Status: Public Preview — behaviour may change.

What it does

Brings the fluent-based "modern, refreshed look" to model-driven apps running in Power Apps mobile — forms, views, dashboards, dialogs, controls and commands. It's the mobile counterpart to the New Look that's already mandatory in the browser, but on mobile it's a separate, opt-in preview you switch on with a solution setting.

Key facts

• Controlled by the Mobile modern experience solution setting. Set its value to 2 to turn it on — it's off by default.
• The browser New look (mandatory since 2026 wave 1) and Mobile modern experience are different switches. Turning on the web New Look does nothing for mobile; you have to configure the mobile setting as well.
• You can set it at environment level (applies to all eligible apps without their own value) or per app. Effective value resolves app value then environment value then default.
• Setting an app-level value needs the app and the setting in the same unmanaged solution, and the app republished afterwards.
• Enable mobile dynamic font is a separate, optional setting that scales text to the device's iOS/Android text-size setting. It is not required for the modern look and isn't turned on with it.
• The modern look uses the Power Apps grid on supported view pages — manually configured editable or dashboard grids aren't automatically swapped.
• Changes presentation only: no effect on Dataverse data, forms, views or the security model.

When to use / skip

Turn it on in a test environment now if you want to see where your model-driven apps land before it goes GA, especially if you've got heavy grid or custom-component use that'll need checking. Don't roll it to production users mid-preview — it's prerelease, dark mode and theme switching don't work yet, and custom pages don't inherit the theme. Fine for a controlled pilot, not for a tenant-wide flip.

Configuration decisions

• Environment-wide or per-app: flip the environment value for a blanket rollout, or set app values to pilot on one or two apps first.
• Whether to pair it with dynamic font scaling — decide separately, and test it, because larger accessibility sizes are where grids, quick-create forms and custom components tend to break layout.
• Which apps still rely on manually configured grids, and whether to move those to the Power Apps grid to get the modern grid experience.

Gotchas

• Dark mode and switching themes aren't supported in the preview.
• Classic theme customizations are ignored by the modern look — if you've branded apps the old way, expect them to look different.
• Only SVG custom icons render; other image formats may fall back to a default icon.
• Custom pages don't currently pick up the modern theme, so mixed apps will look inconsistent.
• The Header and navigation refresh is yet another separate preview, and its mobile support isn't documented — don't assume enabling the modern look covers it.
• App-level changes need a republish before they show up on device.

Consultant notes

• Clients conflate this with the browser New Look and assume mobile is already covered — it isn't. Set expectations early: this is a second, preview-only switch with its own limitations.
• The grid caveat catches people in UAT. Apps that look fine in the demo fall apart on device where custom editable grids weren't moved to the Power Apps grid. Audit grid config before the pilot, not after.
• Accessibility testing is the real work here. Dynamic font scaling at large sizes is where layout defects surface, and testers rarely exercise it unless you tell them to change the device text size.
• It's preview, so don't sequence any go-live commitment around it. Treat it as a look-ahead for the wave, and revisit once Microsoft moves it to GA and fills in dark mode and custom-page support.

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Worth revisiting once this moves out of preview — dark mode, custom pages and the header/navigation refresh are the gaps to watch.