Liquid Glass-Hating Homies Rejoice: iOS 26.2 Gives You Yet Another Way to Adjust

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Apple introduced Liquid Glass when the company released iOS 26 in September, and the design has had its fans and detractors.

With the release of iOS 26.2 today, iPhone users can now adjust more aspects of the design. iOS 26.2 comes more than a month after the company released iOS 26.1. The latest iOS update brings changes to the Podcasts and Apple Music apps, as well as more enhancements, to your iPhone. Apple wrote online that the update also patches two bugs that may have been actively exploited, so you should download the update now to protect your device.

You can download iOS 26.2 now by going to Settings and tapping General. Next, select Software Update, tap Update Now and follow the prompts on your screen.

Here are the features and security updates iOS 26.2 brings to your iPhone.

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Liquid Glass slider on the Lock Screen

With iOS 26.2, you can adjust the frostedness of Liquid Glass on your lock screen's clock. When you go to customize your lock screen's clock, you'll see a new slider along the bottom of the page. Moving the slider to the left makes the clock more translucent, while moving the slider to the right makes it appear more solid.

Liquid Glass in the iOS 26.2 adds a new slider function on the lock screen.

Liquid Glass has polarized iPhone users since Apple announced the redesign in June. Some people on Reddit note that the design may have some readability issues, while others find it modern and playful.

Regardless of how people feel about Liquid Glass, the design is here to stay.

Apple introduced a Liquid Glass setting in iOS 16.1 for iPhone users, allowing you to darken certain menus. With iOS 26.2 bringing additional customization options for the design, I expect Apple to continue expanding the ability to adjust Liquid Glass in future updates.

iOS 26.2 patches these exploited bugs and more

Apple writes online that iOS 26.2 patches more than two-dozen bugs on your iPhone. And the company wrote that two of those bugs could be used in "extremely sophisticated attack[s] against specific targeted individuals on versions of iOS before iOS 26."

Both bugs are within WebKit, Apple's in-house-developed internet browser engine used in Safari.

"Processing maliciously crafted web content may lead to arbitrary code execution," Apple wrote. Arbitrary code execution could allow a third party to steal your data or hack your device for other nefarious purposes.

While you may not be the target of these attacks, it's still important to update to protect your device and your data.

Liquid Glass comes to your Measure app

The Measure app is a useful tool that can give you an idea of a space's measurements when you don't have a tape measure on hand, and it can act as a level for when you're hanging a picture on your wall. And iOS 26.2 redesigns the app's Level function with Liquid Glass. It's a subtle change that doesn't alter the Level function, but it serves as a reminder that Apple is working to bring Liquid Glass to every aspect of your iPhone.

The Level function of the Measure app with a Liquid Glass display.

Offline lyrics in Apple Music

Apple also brings offline lyrics to Apple Music ($11 a month) with iOS 26.2. The company made a handful of additions and changes to Apple Music with iOS 26, including lyric translation. With iOS 26.2, when subscribers download songs to their device, they can access the lyrics to those songs even when they don't have a signal or internet access.

The lyrics to the Turnstile song Mystery.

Podcasts changes

The Podcasts app gets some new features with iOS 26.2. One of these features is Chapters, which makes it easy to navigate episodes. Chapters breaks in a podcast are represented by small hash marks in the Podcasts media player.

Other changes in Podcasts include links shared in a podcast directly on the episode page, as well as a way to follow other Podcasts mentioned during an episode, right from the transcript.

The transcript for the podcast Sounds Like a Cult with a link to another podcast outlined in red.

News app sections

In addition to the changes in Podcasts, iOS 26.2 also brings a few adjustments to the News app. The app now has a menu across the top of the homepage divided into sections, like Sports and Politics.

The Sports, Puzzles, Politics and Business sections in Apple's News app outlined in red.

The long-overdue change makes it easy to jump to a different section right from the News app's homepage.

