If Apple’s latest Liquid Glass experiment isn’t exactly your favorite design choice, you might not be the only one who feels that way. Only a small chunk of iPhone users worldwide have made the jump to iOS 26, just over 15%, according to StatCounter data for this month, first spotted by Cult of Mac.
This is an obvious downgrade in terms of user adoption compared to recent iOS releases. At roughly the same time in its release cycle in January 2025, 63% of iPhone users had made the jump to iOS 18. This means that users are adopting iOS 26 about four times slower than its predecessor. The latest iOS version is also significantly underperforming compared to iOS 17. In January 2024, over 54% of users had made the move to what was then the latest upgrade.
It’s important to note that as Apple doesn’t release official OS installation figures, these are just estimates from StatCounter, compiled using data from apps on the App Store.
Rolled out in September with iOS 26, Liquid Glass was a system-wide aesthetic overhaul, implementing a translucent, glass-like quality through the entire UI, impacting everything from the Home Screen icons to Apple Music and Safari.
The new feature has proved controversial among iPhone users, with many criticizing the change. One poster on Reddit went as far as to call it an “embarrassment,” although it received plenty of praise as well in Mac communities and from fellow designers.
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Though you still can’t turn off Liquid Glass entirely, there are plenty of ways to turn it down significantly, for example by reducing your phone’s transparency, enabling Dark Mode, or customizing your Home Screen.
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Even if Liquid Glass really isn’t your speed, iOS 26.1, rolled out in November, also introduced a number of other improvements that could warrant an upgrade, including support for new languages like Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, and Turkish within Apple Intelligence, as well as Live Translation on AirPods support for Chinese (Traditional and Simplified Chinese), Italian, Japanese, and Korean. Users who make the update to iOS 26 will also get more advanced child safety filters, an improved Fitness app, and Apple added “Slide to Stop” swipe actions for alarms and timers.
If you have a compatible iPhone and you’d like to buck the trend, you can do so by going to Settings > General > Software Update.
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