Ryan Christoffel:

Last year with iOS 26, Apple redesigned its full lineup of app icons for iPhone. But just one year later, iOS 27 has even more design changes for many app icons.

[…]

iOS 27’s new app icons are “sharper and more detailed,” per Apple’s description. And it really shows.

Louie Mantia:

If you’re curious how much changed from 26 to 27 for app icon rendering with Icon Composer, here are a few examples of the difference (in this thread). First of the pair is 26, the second is 27.

Benjamin Mayo:

App icons also look significantly different now, but I think some of this is beta 1 bugs as the 27 rendering is very flat.

Andreas Storm:

All app icons are getting a Liquid Glass update

Louie Mantia:

The needless, barely-even-noticeable directional specular highlights based on the rotation of your phone on app icons are gone in iOS 27, and thank god for that.

Kuba Suder:

Ohhhh they made app icons sharper! That was one of the things that stood out to me, some were sooo blurry… my mom noticed it too on her new iPad.

Mario Guzmán:

I will say that icons render better in #macOS27 so some of these icons look super sharp, super glassy, super sophisticated. Almost like something you’d buy at the Swarovski store.

I mean, look at this icon! Look at it closely. Zoom in. Almost gives me Mac OS X Tiger detail vibes.

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Thomas Brand:

All I wanted from WWDC was release from squircle jail.

Simon B. Støvring:

Just f***ng free macOS app icons from squircle jail already.

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Icon Composer for Beginners Group Lab:

Join us online to ask questions, get advice, and follow the discussion about getting started with Icon Composer.

Previously:

• Liquid Glass 27 Slider
• macOS Golden Gate 27 Announced
• iPadOS 27 Announced
• iOS 27 Announced
• WWDC 2026 Keynote

Update (2026-06-11): Ged Maheux:

I appreciate Apple wiping the vaseline off the screen for iOS 27. App icons seem significantly less fuzzy, especially in light mode, which is a good thing.

Kuba Suder:

I think they dragged the sharpness slider too far in some cases, and some lines are too strong and too visible, but imho generally this is a change in a good direction (if it also scales well to various sizes). Some of those icons were annoyingly blurry in 26.

Jonathan Reed:

The clarity and legibility of almost all the icons have improved significantly, with icons like Photos packing a real visual punch. Additionally, viewing the icons at this size, you can see the nice refraction effects of the glass-like elements.

The one that really stood out for me, though, was the new Finder icon, which not only looks cleaner but also has a subtle change to the nose and the curve of the divide, bringing it much closer to the classic Finder icon from the pre-Liquid Glass days.

Basic Apple Guy:

Here are a list of many of the icons across macOS Golden Gate (beta 1) compared to their liquid glass Tahoe counterpart.

Design Icon Composer iOS iOS 27 Liquid Glass Mac macOS 27 Golden Gate

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