Before this update, News separated the homepage into different sections, but it was difficult to navigate to them. You either had to scroll down your homepage to find them or search for them on your Following page. This small change lets you navigate to a topic with relative ease.

Reminders can set alarms

Reminders can also set an alarm for you in iOS 26.2. When you create a reminder in the app, you can mark it as Urgent, and the app will prompt you to schedule an alarm or timer to go off for that Reminder.

The Urgent option in Reminders outlined in red.

New Enhanced Safety Alerts

The iOS 26.2 update can also introduce a new menu to your iPhone, providing more safety alerts, such as earthquake and other threat alerts. To find these new alerts, go to Settings > Notifications > Enhanced Safety Alerts. Here you'll find toggles for Earthquake Alerts and Imminent Threat Alerts.

The Enhanced Safety Alerts menu in iOS 26.2.

"In emergency situations, your iPhone can receive safety alerts and broadcast them anonymously to nearby Apple devices," Apple writes in the menu.

There's also a toggle for Improve Alert Delivery, which, if enabled, shares your approximate location with Apple to improve the timeliness and reliability of the alerts.

Health app Sleep Score adjustments

According to 9to5Mac, Sleep Scores in the Health app are also adjusted with iOS 26.2 and WatchOS 26.2, raising the threshold for most scores.

Sleep Scores are designed to measure the restorative quality of your sleep, and the feature categorizes your sleep on a scale of Very High (formerly Excellent), High, OK, Low or Very Low. These categories are based on a points system measured by the duration of your sleep, when you went to bed and any sleep interruptions throughout the night. These scores were added up and were given the following grades:

0-29 points: Very Low
30-49 points: Low
50-69 points: OK
70-89 points: High
90-100 points: Excellent

9to5Mac reports that the ranges for these scores are updated with iOS 26.2 and WatchOS 26.2. Here are the new ranges for your Sleep Score:

0-40 points: Very Low
41-60 points: Low
61-80 points: OK
81-95 points: High
96-100 points: Very High

iOS 26.2 release notes

Here are the full release notes for iOS 26.2.

Apple Music

Favorite Songs playlist appears in Top Picks on the home tab.
Offline lyrics for downloaded songs so you can view them without an internet connection.

Podcasts

Automatically generated chapters make it easier to navigate episodes.
Links to mentioned podcasts let you see and follow other podcasts mentioned in the episode you're listening to directly from the player and transcript.

Games

Filters in the Games library let you find games by category, size and more.
In-game challenge score banners provide real-time updates when someone new has taken the lead.
Improved support for connected controllers such as Backbone and Razer.

This update also includes the following enhancements and bug fixes:

Additional Lock Screen time customization option lets you further adjust its appearance, giving the Liquid Glass material more or less opacity.
Enhanced Safety Alerts can inform you about imminent threats such as floods, natural disasters and other emergencies, with rich information like a map of affected areas and links to additional safety guidance (available in the US).
Alarms for Reminders help you stay on top of urgent tasks, and provide snooze and Live Activity support if you're not ready to check the reminder off.
AirDrop codes offer an additional layer of verification when using AirDrop with unknown contacts by providing a code on the receiver's device that the sender must enter to complete the transfer.
Apple News Section links at the top of the Today feed offer easy navigation to popular topics like Sports, Politics, Business and Food.
Multipack accessory pairing in the Home app lets you use the same setup code to easily enroll multiple accessories when sold together.
Flash for alerts in Accessibility Settings offers the additional option to have the device screen flash when you receive a notification.
Tables in Freeform can hold text, images, documents and drawings, with cells that intelligently resize to fit, bringing structure to the infinite canvas.
Fixes an issue where prerelease albums in the Apple Music library were not immediately playable at their release time.
Fixes an issue where a Privacy and Security setting may incorrectly be marked as managed by an enterprise organization.

For more iOS news, here's everything to know about iOS 26.1 and my review of iOS 26. You can also check out our iOS 26 cheat sheet.

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