iOS 26 introduced a bold new Liquid Glass design, and subsequent updates have added new ways to customize not only how your iPhone looks, but also how it works. Here are five recent new customization settings.
#1: Customize the Liquid Glass design
Apple has a broad customer base, so understandably the iPhone’s new Liquid Glass design hasn’t been everyone’s favorite.
Rather than tweaking Liquid Glass for everyone, Apple instead decided to add an optional Settings toggle.
Available under Display & Brightness ⇾ Liquid Glass, the setting offers two Liquid Glass options:
- Clear
- Tinted
‘Clear’ retains the same style of Liquid Glass that’s available by default. If you don’t like the clear look, however, or perhaps find readability a challenge, the ‘Tinted’ option will increase opacity and add more contrast systemwide.
#2: Camera swipe on Lock Screen
Not too long ago, the iPhone offered far fewer methods for launching the Camera app.
The main method for a lot of users was (and for many still is) swiping left on the Lock Screen.
However, in 2017 the iPhone X introduced a dedicated on-screen Camera button; in 2023, the Action button became a Camera launcher for many; and in 2024, Camera Control debuted.
Despite this abundance of new options for launching Camera, the previous swipe gesture was still always available—and couldn’t be disabled.
But as of iOS 26.1, Apple finally changed that.
If you like the Lock Screen Camera swipe, it’s still an option to this day. But if you never use it except by accident, there’s now a toggle to turn it off.
Inside Settings ⇾ Camera you’ll find a new ‘Lock Screen Swipe to Open Camera’ option. It’s on by default, but you can now choose to disable it.
#3: One-tap actions instead of sliders
It’s hard to get more ‘classic iPhone’ than with a ‘Slide to unlock’-type gesture. And iOS 26.1 recently reintroduced the feature, but redeployed for alarms and timers.
In iOS 26, the Lock Screen design for alarms and timers underwent a big change—the buttons to stop or snooze got huge.
For some users, this redesign made it too easy to accidentally dismiss an alarm or timer. So as of iOS 26.1, the standard ‘Stop’ button has been replaced by a ‘Slide to stop’ gesture.
If you don’t like the change, however, you can go to Settings ⇾ Accessibility ⇾ Touch to find a way to reverse it.
The new setting is called ‘Prefer Single-Touch Actions.’ Simply put, it makes sure that interface elements requiring a sliding action (like the new alarm and timer screens) use single-tap buttons instead.
#4: New screen flash for notifications
Notifications have long offered a special accessibility feature that triggers an extra visual cue. You can set your iPhone’s camera flash to go off when an alert comes in.
This feature is great for the hard of hearing, but it’s also just a nice option for making notifications pop.
And in iOS 26.2, there’s yet another new alternative along the same lines.
Inside Settings ⇾ Accessibility ⇾ Audio & Visual ⇾ Flash for Alerts you’ll see a new ‘Screen’ option.
With ‘Screen’ toggled on, notifications will cause your iPhone’s display to fully light up for a brief moment before returning to normal brightness. You can even pair it with the camera flash option to maximize the effect.
#5: Expanded slider for Lock Screen clock
The Lock Screen is one of the best ways you can personalize your iPhone’s look and feel. And in iOS 26, Apple gave the Lock Screen’s clock a special ‘Glass’ style.
Recently though, the slider for adjusting the clock’s opacity was expanded to let you go more transparent or more opaque than before.
Make sure your clock is set to the ‘Glass’ setting, not ‘Solid,’ then play around with it to find the right look for your Lock Screen.
This updated slider is available no matter which font option you’ve chosen. Unfortunately you can still only expand the clock’s size with the default font, though.
Which recent new settings in iOS 26 have you been using? Let us know in the comments.
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- AirPods Pro 3 (now only $209, down from $249)
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- Apple’s new AirTag 2 (1-pack / 4-pack)
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