iOS 26 UISplitViewController in dark mode appearance.

Yes, I’m seeing the exact same issue since iOS 26 beta 3. Everything worked correctly up to beta 2. Since beta 3 and now also 4, UIColor.label and other dynamic colors no longer update properly when switching between light and dark mode—especially in the Sidebar (Primary View) of UISplitViewController.

In my case, it also affects the Secondary View—for example, built-in system controls like the Date Picker or Context Menu UI are also rendering incorrectly, often showing incorrect colors.

It definitely looks like a regression in iOS 26 beta 4. I’d recommend filing a bug report via Feedback Assistant if you haven’t already—this one needs Apple’s attention.

I've also filed a bug report on this just now (#FB19023069). I was trying to work out why a UILabel set as the subview of a glass UIVisualEffectView's content view wasn't adapting to dark mode (not in a Split View), when I realised it wasn't alone.

Here's a screenshot of the sample app I sent to Apple:

Light mode:

So far, I've noticed the following controls are affected:

• Primary and inspector nav bar titles in a Split View (but not the secondary title).
• The toggle sidebar button (but not always).
• Bar button items in the nav bar with isEnabled set to false.
• Bar button items containing custom views (at least containing a segmented control, such as in my screenshot).
• Labels inside a UIVisualEffectView using the glass effect.

No doubt there's more.

Even setting segmentedControl.overrideUserInterfaceStyle = .dark on the segmented control in the custom nav bar item didn't help.

It is very strange that Apple's own apps aren't affected.

I updated to the new beta 4 (23A5297m), the problem is still unchanged.

And I found that, if the label text has an emoji, it will apply the dark mode color correctly on the UISplitViewController's Primary View.

It's strange.

I submit the feedback FB19067917 for it.

UIDatePicker also has this "dark text in dark mode" problem (and indeed the edit menu for any UITextField), all still present in BETA4 (in my case an Objective-C project)

Also a UIMenu presented from a UIBarButtonItem in the navigation bar is behaving strangely in dark mode since BETA4. When the menu becomes visible, any 'disabled' menu option in the UIMenu is briefly shown in gray text (as it should be) but after ~1 second these menu options are automatically rendered in black text, making them unreadable in dark mode.

I have noticed the same behavior with just having a UILabel as an indirect descendant of a UIVisualEffectView configured with UIGlassEffect (note that this is all within an inputAccessoryView in my app). If I don't create the UIVisualEffectView with UIGlassEffect, then the label text color updates correctly. If I use UIGlassEffect, then the label text remains black in dark mode.

I was amused to see that if I add an emoji to the label text, as you've shown here, then the label's text color correctly updates to white in dark mode.

The workaround I'm presently using is to set the label's textColor to:

[UIColor colorWithDynamicProvider:^UIColor * _Nonnull(UITraitCollection * _Nonnull traitCollection) {
    return UIColor.labelColor;
}];

Note: I'm presently working on beta 4. I didn't test betas 2 and 3, but beta 1 behavior was correct.

On Beta 5, the UIColor.label on the SplitViewController's primary view becomes gray(transparent), not white in dark mode.

However, adding an emoji will make it white.

This problem remains unresolved!