Apple noticed. iOS 26.1 handed out two presets, Clear and Tinted, which helped a bit but still left you picking between someone else’s idea of “just right”. Apple’s Liquid Glass look has spent a little over a year splitting iPhone owners into two camps. One side enjoys the way menus and icons refract whatever sits behind them. The other side has spent that year squinting at Control Center, wondering why a wallpaper needs to show through a volume slider.
iOS 27 replaces that two-option toggle with a continuous slider, so the translucency can sit anywhere between barely-there glass and a heavy frost. It also moves the control somewhere more sensible. The slider never goes fully matte. Even at the tinted end, a little gloss survives. If that isn’t enough, head to Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size and switch on Reduce Transparency. That strips out nearly all translucency and leaves flat, solid backgrounds. Increase Contrast, in the same menu, sharpens the edges between buttons, text and whatever sits behind them.
Apple has created a new Appearance section in Settings that pulls together interface options previously scattered across Display & Brightness, including Light and Dark mode and text size.