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.
Explore the art and science of app design. Discuss user interface (UI) design principles, user experience (UX) best practices, and share design resources and inspiration.
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Hey there! I'd love to know if theres a way where you can animate items between ZStack and VStacks? Just like the native iOS notifications on the Lockscreen stack at the bottom and if tapped, they convert from a Stack to a List - I have a list with items, displayed in a VStack, and I make the list collapsable when swiping down, where the items stack behind eachother with a progresisve reduction in opacity & scale, but I havent figured out a way to animate the items between the list and the stack - where you can visually see items starting to overlap and stack ontop of eachother when collapsing the list.
Hello,
I used icon composer to create an icon for my Mac OS app and it seemed to have worked. I see the app icon everywhere except for window expose or stage manager.
Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated!
I've been playing around with the recently published iPad PRO M5 13" and it's awesome in most ways I've been able to think of. But this video capture of the app I'm developing, for example, lacks it the app icon "should" be just slightly translucent as I see it.
https://youtube.com/CAukICBrVzw
However I'm not and UI/X person and this is primarily my personal preference only for an option to allow for devs.
I am struggling with exactly how to set up SwiftData relationships, beyond the single relationship model...
Let's say I have a school. Each school offers a set of classes. Each class is taught by one teacher and attended by several students. Teachers may teach more than one class, but only at one school. Similarly students may attend more than one class, but only at one school. Classes themselves may be offered at more than one school.
Can someone create a class for School, SchoolClass, Teacher, and Student with id, name, and relationships... I have tried it unsuccessfully about 10 different ways at this point.
My most recent is below... I am struggling getting beyond a school listing in the app, and I'll cross that bridge next. I am just wondering if all the trouble I am having is because I am not smart with the class definitions. And wondering if this is to complex for SwiftData and CoreData is the requirement.
This is not a real app, just my way of really trying to get a handle on Swift Data models and Navigation.
I am very new to Swift, and will take any and all suggestions with enthusiasm! Thanks for taking the time.
import Foundation
import SwiftData
@Model
class School: Identifiable {
var id: UUID = UUID()
var name: String
var mascot: String
var teachers: [Teacher]
var schoolClasses: [SchoolClass]
init (name: String, mascot: String = "", teachers: [Teacher] = [], schoolClasses: [SchoolClass] = []) {
self.name = name
self.mascot = mascot
self.teachers = teachers
}
class SchoolClass: Identifiable {
var id: UUID = UUID()
var name: String
var teacher: Teacher?
var students: [Student] = []
init (name: String, teacher: Teacher? = nil, students: [Student] = []) {
self.name = name
self.teacher = teacher
self.students = students
}
}
class Teacher: Identifiable {
var id: UUID = UUID()
var name: String
var tenured: Bool
var school: School?
var students: [Student] = []
init (name: String, tenured: Bool = false, students: [Student] = []) {
self.name = name
self.tenured = tenured
self.students = students
}
}
class Student: Identifiable {
var id: UUID = UUID()
var name: String
var grade: Int?
var teacher: Teacher?
init (name: String, grade: Int? = nil, teacher: Teacher? = nil) {
self.name = name
self.grade = grade
self.teacher = teacher
}
}
}
🔍 Context
The built-in screenshot editor in iOS and iPadOS (Markup tool) only allows users to crop images using rectangular frames. While this is sufficient for basic editing, it lacks flexibility for those who wish to tailor the screenshot to the aesthetics of iOS itself — which relies heavily on rounded shapes and smooth UI elements.
⸻
🚫 Current Limitation
• After taking a screenshot and opening it in Markup, users can only crop in rectangular or square formats.
• No option is available to apply rounded corners to the crop.
• As a result, many users are forced to use third-party apps just to achieve a basic rounded-edge crop, which feels unnecessary for such a common need.
⸻
✅ Proposed Solution
Add a rounded corner cropping feature to the screenshot editor.
This could be implemented as:
• A toggle to activate “Rounded Crop”.
• A radius slider (or predefined corner radius presets).
• Optional: an export option to save the result with transparent background, useful for designers and mockups.
