Get clear App Icons on your iPhone Home Screen

When Apple released iOS 26 in September 2025, it introduced the new Liquid Glass design overhaul, which adopts translucent elements throughout the system interface and in stock apps. iOS 27, available now, builds on Liquid Glass by refining the visual effect to make contents more readable and the interface more consistent, but the overall style remains the same.

On the Home Screen, the search bar, dock, and app folders are translucent. By default, app icons have a layered glass look that gives them dimension, but there’s also an option for “Clear” glass-like icons. This setting turns your app icons transparent, and widgets too. So if you want the full glass effect, read on.

In iOS 18, Apple introduced Dark Mode and Tinted app icons. With iOS 26 and iPadOS 26, Apple added a third visual style – Clear – which removes the color from app icons and widgets, and applies reflective, translucent effects to make them appear see-through.

There are two versions of the Clear style. In Light mode, app icons appear semi-transparent, subtly darkening the wallpaper beneath them. Both icons and widgets resemble glass-like panels with layered text and images. In Dark mode, icons retain some transparency but feature a darker background, making them more pronounced while preserving the layered, translucent aesthetic.

How to Get Clear App Icons in iOS 26

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iOS 27: Customize Controls in the Camera App

In the iOS 27, available now, Apple has added the long-rumored ability to customize the Camera app’s controls. Far from the rigid interface of previous iOS versions, you can now pick which controls appear in the Camera app, right down to the flash, exposure, timer, depth of field, photo styles, and resolution.

It’s a notable development for a stock app that Apple has historically kept locked down. It also feels like a subtle admission that the iPhone’s camera has outgrown the existing interface. Third-party apps like Halide and Kino have spent years filling the gap for users who want more manual control. Finally, iOS 27 brings some of that flexibility in-house, without forcing it on everyone.

To customize the Camera app’s controls, tap the button with six circles inside in the bottom-right of the Camera’s UI and look for a new Edit button in the top-left corner.

From the new “Add Photo Controls” tray that appears, you can add or remove the widget-like controls to the top of the Camera app’s UI, then press Done in the top right when you’re happy with your selection. Depending on your iPhone model, you should be able to choose from the following controls:

Flash
Live Photo
Aspect Ratio
Timer
Exposure
Styles
Filters
Depth Control
Night Mode
Center Stage
File Format
Shared Library
A “Rest to Essentials” option at the bottom of the widget tray lets you revert to the default set of controls.

When the customization feature didn’t appear in Apple’s iOS 27 preview at WWDC in June, it was believed that Apple was holding it back specifically for the release of new iPhone 18 Pro models, which bring some of the most significant camera hardware upgrades in several years.

As it turns out, Apple has made the customization feature available to all iPhone models capable of running iOS 27. If you haven’t updated to iOS 27 yet, you can download and install it from the Settings app, via General -> Software Update.

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iOS 27 Lets you hide the messages button everyone hits by mistake

If you accidentally press the dictation or voice icon after sending a text in Messages, your music may pause while your iPhone starts listening. It’s a small annoyance, but a frequent one, since the dictation/audio icon sits so close to the send arrow that stray taps are almost inevitable. In iOS 27 and iPadOS 27, Apple has finally given you a way to get rid of it.

The issue is one that popstar Justin Bieber publicly complained about, claiming that the send button shouldn’t have multiple functions so close together. The post went viral, and in iOS 27, Apple has done something about it. Quite simply, the message text field now has a new setting. You can choose whether it displays the audio waveform icon for recording a voice message, the microphone icon for dictation, or nothing at all.

Here’s how to find it:

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Set a Custom EQ for your AirPods in iOS 27

Sony, Bose, and Sennheiser owners have been able to adjust the audio frequency spectrum of their headphones for years, whereas AirPods owners have had to make do with Apple’s default tuning. That’s no longer the case in iOS 27, which adds a three-band equalizer to the AirPods settings screen.

It’s worth noting that iOS has had an EQ setting for years – it’s buried in Settings ➝ Apps ➝ Music, but it applies only to Apple Music playback, and works on any pair of headphones. In iOS 27, the new EQ is specifically tied to your AirPods, so it applies to everything you listen to. Your custom EQ profile also carries over to iPad and Mac when you pair your AirPods with them.

Custom EQ requires Apple’s H2 chip, so it supports AirPods Pro 2, AirPods Pro 3, AirPods 4, and AirPods Max 2. Earlier models, including the original AirPods Max, aren’t compatible with the feature.

You’ll also need current AirPods beta firmware. If the Equalizer option described below doesn’t appear, pair your AirPods with your iPhone, tap your AirPods in Settings, then tap AirPods Beta Updates and toggle on the beta updates option. Afterwards, put your AirPods in the case, connect the case to power, and leave it near your unlocked iPhone to let the latest beta firmware install quietly in the background. It shouldn’t take more than half an hour.

