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.

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?

Add slim horizontal bar at the top of the Notification Center that displays the apps with current notifications, along with a badge showing the number of notifications for each app. Each app icon is clickable, allowing users to filter the Notification Center and view only the notifications from the selected app. The first button in the slider should be “All” to show all notifications, followed by app icons (Excluding notifications summary) This bar Appears only when notifications are from more than one app. Hidden if there’s only one app in Notification Center (no need to filter). Benefits: Better organization: Helps users quickly identify which apps have unread notifications. Reduced distraction: Allows focusing on notifications from one app at a time. Easier navigation: Especially helpful when notifications from multiple apps are mixed together by time. Faster interaction: Saves time by letting users jump directly to the relevant group of grouped or multiple notifications.

Target: MacOS 11.1 and above C++, Juce 8, XCode 16.2 Testing: Sonoma 14.5 Logic Pro (latest version), Reaper 7.34, Pro Tools 2023.12 and 2025.6 I'm developing an audio plugin that creates an NSStatusItem ("menu bar status icon" or MBSI for short) to provide visual feedback for one of the components. I've encountered a Logic Pro-specific behavior that I'd like to fix. I'm building for Mac-only, Intel and Silicon, and for AU/VST3/AAX. Summary: The NSStatusItem for the MBSI is created successfully and functions properly in some hosts (Reaper (AU and VST3), Pro Tools (AAX)) but isn't visible in Logic Pro, despite identical API behavior. Details: NSStatusItem Creation: implementation using [[NSStatusBar systemStatusBar] statusItemWithLength:NSSquareStatusItemLength] All API calls report success in both working (Reaper) and non-working (Logic Pro) hosts. Logging shows Logic Pro and Reaper create the NSStatusItem with the same properties: Window frame: {{0, -36}, {38, 36}} (both hosts) statusItem.visible: YES (both hosts) Button exists and responds to state changes (both hosts) Y coordinate is -36 pixels (above visible screen, both hosts) In Reaper, I can see the MBSI but in Logic Pro I can't. Note: the MBSI has no functionality beyond visual feedback. It's not clickable nor does it create a corresponding menu. Questions: Are there known differences in how Logic Pro's AU hosting service handles system UI elements compared to other hosts? And if so, is there guidance on AU plugins accessing system UI elements like the menu bar? Link to NSStatusItemTest.component: https://app.box.com/s/i3rq0hii3qf43iojrayc17fsfq7fnssd Link to video showing issue: https://app.box.com/s/icefqk898timqov77t468lqtio0rjqul Link to Console output for testing in Reaper vs Logic Pro: https://app.box.com/s/ph6nv1lmozo3phtjx3md6abdms5atgg6

I'm trying out Icon Composer Version 1.0 (27.4). I imported a simple logo and sized it in the outer circle. The icon appears good in the Icon Composer. But when I export the file and use it for my app icon it seems to be missing a margin or padding that other native application icons have. Am i supposed to be adding my own padding to these resulting icons or am I building them incorrectly? Any guidance would be appreciated. Thanks!

I found that unofficial apps like ChatGPT and Shadowrocket can use widgets in VisionOS 26. How is this achieved? How can I also enable widgets for apps I develop?

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

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 15 Beta 2 (Tahoe) • Xcode 16 Beta 2 • Samsung Odyssey G9 57” monitor (super ultrawide) • Using Preview in SwiftUI (not the Simulator) Even when I use Apple’s default demo code like: Text("Hello World") .padding() .glassEffect()

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.

This is my first attempt at creating a Wallet pass, actually a generic store card. When I see it with Pass Viewer on macOS, I get 1 look, when I see it with the iPhone simulator or iPhone proper, I get a different view. Neither is what I was hoping for, a simple vertical layout of an address. Could someone steer me in the correct direction? My json: "formatVersion": 1, "passTypeIdentifier": "pass.org.danleys.4KSBarcode", "serialNumber": "__SERIAL__", "teamIdentifier": "----", "organizationName": "4 K.I.D.S. Sake", "description": "4KSBarcode", "logoText": "4 K.I.D.S. Sake", "foregroundColor": "rgb(255, 255, 255)", "backgroundColor": "rgb(255,0,0)", "storeCard" : { "primaryFields" : [ { "key" : "ClientID", "label" : "", "value" : "" } ], "auxiliaryFields": [ { "key": "street", "label": "Address", "value": "339 Remington Blvd" }, { "key": "city", "label": "", "value": "Bolingbrook, IL 60440" } ] }, "barcode": { "format": "PKBarcodeFormatCode128", "message": "__SERIAL__", "altText": "__SERIAL__", "messageEncoding": "iso-8859-1" } } On macOS: On iOS: Thank you. Ed

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.

Hello, I am looking to develop a relationship with a developer that has experience running through the IOS build approval process. To elaborate, my team and I have designed and built a software application which is working through the Apple Developer review process to have the app approved and released to the App Store. Unfortunately, there has been some challenges, simple challenges in my eyes with our interface preventing Apple from approving our application. Happy to elaborate further. A primary problem and solution I have seen is the software build was testing solely on the iPhone but as recently directed it seem the application must be accessible on iPad as well. With this the case, I have experience some software platforms where on the ipad the interface is not displayed on the whole screen. I am looking for direction on how to implement this setup for the 1st IOS build. Another concern from Apples Developer Review team is the App Tracking Transparency kit may need to be implemented.

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 can't find any documentation on design guidelines for "Login with Game Center" button. My app allows users to "Play as Guest" or "Login with Game Center". Since Apple provides somewhat strict guidelines for designing "Sign in with Apple" button, i was wondering how to design the button for Game Center login. Should i use Game Center icon. And will Apple review reject this?

Hi guys, I've exported the images with transparency for a Vision OS icon but I still keep getting a weird shadow on the top of the icon when I focus on it. Do you guys had this issue before?

I'm in the process of add some swift code that is all objective-c. I have trouble with my actual app so I have worked on a prototype. There is what I have done Created a new Xcode project, selecting App and Objc Added a blank Swift file and accepted the generation of the -Bridging-Header. In project build setting, Yes for Defines Modules, Yes for Always Embed Swift Libraries Add appropriate .h file to Bridging header In Build Settings, in Swift Compiler - General, Bridging Header has correct path to the bridging header file Setup the single swift file in this was using @objc like this: @objcmembers class MySwiftClass: NSObject { func myMethod() { let output = ... } } When the project runs I execute in the objc ViewController: MySwiftClass *swiftObject = [[MySwiftClass alloc] init]; and get Use of undeclared identifier 'MySwiftClass'

Can I use the “apple.intelligence” SF symbol to refer to the functionality of Foundation Models frameworks within my app, or does it specifically refer to Apple Intelligence and not a feature of my own creation that is built upon Apple Intelligence?

Hi, Just want to check is there a requirement for Apple that for App Digital Wallet provisioning that Apple Pay button is not more than 2 taps away from Home Screen?

Hi everyone, I'm new to building apps on Swift and recently I've been wondering how does Apple get this blur effect behind the control center on Mac OS Tahoe. I think it would be nice to use in an app that I'm making but I can't seem to find it in the docs. Is it available through AppKit? I would appreciate some help on this