New system apparently broke icon resolution. They seem out of focus now, very low quality. It happens for default icons only. Dark icons or tinted looks fine. Is this intentional? It looks like a design mistake or a bug.
iPad Air, iPadOS 26
Many users are having difficulties with the new "glass" UI introduced with iOS/iPadOS 26. You are definitely not alone.
While many are happy with the new look, some find difficulty. There are three Accessibility settings which may help with the appearance - each can be used singly or together.
The two principal settings are:
Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size >
The third Accessibility setting, which may help, is found here:
Settings > Accessibility > Motion > Reduce Motion - set to ON
This third setting removes some of the UI cosmetic motion effects, such as parallax and the lensing effect of the background/wallpaper. After many hours of testing, I have found that enabling this setting in isolation improves the clarity significantly - without introducing additional contrast artefacts or visual issues.
This setting provides additional benefit, in particular for older models of iPad and iPhone, in reducing CPU/GPU loading - resulting in smoother scrolling without visible jitter. In reducing CPU/GPU overheads, you may also see benefit in reduced battery utilisation.
If there are specific aspects of the new appearance and user-interface over which you would like to see change, or more configuration control, you would be best advised to submit constructive comment and feedback to Apple using the Product Feedback portal. For iPad and iPadOS:
[Edited by Moderator]
Many users are having difficulties with the new "glass" UI introduced with iOS/iPadOS 26. You are definitely not alone.
While many are happy with the new look, some find difficulty. There are three Accessibility settings which may help with the appearance - each can be used singly or together.
The two principal settings are:
Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size >
The third Accessibility setting, which may help, is found here:
Settings > Accessibility > Motion > Reduce Motion - set to ON
This third setting removes some of the UI cosmetic motion effects, such as parallax and the lensing effect of the background/wallpaper. After many hours of testing, I have found that enabling this setting in isolation improves the clarity significantly - without introducing additional contrast artefacts or visual issues.
This setting provides additional benefit, in particular for older models of iPad and iPhone, in reducing CPU/GPU loading - resulting in smoother scrolling without visible jitter. In reducing CPU/GPU overheads, you may also see benefit in reduced battery utilisation.
If there are specific aspects of the new appearance and user-interface over which you would like to see change, or more configuration control, you would be best advised to submit constructive comment and feedback to Apple using the Product Feedback portal. For iPad and iPadOS:
[Edited by Moderator]
The Photos, Messenger and Google Maps icon do look a bit softer now, but I believe that is by design. Not a bug.
You can always offer Apple feedback if you want sharper looking icons.
click here ➜ Feedback - iPad - Apple
here they new icons are shown beside the older ones
New iOS 26 icons: Here's how all the new app icons look on your iPhone home screen - 9to5Mac
I believe what most view as a bug is as stated by others by design.
I've noticed it's just not the stock app icons that look faded even washed out. From the attached screenshot I will point out the differences I noticed. For the Huntington app, the black logo looks faded and not bold, crisp like it did before IOS 26. Facebook messenger, Youtube/Youtube Music, Shazam and others simply look faded.
When I customize the app icons and select "dark" then the logos all look bolder in color.
I have submitted Feedback because I'm just not liking the look. Hopefully they will add a setting for those who don't like it to make them look like they did previously.
[Edited by Moderator]
these forums are user helping other users like yourself, it's sort of going to a
physical apple store and asking other customers their advice
Another Barry wrote:
Why would they make them look deliberately out of alignment?
well apples design team never run their decisions by us...
you can let them know how you feel about the designs using their feedback channels
or reach out to their official support channels
And or
Contact - Official Apple Support
And or
Contact - How to Contact Us - Apple
Or
Genius Bar Reservation and Apple
Can you post a screenshot?
Icons look fine here.
John Scott1 wrote:
It’s definitely harder on my eyes than 18 was.
Tell Apple:
I tried to investigate the reason
1 the icons uses thin elemets and
2 are shadowed more to prev ios18 (I woud suggest to introduce equidistant option)
2 the frame arround the icon can not be switched off and it is in default dynamic based on iphone tilt (the animation can be switched off however)
i need an option with completely remooving the icon frames
White ones are blurry while looking at the screen. A screenshot can be misleading.
[Edited by Moderator]
nandha224 wrote:
I don’t like blurry icon images
Tell Apple:
I like the new look.
You do realize every app you mentioned is NOT an Apple app, right? Apple doesn't own 3rd party apps. And it's highly probably the 3rd party app developers need to tune up their app icons, which is not within Apple's control. Of course what you posted as your photo, is quite large and not representative of how they might look in their native, smaller look on an iPhone screen.
So, it's not the liquid glass effect making them look fuzzy, it's actually that they have redesigned them deliberately to look fuzzy. Is it the same with the borders of the icons? The feint white lines around the corners of them are by design? Surely not. Why would they make them look deliberately out of alignment?
And it is impossible to downgrade back to ios18.
I am thinking to reject my phone still under 1year warranty.
on the other hand the solution is quite easy. Apple can introduce classic mode with
icons without the frames
icon without so shadowed structure (ideally equidistant color)
Make the new keybord letters less tin = back to original "bold"
Decrease the crazy dynamic especially when you leave application a go back to main icons. This can be switched of but ios18 animation was perfect
My profile picture in iMessage is blurred so are videos and other photos. Is there a fix for ios26 to not do this? I have never had this issue in IOS18.7
Yup. There is definitely a bug here!
iOS 26 icons are out of focus, blurry