How to Adjust Your AirPods EQ

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iOS 27: Tone Down Liquid Glass Transparency

If you’ve never been a fan of Liquid Glass – Apple’s glass-like interface effect introduced in iOS 26 – then there’s some good news in iOS 27. Apple has added a setting that lets you finely adjust the level of translucency, giving you more control over the look and feel of your iPhone.

Perhaps you find notifications too see-through, or you want to see more of your wallpaper through Control Center. Fortunately, iOS 27 includes a dial that can help with that. Apple has swapped the two-option Clear and Tinted setting for a continuous slider that puts translucency anywhere between barely-there glass and a heavy frost.

The earlier presets arrived in iOS 26.1 and gave you two positions on a spectrum, whereas iOS 27 gives you the whole spectrum. It also locates the control in “Appearance” – a new section in Settings that gathers up interface options previously scattered through Display & Brightness, including Light and Dark mode and text size. Not only that, Apple has also tweaked the default look, and says that Liquid Glass now diffuses complex content behind it more effectively while drawing a clearer separation between layers.

How to Change the Liquid Glass Effect
When you first install iOS 27, you’ll be presented with the slider to change the Liquid Glass effect, but it’s good to know how to get to it later if you want to switch up the look.

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iOS 27: Finally unlinks alarm volume from your iPhone ringer

For the better part of two decades, an iPhone’s alarm volume has matched its ringer. In other words, if you slide the ringtone volume down to silence your iPhone overnight, you’re also turning your alarm’s volume down with it. That’s no longer the case in iOS 27.

Settings now includes an “Alarms and Timers” section with its own Match Ringtone Volume toggle. If you toggle it off, a dedicated slider appears that allows you to drop the ringer volume to nothing, and you’ll still be woken at whatever alarm volume you choose.

How to Set a Separate Alarm Volume

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iOS 27: Access the New iPhone Recovery Screen

Since iOS 26, a malfunctioning iPhone has been able to boot itself into Recovery Assistant, with no Mac or PC required. However, you could only get there if your device failed to start up and dropped into recovery on its own. In iOS 27, currently in beta, Apple has removed that limitation, and you can now manually boot into a Mac-style recovery screen whenever you like.

The new recovery mode lets you troubleshoot, update, or erase your device without necessarily plugging it into anything. It can connect automatically to a known Wi-Fi network, and it shows your battery percentage in the corner of the screen. Here’s how to access it.

How to Boot Into Recovery Mode
Accessing the recovery mode is similar to the equivalent mode on Apple silicon Macs, and it works the same way on iPads running iPadOS 27.

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How to downgrade from iOS 27 Beta to iOS 26

If you installed iOS 27 Beta or iPadOS 27 Beta through Apple’s Developer Program, you may decide you want to downgrade because of usability or stability issues. Keep reading to learn how it’s done. Apple’s beta versions of its major software updates can be buggy, especially the early releases. While that isn’t necessarily the case for the latest iOS 27 beta, you may still find apps not working properly, poor battery life, device crashes, and features that don’t do what they’re supposed to. Fortunately, you can restore your iPhone or iPad to the previous version of iOS.

If you made an archived backup before you installed the iOS 27 beta, you can remove the ‌beta and restore the backup. If you don’t have an archived backup that was created before installing the beta, you can still downgrade, but you’ll need to set up your device as new or restore from an older compatible backup. Only an archived backup made before installing the beta can be restored after downgrading.

Also, bear in mind that if you’ve installed watchOS 27 beta on your Apple Watch, you won’t be able to use it with your ‌iPhone‌ once you’ve gone back to iOS 26. And downgrading an Apple Watch to a previous version of watchOS can’t be done manually – if you want to remove ‌watchOS 27 beta, you’ll have to send your watch in to Apple.

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Stop others using your Instagram Photos in AI Prompts

On July 8, Meta launched Muse Image, an AI image generator now built into Meta AI, Instagram, and WhatsApp. It can do the typical text-to-image generative trick, but one feature in particular is causing controversy: Anyone can mention (@) a public Instagram account inside the Meta AI app, and it will use that account’s photos as the basis of an AI-generated image.

If your Instagram account is public, you’re opted into this by default. In other words, other people can feed your photos into their prompts to build event invitations, mockups, or whatever else they can think up, and you won’t even get a notification when they do. The same goes for your reels and feed videos. Anything’s up for grabs.

Private accounts are left out entirely, so what you post there remains off-limits to Muse Image. But if you’d rather keep a public profile and still block any sort of AI reuse, there’s a dedicated setting to achieve it. It’s worth changing now, because anything created before you opt out won’t be deleted afterwards.

Here’s how to turn it off:

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Text Shortcuts you should be using on iPhone and Mac

Apple’s autocorrect on iPhone and iPad always aims to help when you’re typing a message, but it’s by no means perfect, and some of the replacements it continually spews out can be frustrating. Fortunately, Apple’s software includes a feature called Text Replacement that allows you to specify what word or phrase replaces the specific text you type in.

Even if you haven’t set up Text Replacement, you can try it out with Apple’s pre-set example: In any app that accepts text input, type “Omw” followed by a space, and it will change to “On my way!” automatically.

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