific mechanics, terminology, or presentation choices that reviewers often interpret as problematic? Have others successfully resolved a 4.3(b) rejection without completely abandoning their app concept? We have already invested significant time and resources into this project, and being advised to create an entirely new app is not financially feasible for us. We are genuinely trying to understand how to proceed in a way that is constructive and compliant. Any insights, experiences, or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance. — Lars

Hi Apple developer community. I have a question a lot of users don’t like the new control center and notification center. Are you guys gonna blur the background or are you guys gonna keep it the same?

Why my app icon doesn't have effect liquid glass on ios26. My team dev still not upgrade to xcode26, so I have to export icon for them. And I don't see the effect like stroke of the detail.

Hi, It would be sure if Apple creates a Fgima plug in to convert designs to SwiftUI, no one can do it like Apple and it would be SUPER and super time saving ! -- Kind Regards

Hi, I'm getting started with designing and coding a watchOS app. I wanted to use Sketch to plan the UI before I dive into coding, but it seems like the official Sketch templates on the Design Resources page only have templates for the Series 8 and SE 2 on watchOS 10. I want to use the Series 10's screen size for my layouts since it's the model I have, but I can't find a template for it. Will the official templates be updated for the new models? If not, does anyone know of a third-party template I can use? Thanks in advance!

I had, a long time ago (over 10 years) developed an application that is connected to my UPS (for solar panels). Until yet it worked very well, and I didnot have to compute more than making updates of XCode. That was all. But yet I have swiched to the latest value of switch, and it continue to compile, but it does'not work. I am asking to yo in order keeping my app working as previously. As it does not work, which library is replacing Cloudkit.framework ? and which library is replacing InsPersistantContainer.framework ? Have a good day Guy Desbief

Hello, I used icon composer to create an icon for my Mac OS app and it seemed to have worked. I see the app icon everywhere except for window expose or stage manager. Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated!

In Apple Music I opened fullscreen for a song and I accidentally clicked some keys and the name and artist name of the song I was playing disappeared, and I can't figure out how to get it back, it temporarily comes back when I hover over the top bar but I can not get it to stay there permanently.

I have some questions about Liquid Glass and iOS 26 on the iPhone. Routine scrolling transactions in any view are causing the title to change from Light Mode colors to Dark Mode colors. Is this now standard operation? The column headers are also displaying a black stripe across the top of the screen when scrolling. So why doesn't the display shift when in Dark Mode to Light mode? Scrolling is causing everything in the header (navigation title, time, battery status, and wi-fi status) to change from black to white. Is this an accessibility action that I may have turned on by accident? I'm not very thrilled by this behavior!

I have an app that displays a MapView. While I am in light mode everything is fine. I can scroll around the map and my overlays (made by UIVisualEffectView containing an UIGlassEffect) stay light and look well! As soon as I change my phone to dark mode, depending on what's underneath the buttons (a light residential area or darker wooded areas) some of my buttons change color. But not all, only where it's supposedly lighter or darker underneath. This makes my whole UI look strange. Some buttons bright, some dark. Is there a way to lock a "color" or interfaceStyle to the effects-view? In light mode everything is fine, but in dark mode it just looks super strange.

I use swiftui to build apps on iPhone and iPad. There is no problem with the iPhone app. The game display is fully shown on iPhone. However, for the iPad, the game display is not shown and the screen goes black. I had to tap the button on the upper left side.(looks like a side view button) After that, the game display is only shown in the left side in a very small size. How can I make the game display fully shown in the iPad?

let glassView = UIVisualEffectView(effect: UIGlassEffect(style: .clear)) glassView.frame = CGRect(x: 100, y: 200, width: 200, height: 400) self.view.addSubview(glassView) Though UIGlassEffect has two variants: .regular and .clear, even the clear one has some blur on the background. Is there a way to do get absolute no blur? Edges still have the glass effect. Apple does this in two places: Camera app: Text magnifier:

I am developing an app that requires calling the iPhone's Face ID module to scan users' facial data. Where can I find Apple's design resources and guidelines for Face ID? The Face ID resources available in Figma are incomplete, and I need more support. For example, in the iPhone settings, the scenario: the UI interface for scanning the user's face to collect data, specifically the circular design in the "How to Set Up Face ID" screen.

Hi, I want to generate some sample datas for demonstrating the functions of my app when the app launched. My codes are as followings: func generateSampleData() { let hasLaunchedKey = "HasLaunchedBefore" let defaults = UserDefaults.standard if !defaults.bool(forKey: hasLaunchedKey) { //generate the demo data } defaults.set(true, forKey: hasLaunchedKey) } And I put the func in a view's onAppear modifier. I found every time I go the view, it generates the demo data again, which results in producing a lot of demo data. But I have set the status of the function running in the userdefault. Why did it happen? Best Wishes,

Hello, I have used CPPointOfInterestTemplate for displaying data and as user scrolls using the up/down arrow, I do not see any change in the map. Is there a way to highlight the POIs as the user scrolls through the list? I need to use the map controls and zoom to check the markers on the map. Is it possible to set the zoom level of the map in CarPlay? Pls suggest on the above queries

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.

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

We're using StoreKit for in-app purchases on iOS, and our backend has the server notification URL configured. However, during subscription renewals, Apple's server doesn't send any requests to our endpoint. What could be causing this?