iOS 26: New Lock Screen Features

July 04, 2025 July 04, 2025

iOS 26: A Deep Dive into the Revamped Lock Screen

The Lock Screen is the first thing you see when you pick up your iPhone, making it a key focal point of the user experience. iOS 26 brings a significant overhaul to the Lock Screen, introducing the stunning "Liquid Glass" aesthetic and several other exciting features. This article will take you through all the key improvements and enhancements you can expect.

Liquid Glass: A New Level of Visual Realism

Liquid Glass is the defining visual element of the iOS 26 Lock Screen. This effect permeates various aspects of the interface, creating a sleek and realistic look. The two customizable control buttons are larger and now have a subtly floating, glass-like appearance, consistent with the overall Liquid Glass design language. The clock itself also benefits from this treatment. A new "Glass" option provides a frosted glass look, employing dynamic lighting effects to convincingly mimic the appearance of real glass.

The glass effect can be applied to any of the available clock fonts, and you have the freedom to customize the tint color. Apple offers a range of preset colors, but you're also free to choose your own custom shade.

The realism extends to dynamic lighting. As you tilt your iPhone, light subtly reflects and glints, providing a truly immersive and interactive glass effect.

Even notifications receive the Liquid Glass treatment. They adopt a frosted glass appearance, allowing your chosen wallpaper to subtly show through, maintaining a visually cohesive and uncluttered look.

A Customizable Clock for Every Wallpaper

Beyond the aesthetic enhancements, the clock itself has gained a new level of adaptability. Using a new adaptive feature, you can now resize the clock to better complement your chosen wallpaper. During Lock Screen customization, simply grab a corner of the clock and drag it to expand or shrink it.

It's important to note that the resizing feature currently works only with the first clock font option and standard Arabic or Western numerals.

For photo wallpapers, the clock intelligently expands to fill any gaps, ensuring optimal visual balance. If you have Photo Shuffle enabled, the clock will dynamically adjust its size and position based on the displayed image, always ensuring that the main subject of the photo remains clearly visible and may even overlap with the clock creatively.

This adaptive clock functionality extends to the Apple Watch as well. A corresponding Photos watch face offers the same dynamic size and positioning adjustments, maintaining consistency across your Apple devices.

New Wallpaper and Design Elements

iOS 26 introduces a stunning new default wallpaper, perfectly complementing the Liquid Glass aesthetic. The wallpaper features multiple shades of blue and subtly shifts with iPhone movement, mirroring the dynamic nature of the Liquid Glass effect itself. Even the small details have been considered, with the icons for selecting wallpaper categories receiving a visual refresh to maintain consistency with the overall design language.

Spatial Scenes: Bringing Depth to Your Lock Screen

Beyond the Liquid Glass enhancements, Spatial Scenes represent the most significant change to the Lock Screen experience. This innovative feature leverages depth information to transform your 2D photos into captivating 3D spatial images. The subject of the photo is intelligently separated from the background, creating a sense of depth and realism.

Moving your iPhone will cause the elements of the Spatial Scene to subtly shift and move, bringing the image to life. This feature is not limited to the Lock Screen; it's also available within the Photos app, allowing you to add this captivating effect to any image you've captured with your iPhone, even older photos. Simply tap on the small icon featuring a mountain and sun to enable the Spatial Scenes setting when selecting a photo as your wallpaper.

Enhanced Widget Placement and Functionality

Lock Screen widgets now offer increased flexibility. Previously restricted to the top of the display, widgets can now be positioned both at the top and bottom of the screen. Thanks to the adaptive clock feature, widgets can automatically adjust their position to ensure that the subject of your wallpaper remains prominently visible.

Apple Music Integration

While there aren't many new widget options, iOS 26 does introduce a handy new Lock Screen widget for Apple Music search. However, the most significant enhancement is a new full-screen Now Playing interface. This interface dynamically displays album art, which expands and animates directly on the Lock Screen, offering an immersive audio experience.