{"id":452447,"date":"2026-05-30T08:37:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T08:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/452447\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T08:37:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T08:37:22","slug":"google-is-not-beating-the-liquid-glass-allegations-in-android-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/452447\/","title":{"rendered":"Google is not beating the Liquid Glass allegations in Android 17"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year\u2019s biggest mobile software story was Apple\u2019s divisive new \u201cLiquid Glass\u201d design style. Then, this year started with hints of Google bringing a similar look to Android 17 on Pixel phones. Google has directly denied<\/a> any inspiration, but the latest beta tells a different story.<\/p>\n

Android 17 QPR1 Beta 3<\/a> has been available to the Pixel 6 and newer for a few days, and it\u2019s mostly a pretty boring update. That tends to happen when we\u2019re so close to the official stable release. However, the glass-like blur effects that we started to see four months<\/a> ago are expanding to more areas of the operating system.<\/p>\n

Originally, the new blur effect could be seen on the volume slider, expanded volume menu, and power menu. Now, it\u2019s showing up in the home options pop-up menu, home screen folders, and widget picker as well\u2014though Google seems to have forgotten the app menu pop-up. That\u2019s in addition to the notification shade, quick settings toggles, and app drawer, which had already been given some slight transparency in Android 16.<\/p>\n

The screenshots below show Android 16 on the left, Android 17 QPR1 Beta 3 on the right.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m having a bit of fun with Google in the title of this article, but I should be clear that I don\u2019t actually think this new style is copying Liquid Glass. Both feature heavy translucency and blurring, but Apple\u2019s implementation is more inspired by literal glass\u2014sort of a modern take on skeuomorphism. That being said, it\u2019s interesting to watch design trends shifting in real time.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t long ago that Pixel software was basically the \u201cWar on Transparency.\u201d Every UI element I\u2019ve mentioned in this article was completely opaque and devoid of gradients in Android 15, including the notification shade and Quick Settings toggles. Material Design has been all about solid colors and flatness for over a decade\u2014every iteration removing more shadow and depth.<\/p>\n

Here’s Android 17 QPR1 Beta 3 compared to a few areas in Android 15 before they were translucified in Android 16.<\/p>\n

Google can firmly say \u201cLiquid Glass on Android\u201d is not happening because of course it isn\u2019t. But it would be a bit oblivious not to notice the similarities, intentional or not. Despite the \u201cMaterial\u201d branding, we\u2019re witnessing the biggest design shift in Android since Ice Cream Sandwich. The “Material Design” from the Android 5.0 Lollipop<\/a> days is long gone.<\/p>\n


\n \"Android<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\t\t
\n\t\t\t11 years ago today, a massive update changed Android forever
\n\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

Although Android still receives major updates every year, they\u2019re nowhere near as transformative as those from the early days of the OS. One of the biggest milestones was Android Lollipop, which began rolling out via OTA updates on November 12, 2014. Let\u2019s take a look at everything that made this update so special.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last year\u2019s biggest mobile software story was Apple\u2019s divisive new \u201cLiquid Glass\u201d design style. Then, this year started…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[342,111,139,69,145],"class_list":["post-452447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-mobile","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}