WhatsApp is deepening its embrace of Apple’s newest design language, with fresh evidence the app is preparing to extend “Liquid Glass” styling to more corners of the iPhone experience.
Liquid Glass, Apple’s interface language introduced with iOS 26, uses translucent, rounded and layered visual elements that make buttons, menus and controls appear to interact with the content behind them — a shift toward a more fluid, glass-like aesthetic across Apple’s ecosystem.
WhatsApp began rolling this look out more broadly earlier this year after months of internal testing, touching several parts of the app. The company is now pushing further.
The latest work in development targets WhatsApp’s drawing editor — the toolset users tap into when editing photos, videos and GIFs before sending them, including text, drawing and sticker controls.
WhatsApp is redesigning these editing controls to match Liquid Glass, meaning users can expect more translucent, rounded buttons layered directly over their media.
The video player is next in line. WhatsApp is building a Liquid Glass version of the progress bar shown at the top of the screen during video playback — the element that tracks how much of a clip has played and how much remains — moving it away from its current conventional look toward the same glassy, layered treatment.
These updates follow a string of earlier Liquid Glass tweaks WhatsApp has already been rolling into beta versions, including redesigned voice-message controls, message reactions and context menus.
The visual overhaul isn’t confined to iPhone either — similar Liquid Glass changes have been spotted in development for WhatsApp on iPadOS and macOS, suggesting Meta is aligning the app’s look across Apple’s whole device family.
Not live yet
Importantly, neither the drawing-editor nor video-player redesign is available for beta testing yet — both remain in active development. And even where Liquid Glass changes have already shipped, rollout has been uneven: some users on fully compatible iPhones report they haven’t received earlier updates, a reminder that WhatsApp tends to activate new features gradually through account-based or server-side triggers rather than an all-at-once release.
For now, these are cosmetic changes rather than functional ones — they won’t alter how people actually edit media or watch videos.
But the direction is clear: as Apple pushes Liquid Glass across iOS, its biggest third-party messaging app is moving in lockstep, gradually reshaping the everyday texture of the WhatsApp experience on iPhone.
