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IMO: There's a ton of circumstantial evidence Liquid Glass was supposed to be a 2026 feature, but at some point between 2024-2025 they accelerated it for a 2025 release. Stating that it was because of the Apple Intelligence disaster of 2024 totally fits in the timeline. 1. Liquid glass went through significant changes in every developer and public beta release between June and the full release in September. Transparency, border, light scattering changes, it was very clear that they didn't even have a strong definition internally of "how liquid" and "how glass" the liquid glass should be, and were responding in real time to reddit comments complaining about it. 2. Many aspects of the design system are still buggy, today, in October. There's some evidence that accessibility features like Increase Contrast and Button Shapes are implemented entirely differently depending on your model of iPhone [1]; they certainly do not do what the label says they should do for some users, and at the very least are implemented inconsistently, or not at all, across many apps. 3. The MacOS 26.1 developer beta further implements (welcome) changes to the design system [2]. Why weren't these ready for 26.0 GA? 4. It is expected that 2026 and 2027 are going to be a massive years for new iPhones, as we're expected the iPhone Fold to drop in 2026, then in 2027 we'll see something related to the 20th anniversary of the iPhone. Comparatively speaking, 2025 saw a new midrange iPhone model, but that's it. C