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How Liquid Glass works

Displacement maps, 2D refraction, and gyroscope tricks — how Apple's Liquid Glass actually renders.

Apple’s Liquid Glass isn’t a blur filter with rounded corners. It’s a 2D optical simulation that only looks like 3D.

Announced at WWDC 2025, Liquid Glass is Apple’s unified design language across all platforms. Most coverage focuses on what it looks like. Here’s how it actually works.

Displacement mapping, not blur

Traditional frosted glass effects blur nearby pixels. Liquid Glass does something different — it uses a 2D displacement map where white and black values determine the direction and distance pixels are shifted. This produces refraction, the visual distortion you see looking through curved glass.

The system first shrinks the interface, then stretches the edges outward to create the lens effect. A uniform scaling factor applied beforehand ensures the final result stays the correct size.

2D simulation, not 3D

The key insight: none of this is 3D. The distortion is entirely planar — a flat map applied to a flat background. This works because you always view your screen from roughly the same angle. At that narrow viewing range, a 2D distortion is indistinguishable from real 3D refraction.

Simulating rather than computing real physics also gives Apple precise control over light transitions, shapes, and the fluid “metaball” merging effects when glass elements overlap. No unpredictable artifacts. The effect is always legible.

Being a 2D effect also makes it efficient — far less demanding on hardware than actual 3D rendering would be.

More than frosted glass

Traditional glassmorphism has two parameters: blur radius and opacity. Liquid Glass adds refraction degree and mask color on top of that, producing its characteristic fluid look. Larger elements simulate thicker material with deeper shadows and more pronounced lensing. Edge highlights give it glass-like depth.

The gyroscope trick

The specular highlights sync with the phone’s gyroscope — tilt the device and light catches the glass differently. This is what makes it feel physical. It’s also why screenshots and screen recordings look flat — you lose the motion that makes it convincing.

Further reading