During the WWDC 2025 keynote, Apple unveiled its long-awaited Liquid Glass redesign for not only the iPhone software, but all of its operating system. Easily the most significant update to Apple’s software since iOS 7, the Liquid Glass interface makes interacting with your iPhone more intuitive, while also bringing more cohesion to the company’s six different operating systems.
Liquid Glass marks a convergence point for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, watchOS, and visionOS. Not only do these operating systems all now feature the same “26” suffix, but they also have a similar design language, which makes the Apple ecosystem even more fluid than it was before.
The biggest changes to the interface are most noticeable in iOS 26, iPadOS 26, and macOS Tahoe, as Apple is making switching between devices as seamless as possible. That said, while the company is usually very secretive about its upcoming features, it has actually been teasing the Liquid Glass design for over a year, and we’ve only just realized it.
Secret teasers for Apple’s Liquid Glass look
Believe it or not, Apple has been teasing the Liquid Glass design since as early as the M4 iPad Pro release. After that, the company teased Liquid Glass once again when it launched the iPhone 16 Pro models and the iPhone 16e. As noticed by X user WorkaholicDavid, all three wallpapers that debuted alongside these products clearly resemble Apple’s design language for Liquid Glass.
Apple has been hinting at Liquid Glass all along right under our noses, and we never noticed it.
It’s been mirrored in product wallpapers for at least a year now. pic.twitter.com/1FcZDwSQwI
— Amir (@WorkaholicDavid) August 11, 2025
For the M4 iPad Pro, Apple rolled out a black wallpaper with a bubbly “Pro” written in reflective colors. We can also now see that the iPhone 16 Pro’s wallpaper shows something similar to Liquid Glass interacting with different objects, while the iPhone 16e wallpaper features a bubble bouncing off a glass background.
While there was no way to know beforehand, we can now see that Apple has long been teasing this design change with some of its most important products. The M4 iPad Pro was a revolution for Apple’s tablets, while the iPhone 16 Pro models are currently the most powerful iPhones available. Finally, the iPhone 16e marks the beginning of a new lineup of Apple smartphones. Apple usually teases new features on invites for its keynotes, but it’s not often that we see the company lay out breadcrumbs like these this far in advance.