Liquid Glass in Flutter: is it possible? How to do it and why

It was June of last year when Apple announced a revolution in its design: the introduction of Liquid Glass. The new 2025 graphical interface replaced the previous Aqua version, which had been in use for over 20 years.

More than a year after its release, what's the situation with the most popular apps on the market? And how can you use Liquid Glass when you're not developing in a native language?

What innovation did Liquid Glass introduce

Liquid Glass takes its name from the material it aims to reproduce: that of liquid glass, which is translucent and changes color based on the content underneath. Apple explains it in detail in its public presentation.

But it's not just about buttons and menus: it's the entire layout that changes appearance. Previously, toolbars were designed for squared-off displays. Today's most modern devices have rounded corners and screens, and the new layout introduced by Liquid Glass adapts to them, creating harmony between the physical device and the software.

Moreover, the controls in Liquid Glass sit at a higher level than the apps and leave more room for content, appearing and disappearing depending on what the user needs at any given moment.

The light effects, then, are nothing more than a nice accessory. The real innovation, however, lies in the cleaner layout: floating elements, goodbye to full-width bars, and more screen space for what really matters.

The state of Liquid Glass, one year after release

Liquid Glass is here to stay. Apple has made this clear, turning it from an option you could enable in UIKit into something that's present by default. In practice, this makes it mandatory for anyone using native components.

More and more mobile apps are adapting to the new design:

• Some, like Reddit and Threads, have adopted a hybrid approach, using Liquid Glass on the toolbar and navigation bar but keeping the old style across much of the rest of the platform.
• Others, like Instagram, have integrated Liquid Glass into their pre-existing layout, but without leveraging the dedicated component, with the result that the animation looks flatter.
• Still other apps, such as Telegram, have handled the migration more thoroughly, fully following Apple's guidelines and completely applying the new style.

Even though it's being adopted more or less consistently, Liquid Glass hasn't been welcomed positively by everyone. Right from the start, users and experts raised some criticisms, especially regarding readability on complex backgrounds.

Apple didn't leave its users' complaints unheard, though, announcing at WWDC26, its annual developer conference, that iOS 27, expected this autumn, will bring major changes regarding Liquid Glass:

• Accessibility will be improved, making reading less difficult.
• Users will also be allowed to customize the level of Liquid Glass they want, from extremely opaque to solid color.

Why adopt Liquid Glass

While those working in a native language have no choice about whether to use Liquid Glass, opting out is still possible for those who, like us, work with their own UI kit in a cross-platform framework like Flutter.

But once you realize that Apple has no intention of abandoning the work it has already done and, on the contrary, plans to expand its scope and keep improving it, it's also clear that the more classic design will soon be considered definitively outdated.

And for those who don't use Liquid Glass?

While Liquid Glass has become indispensable for the most up-to-date iOS users, on the flip side it isn't an option for those on older versions of iOS or for Android users.

Using Liquid Glass only where it's available, however, would mean going back to native development, i.e. building different apps for different operating systems. Doesn't that option seem less than ideal to you? It didn't to us either! That's why we decided to take an alternative route.

How we integrated Liquid Glass into our Flutter apps

We at Mabiloft aren't the type to fall behind: if most of the apps around us are changing their look, ours won't be any less. That's why we created a package to use in our products.

It's not the first, nor the only one, we know, but unlike the more widespread solutions, ours:

• Does not simulate the effect.
• Uses components that react to light and scroll just like in native apps.
• Doesn't impact performance and power consumption.
• Is ready to go to production.

But the deeper reason we chose to develop a package of our own is to be able to include devices that don't have Liquid Glass available. After all, the real innovation of Liquid Glass isn't in its effect, but in the new structure.

To meet the needs of Android users, our approach involves:

• Identical placement of elements across all platforms
• Slightly different UI and touch feedback, but equally pleasant
• Where Liquid Glass doesn't exist, we introduced a frosted effect: a blurred, light surface that's supported everywhere.

Is the package available online?

We've thought about sharing our package with anyone interested, but for now it's only part of an internal toolkit. We're using it in our products, but it's still in the consolidation phase.

If you're interested in trying it in your own apps, let us know! We're happy to share a preview with anyone who shows interest.