“Instead of just introducing a host of new features, we’re also taking the features you already rely on and making them even better, because we believe the best operating systems aren’t just built on big breakthroughs, they’re built on sweating the details,” Federighi said. It’s the kind of statement that would be unremarkable from most companies, but from Apple, it was as close to an admission of fault as you’ll get. (Sweating the details is exactly what critics said the company had stopped doing.)

Federighi didn’t have to wait long to prove the point. The first item on the list was the company’s controversial Liquid Glass design language that first arrived in iOS 26 and promptly triggered consumer backlash over readability and usability concerns.

While visually impressive, Liquid Glass’s glass-like aesthetic made certain on-screen elements harder to see. Users pointed out numerous ways the update was undercooked, particularly on the Mac, and begged Apple for tools to restore the more frosted look.

The company approached the moment carefully, saying “really appreciates” the user feedback it received over Liquid Glass over the past year.