Liquid Glass proves that Android app design is still an afterthought

As a full-time Android user who keeps an iPad Mini and an old iPhone 13 Pro Max on my desk to check out the supposedly greener grass, I am very happy with my digital allegiances. And when Apple rolled out its new Liquid Glass design language and I saw how horrid it looked on my devices, I swear I high-fived the air and said a small prayer of thanks for Material 3 Expressive. But there are some days when I’m still jealous, furious, and furiously jealous of Apple’s influence on the entire mobile ecosystem.

See, not only did a few Android brands decide to adopt Liquid Glass-like influences in their own Android skins (I’m looking at you, vivo and Xiaomi), but more and more app developers are already adopting the design language in their iOS apps, too. Good for them, but hey, ho, hey, I’m here, waving my Material 3 Expressive Pixel. Can I also get some acknowledgment, please?

Two major communication apps — WhatsApp and Telegram — have already started implementing touches of Liquid Glass in their iOS apps. Telegram transformed its bottom menu bar into a transparent/frosted glass look, regardless of whether users are running iOS 26 or not. There’s even a neat frosted glassy animation as you switch between the different icons. WhatsApp, on the other hand, has updated the look of its entire app for some lucky users. The bottom tab bar, the pop-up menus, the icons, and even the keyboard; everything received the Liquid Glass treatment.

Other apps like Insta360, AllTrails, Clue, and Wanderlog, might not have fully embraced Liquid Glass yet, but at least they’ve made their icons ready for iOS’s dark and tinted iconography.

As I said, that’s all good on paper, and excellent news for fans of Apple’s latest design influences who will get a more unified look across apps on their phone. Consistency and design coherence are awesome. Individuality is nice, but in general, you don’t want your homescreen to have a bunch of similar icons with a few eyesores in the middle. Nor do you want to open one app and see a certain user experience, then open another and see a whole other set of icons, fonts, or animations, menus under unexpected pop-ups, or settings in different places — at least not for your most frequently used apps. Otherwise, this would be a bit of a jarring experience.

Apple’s influence, better yet, chokehold, on the mobile industry shows very clearly here. Cupertino says, “Jump!” and everyone just jumps. No questions asked, not even when the new design is ugly and annoying. So, even though Liquid Glass was barely announced a few months ago in May and only rolled out to users a few weeks ago in mid-September, some developers are already falling over themselves trying to be the first to adopt Apple’s new design direction. Telegram even brought over some transparent elements to its Android app in beta — that’s how strong Apple’s impact is.

My issue with all of this isn’t that devs are rolling out their Liquid Glass adaptations, but that these same devs haven’t even considered adopting 2021’s Material You, let alone 2025’s Material 3 Expressive.

The same apps I mentioned above, WhatsApp and Telegram, haven’t even acknowledged that Material You has been a thing since 2021. Both apps lack any dynamic color palette, a pillar feature of Material You that changes the app’s colors to match your wallpaper. Instead, they force their own green and blue brand color schemes, respectively.

I could give a pass to that, for the sake of brand identity, but there’s still the fact that some of these apps’ iconography and style still feel stuck in the early flat days of Material Design, especially for Telegram. Old toggles, old circular floating buttons, legacy side menus, and what even is that attachment menu? WhatsApp has at least made a bit of an effort, I’ll admit, and improved some of its icons and buttons. Still, what is that attachment menu?

That’s without even mentioning themed icons on Android, or the lack thereof from several big brand names that have at least already adopted Apple’s layered graphic requirements for dark icons. Just see a small sample of these below, including Google’s own Analytics, as well as Bolt, Insta360, AllTrails, Clue, Synology’s DS apps, SwitchBot, and more.

I want to reiterate that all these changes came with a design ethos that Google rolled out to Android in 2021. Four years ago. And yet some developers have completely ignored them. So, of course, these same devs can’t be bothered to consider this year’s Material 3 Expressive and its colorful, bouncy design language! Google’s new look only became available to early adopters with Android 16 QPR1 Beta 1 in May, and then rolled out publicly with Android 16 QPR1 in early September. Forget that it has a few weeks’ head start on iOS 26 — Material You had a four-year head start and still didn’t catch the attention of apps like Telegram!

This is what leaves a sour taste in my mouth with some of these apps: the feeling that any Android development is an afterthought, and any design consistency with the rest of our phones isn’t as necessary as it is on iPhones. Nearly two decades after iOS and Android were both introduced, you’d think every big company should’ve already established a team to support each platform independently and make the most of any new APIs and features. No, still not.

And yes, I know some of you will tell me following one design language across iOS is easier. Android has many skins and comes in many shapes and colors; this is the charm and biggest obstacle of our favorite platform after all. But it should’ve been relatively feasible by now to match Google’s own apps aesthetic or find a common ground that looks “decidedly Android” and not iOS-inspired. At least, at the very least, don’t just lazily bring elements of Liquid Glass and your app’s iOS redesign to Android, my dear Telegram. That’s such a red flag.