⸻
🎯 Why it matters
• Aligns better with the iOS design language (cards, notifications, widgets, etc.).
• Saves time for users who currently have to rely on external editing apps.
• Greatly improves the presentation of screenshots for social media, UI/UX mockups, blogs, and professional use cases.
• Useful across many professions: developers, designers, content creators, educators, marketers.
⸻
📷 Visual Example
Here’s a mockup to illustrate the proposed feature:
(Add your image here)
⸻
💡 Bonus Suggestion
Allow exporting with a transparent background when cropping screenshots — especially useful for rounded crops or mockups placed on colored backgrounds.
Hi,
App Image: What is the best format - jpg, tiff, giff, psd or ai?
What is the maximum and minimum number of items the app can contain?
Please advise.
Thanks
I have many Apple devices, such as macbook, iPad and iPhone. It's very convenient for me to transfer files between devices. However, when I want to send files to my own device in public places, I often click on the wrong recipient because the list avatar keeps changing. I hope the list of recipients can be grouped One group is my own device (or the one I often send to), and the other group is other devices. When the user is about to send, the mouse will be in a relatively fixed and mentally expected area. I feel that this can reduce the probability of sending wrongly
I had, a long time ago (over 10 years) developed an application that is connected to my UPS (for solar panels).
Until yet it worked very well, and I didnot have to compute more than making updates of XCode. That was all.
But yet I have swiched to the latest value of switch, and it continue to compile, but it does'not work. I am asking to yo in order keeping my app working as previously. As it does not work, which library is replacing Cloudkit.framework ?
and which library is replacing InsPersistantContainer.framework ?
Have a good day
Guy Desbief
Hi everyone 👋 I’m a new iOS developer working on my first app and I’ve run into a frustrating visual bug involving my app icon during the launch/close transition.
Issue:
When I use Icon Composer (the new tool introduced for iOS 26) to generate my app icon, I consistently see a thin white border or “fringe” around the icon only during the transition animation (when the app opens or closes). It disappears once the animation ends.
What I tested and confirmed:
• I exported the exact same design directly from Adobe Illustrator as a 1024×1024 PNG, fully opaque, RGB color mode, background color filling the entire canvas (no transparency, no borders, no rounded corners).
• When I place that exported PNG directly into the AppIcon asset catalog in Xcode, the icon renders perfectly — no white fringe appears, just a slightly darker shade of blue during transitions (expected and acceptable).
• But when I generate the icon using Icon Composer, the white edge always appears, even if I disable effects, use full coverage layers, or only keep a flat color layer.
Notes:
• Tested on iOS 26 (latest beta) using Xcode 16.
• The issue seems specific to Icon Composer’s export format or metadata — maybe it’s not stripping alpha correctly or something related to the squircle mask?
• I followed all recommended specs: 1024×1024 px, PNG, sRGB, no transparency, exported from Illustrator at 72ppi with solid background.
Even tested without the logo, just the icon made with icon composer
Is anyone else experiencing this issue with Icon Composer exports?
Is there an official recommendation to avoid this during transitions or should I simply avoid Icon Composer for production icons for now and stick with Illustrator / Figma exports?
Thanks so much
Here’s a visual example:
Hi is there possibly to put text data or information into Roomplanapi elements like data wall color etc and export to usdz after lidar scan
I've noticed that the App Store app tends to make the selected tab indicator darker on light mode and lighter on dark mode.
Is there any easy way to ensure better legibility out of the box with Tab View (SwiftUI) when using the tint modifier with custom colors?
ปุ่ม ฝ เอาไปสลับกะปุ่ม backspace น่าจะใช้สะดวกขึ้น
I'm developing an iPadOS 18+ application that uses a UITabBarController, styled as a sidebar, to serve as the primary navigation interface. This setup includes 20 different tabs, each representing a distinct section of the app.
For the user experience, each tab needs to present a master-detail interface, implemented using a UISplitViewController. The goal is to allow users to navigate between tabs via the sidebar, and within each tab, access related content through the split view's list-detail pattern.
