uitabbarcontroller – UITabBar unselectedItemTintColor ignored iOS 26

I’m creating a UITabBarController programmatically with a few tabs, but for some reason I can not get the normal state of the tabs icons or text to change color. Its defaulting to a system white. I can only modify the selected state.

I’ve tried creating the tabs in multiple ways, but all seem to return the same result. The only thing I’ve managed to work around is by forcing the icons (which are templates) to render as originals after tinting them. This only works for the icons, leaving the text in the system white color, so i’ve disabled it as it looks worse to have one of each

private func configureTabs() {
    let inbox = InboxViewController()
    inbox.tabBarItem = UITabBarItem(
        title: "INBOX",
        //image: UIImage(named: "tab-inbox")?.withTintColor(AppColors.t3, renderingMode: .alwaysOriginal),
        //selectedImage: UIImage(named: "tab-inbox")?.withTintColor(AppColors.t1, renderingMode: .alwaysOriginal)
        image: UIImage(named: "tab-inbox"),
        selectedImage: UIImage(named: "tab-inbox")
    )
        
    let capture = CaptureViewController()
    capture.tabBarItem = UITabBarItem(
        title: "CAPTURE",
        //image: UIImage(named: "tab-inbox")?.withTintColor(AppColors.t3, renderingMode: .alwaysOriginal),
        //selectedImage: UIImage(named: "tab-inbox")?.withTintColor(AppColors.t1, renderingMode: .alwaysOriginal)
        image: UIImage(named: "tab-capture"),
        selectedImage: UIImage(named: "tab-capture")
    )
        
    tabBar.tintColor = AppColors.t1
    tabBar.unselectedItemTintColor = AppColors.t3
        
    viewControllers = [
        inbox,
        capture
    ]
}

I’ve also tried setting the Appearance proxy in 2 different ways, with many variations of settings in each:

private func configureAppearance() {
    // NavBar
    let navAppearance = UINavigationBarAppearance()
    navAppearance.configureWithDefaultBackground()
    navAppearance.backgroundColor = AppColors.bg
    navAppearance.shadowColor = AppColors.border
    navigationController?.navigationBar.standardAppearance = navAppearance
    navigationController?.navigationBar.scrollEdgeAppearance = navAppearance
    navigationController?.navigationBar.tintColor = AppColors.t1
        
    // TabBar
    let normalColor = AppColors.t3
    let selectedColor = AppColors.t1
        
    let normalFont = UIFont(name: UIFont.JetBrainsMono.regular, size: 10) as Any
    let selectedFont = UIFont(name: UIFont.JetBrainsMono.regular_semiBold, size: 10) as Any
        
    let normalTitleAttributes: [NSAttributedString.Key: Any] = [
        .font: normalFont,
        .foregroundColor: normalColor
    ]
    let selectedTitleAttributes: [NSAttributedString.Key: Any] = [
        .font: selectedFont,
        .foregroundColor: selectedColor
    ]
        
    let appearance = UITabBarAppearance()
    //appearance.configureWithOpaqueBackground()
        
    func configure(_ itemAppearance: UITabBarItemAppearance) {
        itemAppearance.normal.iconColor = normalColor
        itemAppearance.normal.titleTextAttributes = normalTitleAttributes
            
        itemAppearance.selected.iconColor = selectedColor
        itemAppearance.selected.titleTextAttributes = selectedTitleAttributes
        }
        
    configure(appearance.stackedLayoutAppearance)
    configure(appearance.inlineLayoutAppearance)
    configure(appearance.compactInlineLayoutAppearance)
        
    tabBar.standardAppearance = appearance
    tabBar.scrollEdgeAppearance = appearance
        
    tabBar.tintColor = selectedColor
    tabBar.unselectedItemTintColor = normalColor
}

and with a constraint:

func setupAppearence() {
    let appearance = UITabBarItem.appearance(whenContainedInInstancesOf: [MainTabBarController.self])
    appearance.setTitleTextAttributes([
        NSAttributedString.Key.foregroundColor: AppColors.t3,
        //NSAttributedString.Key.font: UIFont.custom(ofType: .medium, andSize: 10)
    ], for: .normal)
    appearance.setTitleTextAttributes([
        NSAttributedString.Key.foregroundColor: AppColors.t1,
        //NSAttributedString.Key.font: UIFont.custom(ofType: .medium, andSize: 10)
    ], for: .selected)
        
    self.tabBar.shadowImage = nil
    self.tabBar.tintColor = AppColors.t1
    self.tabBar.unselectedItemTintColor = AppColors.t3
}

I can get the font family, size and weight to change, but not the color. I thought maybe my AppColors.t1 might have been incorrectly set somewhere, so I tweaked that value and only the selected state changed. So its not using my whiteish .t1 color as the normal state, its picking up a system color from somewhere, but I cant figure out where.

Have I missed a property somewhere? is there a liquid glass mode I have to toggle on to allow different colors or something? What have I missed? AI has been no help