Custom Liquid Glass tab bar

iOS 26 introduced Liquid Glass to the tab bar. It looks awesome. But it’s also impossible to customize. The only things you can change are what string and what SF Symbol the tab displays. Anything else you could want to adjust — adding a profile photo, a custom badge, or a live avatar — is impossible.

So I built UnionTabView. It looks basically identical to the system tab bar but lets you drop any view you want into a tab.¹

None of that fake glass shit.

How to use

You give it your tabs, and a view for each slot:

import UnionTabView
 
UnionTabView(selection: $tab, tabs: Tab.allCases) {
    HomeView().unionTab(Tab.home)
    SearchView().unionTab(Tab.search)
    ProfileView().unionTab(Tab.profile)
} item: { tab, isSelected in
    Image(systemName: tab.symbol)
        .foregroundStyle(isSelected ? .primary : .secondary)
}

And because item is a @ViewBuilder, a slot can be a profile picture:

if tab == .profile {
    AsyncImage(url: user.avatarURL) { image in
        image.resizable().scaledToFill()
    } placeholder: {
        Circle().fill(.gray.opacity(0.2))
    }
    .frame(width: 28, height: 28)
    .clipShape(.circle)
} else {
    Image(systemName: tab.symbol)
}

Instagram’s tab bar is in shambles.

On older phones

Below iOS 26, there’s no Liquid Glass of course, so the package elegantly falls back to the old full tab bar appropriate for that iOS version.