The Problem:
Currently, my implementation involves instantiating a separate UISplitViewController for each tab, resulting in 20 unique split view instances embedded inside the UITabBarController. While this works functionally, it leads to significant memory usage, especially after the user opens each tab at least once. The accumulation of all these instantiated view controllers in memory eventually causes performance degradation or even memory warnings/crashes on lower-end iPads.
The Question:
What is the best approach to implement this type of architecture without running into memory management issues?
Specifically:
Is there a way to reuse or lazily load the UISplitViewController instances only when needed?
Can we unload or release split view controllers that haven't been used for a while to reduce memory pressure?
Would a custom container controller be more appropriate than using UITabBarController in this case?
Are there iPadOS 18+ best practices or newer APIs that support this kind of complex multi-tab, multi-split-view structure efficiently?
Any advice on how to optimize memory usage while preserving the sidebar navigation and split view layout would be highly appreciated.
I want to know if the program written in C language can be implemented through the software package, write a software package containing C language on Xcode, and then apply it in Swift Playground.
Is there anyway I can customize Carplay template look like this
Showing Recent Errors Only
Prepare build
error: Multiple commands produce '/Users/mayankjain/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/PCS_EmpApp-chsylqbxjptobeawzzckymqzagvr/Build/Products/Debug-iphonesimulator/PCS_EmpApp.app/Info.plist'
note: Target 'PCS_EmpApp' (project 'PCS_EmpApp') has copy command from '/Users/mayankjain/Documents/05-NOV-2025-SWETA_IOS/PCS_EmpApp/PCS_EmpApp/xcode-out/Platforms/iOS/Info.plist' to '/Users/mayankjain/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/PCS_EmpApp-chsylqbxjptobeawzzckymqzagvr/Build/Products/Debug-iphonesimulator/PCS_EmpApp.app/Info.plist'
note: Target 'PCS_EmpApp' (project 'PCS_EmpApp') has process command with output '/Users/mayankjain/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/PCS_EmpApp-chsylqbxjptobeawzzckymqzagvr/Build/Products/Debug-iphonesimulator/PCS_EmpApp.app/Info.plist'
Multiple commands produce '/Users/mayankjain/Library/Developer/Xcode/DerivedData/PCS_EmpApp-chsylqbxjptobeawzzckymqzagvr/Build/Products/Debug-iphonesimulator/PCS_EmpApp.app/Info.plist'
Hello! I've been wondering about how strict the rules are for multilingual content in submissions, and also what I can use as screenshots.
There are screens in my app, explained and accompanied by English, that have Chinese text/audio on them. Is this appropriate?
Reading the Terms & Conditions says that "All content must be in English", but because multicultural themes are a main point of my app, it seems unavoidable to use other languages. I've attached images that show what I'm talking about:
About the screenshots in my submission, am I allowed to show two screenshots side-by-side of a before & after of what an interaction does in one image? It'd look like two phone screenshots right next to each other.
I am working on a Mac App that was developed with Objective C and Interface Builder. In earlier versions of Mac OS the window title was centered. Now in Tahoe it's left-justified. Is there some way to set this? There is no setting for this in Interface Builder and I can't see any way to do it programmatically by reading the developer documentation. Is this even possible?
I am trying to resize a Window Form after it loads and have done quite a bit of searching for code to do it.
Here is one code snippet that works to size the form during the design phase.
self.view.window?.contentMinSize = CGSize(width: 1100, height: 310)
I have tried code like below to increase the window size after the Form loads
if let myWindow = self.view.window ?? NSApplication.shared.mainWindow
{
// Increase window size and position after it loads
let newRect = NSRect(x: 100, y: 100, width: 1400, height: 900)
}
It seems that this code not only changes the Form size after loading, but also changes the size of the Form in Main.swift, which is something I don't want.
I read elsewhere that I had to disable constraints to resize the Form, so I tried code below.
let tableView = NSTableView()
tableView.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
let newRect = NSRect(x: 100, y: 0, width: 1100, height: 600)
myWindow?.setFrame(newRect, display: true)
That code did not seem to do anything as well.
Also, the Form displays in the lower left of the screen.
Note that main reason I want to resize the Form after loading is to keep it smaller during design development. The same goes for the NSTableView, which I have not gotten to yet.
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?