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iOS 26 is here, and with it, Apple’s “Liquid Glass” design revamp. Yesterday, I covered how to quickly undo most of the harshest changes that come with Liquid Glass, but a complaint users are making today requires an entirely separate fix. Luckily, there is an option that could help you, although it’s not for everyone.
Dark Mode icons look a little tilted right now
As users are posting over on Reddit, it turns out that Dark Mode app icons don’t play nicely with iOS 26’s new Liquid Glass aesthetic. How much this will bother you will vary from person to person, but essentially, some folks online (and on the Lifehacker team) are now complaining that their Dark Mode icons look tilted, as if they’re not perfectly dead center.
Personally, I have a hard time seeing this when looking at my home screen as a whole, but after a colleague sent me a more zoomed-in shot, I can see how it would bother him. It’s an optical illusion, as the icon positioning is the same, but it’s there.
Credit: Joel Cunningham
The problem, it seems, is in new highlights added to certain, but not all, app icon corners while using Dark Mode. The uneven lighting produces an effect that, as reported by Lifehacker sister site Mashable, has some users complaining of dizziness. Worse yet, how prominent the highlights are depends on your background—I can see them more easily over dark parts of my background, but they tend to bleed into lighter parts.
Technically, those highlights are also there when using app icons with lighter backgrounds, but they’re less noticeable, since they don’t contrast with them as much.
Again, you may not be susceptible to the effect. If I’m not concentrating on it, I do tend to forget about it. But if it is bothering you, what can you do?
Reducing transparency does nothing
Unfortunately, the one-toggle fix that undoes most of the issues with Liquid Glass, “Reduce Transparency,” doesn’t seem to do anything for your app icons. Here’s my iPhone Home Screen with Reduce Transparency on, and the same screen with it off (please don’t judge my unread mail and unchecked reminders).
iPhone Home Screen with Dark Mode app icons and Reduce Transparency off (left) vs. on (right)
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt
That’s a shame, since Reduce Transparency is easy to implement: You just turn it on under Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size, and it’ll get rid of most of the see-through elements in Liquid Glass for you. But because the icons are solid anyway, it won’t do anything here. Instead, you’ll need to get creative.
Try tinting your app icons
Right now, I unfortunately don’t have a fix for Apple’s Dark Mode app icons. Even custom icons that use Apple’s Dark Mode background color will still have the new highlights. But I do have one piece of advice that will get you close to the same experience.
It turns out, setting your app icons to Dark Mode isn’t the only way to get them to use more subdued colors. If Dark Mode looks ugly to you right now, you could try tinting your app icons instead.
What do you think so far?
This gives your app icons a monochrome appearance with white or gray text, and while that does unfortunately mean losing out on app icons with more than two colors, it also means you can swap over to other dark colored backgrounds that might look a bit less tilted to you. The offending highlights will still be there, but with the right tinted background, you might be able to make them less noticeable.
To try it out, head to your home screen, then long press until your apps start jiggling. Click Edit in the top left corner, then Customize. In the menu that pops up on the bottom of your screen, pick Tinted.
You’ll get two color picker bars, as well as the option to choose Light or Dark icons (this is separate from the general Light and Dark mode app icons, which aren’t monochrome). Think of the top color picker bar as the app’s general color, and the bottom as a way to get more specific within that color zone. Meanwhile, Light will make the app’s text and graphical elements white, while Dark will use a more grayish tone.
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt
You can play around here to get an app tint you like best, although Apple does have a few shortcut buttons to help you find the color for you. Personally, I like the leftmost button, under the color picker bars, that takes you to a standard black and white if you’ve selected Light or a more subdued black and dark gray if you’ve selected Dark. If neither of those work for you, there’s also an Apple Intelligence button that will try to pick a tint that goes well with your wallpaper, or an eyedropper that will let you pick a color from your wallpaper.
None of this is quite the same as just using Dark Mode icons, but if you’re like me, it might be close enough.
Or, wait for an update
If tinting your app icons doesn’t work for you, though, don’t despair. It’s likely Apple is seeing these complaints and will adjust Liquid Glass accordingly. It already toned it down twice over iOS 26’s beta, so maybe the real solution here is time.
