Google Apps on iOS Begin Adopting Liquid Glass and Material 3 Expressive Design

As Apple’s Liquid Glass design paradigm marks its first anniversary, Google has begun updating its suite of iOS applications to incorporate the translucent material. This visual overhaul pairs the new aesthetic with Google’s evolving Material 3 Expressive design language, bringing a fresh look and feel to popular productivity and utility apps running on Apple’s mobile operating system.

The integration of Liquid Glass is gradually rolling out across various Google services on the iPhone and iPad, shifting away from entirely opaque elements in favor of modern, layered transparency. This transition represents the latest phase in Google’s ongoing effort to modernize its application ecosystem on iOS, aligning its software more closely with contemporary interface standards while maintaining a distinct identity.

Google Photos Leads the Visual Shift with Version 7.94

Among the first major applications to embrace this aesthetic change is Google Photos. Previously, the floating bottom bar featured a solid background, mirroring the layout found in the Android counterpart. However, beginning with version 7.94, this prominent navigation element has been redesigned using Liquid Glass, allowing subtle hints of the underlying images to pass through the interface.

Users exploring the updated Google Photos interface can experience varying degrees of translucency depending on their preferences. The application provides options for a standard default level of transparency alongside a more pronounced "More clear" setting that increases visibility into the background imagery. When operating within the dark theme, the interface highlights how the default blue accent color dynamically tints the active tab indicator, creating a polished, cohesive visual hierarchy.

In addition to the reworked bottom bar, Google has extended the Liquid Glass treatment to various interactive buttons located within the top navigation bar of the application. These incremental updates contribute to a more unified user experience across the entire Google Photos environment on iOS, blending modern design principles with everyday functionality.

Google Health App Adopts Translucent Navigation Elements

The adoption of Liquid Glass is not limited to media management tools. The traditional bottom navigation bar within the Google Health application has also been updated to utilize the translucent material, giving users a clear view of content positioned directly beneath the navigation elements.

Complementing this change, the application’s prominent "Ask Coach" floating action button, commonly referred to as a FAB, has received a frosted treatment. This stylistic update ensures that key interactive components stand out against the background while harmonizing with the broader transparent design language now making its way across Apple’s platform.

Phasing Out Legacy Themes and Transitioning to Material 3

While these recent updates highlight an accelerating shift toward modern design standards, Google remains in the process of phasing out its older Google Material Theme elements on iOS in favor of the newer Material 3 guidelines. The transition timeline has varied significantly across Google’s vast portfolio of mobile applications.

Productivity staples such as Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Keep have historically lagged behind in adopting the company’s latest design iterations. Meanwhile, other utilities, including Google Tasks, have received modernizing overhauls more recently. As the broader migration continues, users can expect a more consistent design language to take root across the entire suite of Google applications available on the App Store.

The Limitations of Dynamic Color on iOS

Despite the ongoing integration of Material 3 Expressive and Liquid Glass, Google has shown no inclination toward introducing Dynamic Color capabilities to its iOS applications. On Android, Dynamic Color automatically extracts hues from the user’s current system wallpaper to tint application interfaces, creating a deeply personalized experience.

Implementing a similar feature on iOS would likely require a manual system enabling users to choose a custom accent color that applies uniformly across all Google apps. Nevertheless, without system-level access to the device wallpaper—a capability tightly controlled within Apple’s operating system environment—such a feature would offer limited utility. Consequently, Dynamic Color remains fundamentally anchored as a system-level Android feature, leaving iOS users to experience Google apps through standard or theme-specific color palettes rather than automated wallpaper-based customization.