As the title says, popovers in iOS 26 display wrong system colors, and do not change their colors when user switches light/dark mode. This is in sharp distinction to all previous systems, such as iOS 18, which behave correctly. I’m very surprised that apparently no one has pointed this out.
To illustrate the problem, here’s an extremely simple app:
class ViewController: UIViewController {
@IBAction func doButton(_ sender: UIButton) {
let popover = ViewController2()
popover.modalPresentationStyle = .popover
if let presenter = popover.popoverPresentationController {
presenter.sourceItem = sender
presenter.delegate = self
}
present(popover, animated: true)
}
}
extension ViewController: UIPopoverPresentationControllerDelegate {
func adaptivePresentationStyle(for controller: UIPresentationController) -> UIModalPresentationStyle {
.none
}
}
class ViewController2: UIViewController {
override func viewDidLoad() {
super.viewDidLoad()
view.backgroundColor = .systemBackground
let label = UILabel()
label.text = "Label"
label.backgroundColor = .systemBackground
view.addSubview(label)
label.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false
label.centerXAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.centerXAnchor).isActive = true
label.centerYAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.centerYAnchor).isActive = true
}
}
Run the app and tap the button to display the popover. The label in the popover looks like this:
Well, that’s just wrong. The label’s background color is .systemBackground, and the color of the popover view behind the label is .systemBackground; they should both the be same, i.e. essentially white, when we are in light mode. Instead, the label background appears essentially black.
(Please note that .systemBackground is not the only color that displays this issue; you can see it with any dynamic color that has .system in its name.)
Moreover, now with the popover showing, switch your device / simulator from light mode to dark mode. I expect the whole background of the popover to become dark. It doesn’t change at all! But if you dismiss the popover and show it again, it is dark. So it knows the current light/dark mode at the time it appears, but it is unresponsive to changes in light/dark mode.
Indeed, if we call registerForTraitChanges([UITraitUserInterfaceStyle.self]) in the popover’s viewDidLoad, we will find that our action method is never called. The popover is simply not receiving light/dark mode trait change information!
How are people dealing with this issue?