Lock Screen customizations in iOS 26
The iOS 26 Lock Screen uses Spatial Photos for wallpapers and lets you stretch the clock using Liquid Glass. It’s a big change, and a welcome one.
Apple’s Lock Screen customization options have improved over the years, and iOS 26 is no exception. Users can personalize their Lock Screen even more, thanks to a few new elements.
In iOS 18, this involved allowing users to switch out the Haptic Touch buttons for other shortcuts, but this time it’s all about 3D wallpaper and Liquid Glass.
Wallpaper
The biggest customizable bit of the Lock Screen is the wallpaper. The large graphical element is usually a static image, but this time it can be more 3D.
Borrowing the Spatial Photo conversion feature from the Photos app, it is possible to select an image from your library and to change it from 2D to 3D. This is all done with machine learning, and it comes out with some pretty decent results.
When looking at the image, you can angle the iPhone display around so that you can enjoy the parallax effect of the background and foreground items.
iOS 26’s Lock Screen wallpaper includes Spatial Photo options and Photo Shuffle
You first select your background by holding down on the Lock Screen, selecting Customize, then the Photo library button, followed by Choose Photo. You can select an already premade Spatial Scene, or you can select a normal non-Spatial image.
With the 2D image shown, you can then tap on the new Spatial image button, which looks like hills in a hexagon, to turn the flat image into a 3D one. You can tap it again to turn the effect off.
This is all nice, but you don’t have to stick to just one image. If you were to select a new Lock Screen instead of customizing one, the featured background suggestions include Photo Shuffle options that can switch between a group of images on a regular basis.
Handily, it is possible to get this selected and enable Spatial Photos for the shots, so you get the effect throughout the playlist.
Liquid Glass and stretchy clocks
Apple’s new Liquid Glass appearance works throughout the entire UI, though it is much more muted on the Lock Screen. Here, the option only exists for the clock and the Haptic Touch buttons.
Other widgets included in the Lock Screen don’t get the same sort of treatment as the clock or the buttons, which feels like a missed opportunity. Color changes do apply to them, but not any of the special glass-like effects.
You can select from six different fonts, each with a controllable weight. Below that is the color selector, which this time has a toggle to go between Solid and Glass options.
The iOS 26 Lock Screen clock is now using a stretchable font and Liquid Glass effects.
The obvious difference is that the Glass colors all have a 3D effect, including light on the edges as if they’re 3D pieces of glass, as well as some translucency affected by the background.
The first font of the group has an extra benefit, in that it can be stretched in height. It is the only font selection that adds a handle to the clock selection element, which you can pull up and down to squish and stretch the font length.
If you really want, you can have the clock numbers stretching down half the length of the iPhone display.
While this is nice, stretching the digits in this way affects another new interface change. The row of widgets that resided below the clock can be swiped lower down the screen, above the Haptic Touch buttons.
However, while the widget bar goes down automatically if the clock is stretched, the bar won’t go back up until the clock returns to its previous size.
A more customizable device
The new options are a continuation of what Apple has already implemented, which is already fairly extensive as far as customization options allow.
The wallpaper changes are a great addition, though less could be said about the Liquid Glass additions. It’s one thing to add Liquid Glass elements to some bits, but it’s not great when others that could undergo the same treatment are kept in their previous appearance.
For the moment, until Apple decides to allow Liquid Glass onto all of the areas, we at least have the option of setting a cat wallpaper and make it look like its head is sticking out of the screen.