Liquid Glass Tab Bar Actions Aren’t Fab

Ryan Ashcraft, “My Beef with the iOS 26 Tab Bar”:

The search tab is setting an expectation Apple didn't intend: that the circular element on the tab bar is a button, not a tab.

I spent a long time when I was updating Running Track to use Liquid Glass, trying to figure out how to have a floating button that wasn’t the Search button. I eventually had to give up, as it was clear that Apple never intended the floating button to be used for anything other than Search. But that’s such a ridiculous limitation; apps have had floating action buttons for years, as Ashcraft lays out in his post.

Luckily, he’s also come up with a solution: FabBar. “[A] custom Liquid Glass tab bar with an integrated, tinted floating action button.”

I really hope this becomes part of Apple’s native UI in iOS 27. Until then, this is a cool 3rd party solution.

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