Flutter Falls Behind? .NET MAUI Nails Liquid Glass on iOS 26 – Here’s How

Introduction

Apple shook the developer world with iOS 26's new UI design system: Liquid Glass. A stunning blend of blur, translucency, and motion-responsive effects, it transforms the user interface into a living, breathing visual experience. While most cross-platform frameworks are scrambling to replicate it, .NET MAUI developers have a secret weapon: native handler access.

In this blog, we’ll explore:

• What is Liquid Glass?
• Why Flutter struggles with it
• How .NET MAUI makes it possible
• Real working example of Liquid Glass UI in .NET MAUI for iOS 26

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What is Liquid Glass?

Liquid Glass is Apple’s new native UI style for iOS 26, inspired by visionOS and macOS Sonoma. It includes:

• Live translucent blur backgrounds
• Motion depth response (UI reacts to user/device motion)
• Refraction & glow effects
• Glassmorphism-style UI layering

This is built directly into native iOS components like UIVisualEffectView, UIView, and new SwiftUI APIs.

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Why Flutter Struggles with Liquid Glass

Flutter uses Skia-based rendering, which paints its own UI on a canvas rather than using the platform’s native views. While this gives it consistency across platforms, it comes at a cost:

• No automatic support for native UI effects
• Developers must manually replicate blur, depth, and parallax
• Performance suffers when mimicking native visuals

In contrast, frameworks that leverage native components (like React Native or .NET MAUI) inherit native OS updates with little to no extra effort.

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How .NET MAUI Makes Liquid Glass Possible

.NET MAUI uses handlers, which map your UI to platform-native controls. This means:

• A .NET MAUI Frame can map to an iOS UIView
• You can inject iOS-specific code using Mappers or Handlers
• You get full access to UIVisualEffectView for real blur effects

Let’s see how.

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Liquid Glass UI in .NET MAUI (iOS 26) – Working Example

We’ll create a reusable GlassPanel control for iOS that mimics the Liquid Glass design using native APIs.

Step 1: Create a GlassPanel View (Cross-Platform)

public class GlassPanel : ContentView
{
    public GlassPanel()
    {
        BackgroundColor = Colors.Transparent;
        Padding = 0;
    }
}
  

Step 2: Add iOS Handler to Render Blur Effect

In your Platforms/iOS folder:

using UIKit;
using Microsoft.Maui.Handlers;
using CoreGraphics;
using Microsoft.Maui.Platform;

[assembly: ExportHandler(typeof(GlassPanel), typeof(GlassPanelHandler))]

public class GlassPanelHandler : ContentViewHandler
{
    protected override UIView CreatePlatformView()
    {
        var blurEffect = UIBlurEffect.FromStyle(UIBlurEffectStyle.SystemMaterial);
        var blurView = new UIVisualEffectView(blurEffect);

        var nativeView = base.CreatePlatformView();
        blurView.ContentView.AddSubview(nativeView);

        return blurView;
    }
}
  

Step 3: Use in XAML or C#

var glassPanel = new GlassPanel
{
    Content = new Label
    {
        Text = "Liquid Glass in .NET MAUI!",
        TextColor = Colors.White,
        FontSize = 24,
        HorizontalOptions = LayoutOptions.Center,
        VerticalOptions = LayoutOptions.Center
    },
    WidthRequest = 300,
    HeightRequest = 200,
    Margin = 20
};
  

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Final Output:

You’ll get a beautiful, translucent, glass-like panel on iOS 26 that reacts natively and smoothly with the rest of the UI — just like Apple intended.

And the best part?

• No need to manually simulate blur or refraction
• Reuses native Apple APIs
• Cross-platform ready with optional fallbacks for Android or Windows

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Conclusion

While Flutter may dominate consistency, .NET MAUI dominates native beauty when it comes to iOS 26's Liquid Glass. Thanks to its handler model, MAUI developers can stay fully cross-platform without sacrificing native design power.

If you’re building apps for the Apple ecosystem and want your UI to feel at home in iOS 26, .NET MAUI just became your best option.

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Stay tuned for the HTML version of this blog, or comment below if you want the same GlassPanel for Android too!