All the Liquid Glass Changes in macOS Golden Gate

[groove-agent]

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Aqua is BACK, baby!

I guess Liquid Ass isn’t that far from aqua.

 

[MonkeyT]

Can someone please explain the rounded corners thing to me and why people don’t like it?

Biggest problem: With large radius corners, 75% of the draggable corner area you used to resize them was literally outside the rendered window.

Why It’s Difficult to Resize Windows on MacOS 26 Dyehoe

https://noheger.at/blog/2026/01/11/the-struggle-of-resizing-windows-on-macos-tahoe/

daringfireball.net

The original Tahoe release also had problems with corner drag areas, vertical scrollbars, and horizontal scrollbars on windows occasionally overlapping each other, making it impossible to guess what behavior you would see any time you tried to use the lower right corner because you couldn't tell which tool was on the top layer (They quietly patched that in a bug fix release). Tahoe also has an area at the top left corner of windows which might drag-resize the window or might close the window depending upon what corner radius the designer chose to use.

On MacOS, these issues went against the entire history of Human Interface Design on Mac machines. If you spent your time working on large monitors with multiple open windows instead of fullscreen app displays or tabs, it could be a huge frustration.

 

[GrumpyOldGuy52]

Golden Gate… it’s the first macOS name that sounds a bit weird to me, maybe because it is a bridge… but I guess Ill get used to it.

The Golden Gate is a natural landmark—it's the strait the Golden Gate Bridge crosses. I assume most people will think of the bridge, though.

 

[iamdrew]

They literally went back to the old design. What a damn shame. I thought apple was a forwards thinking company. Not a company stuck in the past. It makes me so upset that we can’t enjoy new experiences because the boomers will complain and ruin it for these of us (i want my old stuff back!!!). I hope the next ceo has more guts than Tim crook

completely agree.

sure LG needed fine tuning, these types of things will always be iterative — but going back on sidebars and corners is a total bummer. it now looks so dated.

also i'll never understand why ya'll associate larger corner radii with being childish

 

[retta283]

Then it is appropriately named for the version where Apple caved in to the haters.

It is likely that Apple only changed it because of actual average consumers complaining, not because of people on forum sites or Reddit. I would not call these consumers "haters", they do not usually think about things like this unless it is truly bothersome. I know for sure that in my own experience, mostly in the workplace, non-techie people are not very pleased with the way LG was implemented in both iOS and macOS. I did not hear anywhere near this level of discontent when iOS 7 and Yosemite came out.

I believe Apple products are as successful as they are because they are easy to use and understand for people who are not technically inclined, especially the iPhone, and a lot of the people I've worked with don't even know the control center exists. Yet this was the first time I ever heard them complain.

 

[.wojtek]

Looks somewhat less terrible… side-to-side sidebar is the best refinement imho….

Apple didn't budge on requiring squircle Mac icons, but it did change icon design. Icons have more layers of Liquid Glass to improve detail and sharpness in light, dark, tinted, and clear icon modes.

I hope one day squircle-mania will die…

 

[staypuftforums]

Looks like a major improvement. I'm stuck on Sequoia until I upgrade my Mac, which hopefully won't be for a few years yet.

 

[.wojtek]

also i'll never understand why ya'll associate larger corner radii with being childish

Fisher price would a word with you 🤪

 

[groove-agent]

Then it is appropriately named for the version where Apple caved in to the haters.

What haters? Hating what exactly? It seems like you’re hating the “haters” which is quite ironic.

 

[iamdrew]

the exaggerated rounded corners make it look like a toy

this is so interesting to me. what toy does it make it look like? why a toy? and if it does make it look like a toy, how does that impact you and your work?

 

[jole]

This feels like a step back

 

[iamdrew]

Fisher price would a word with you 🤪

yes yes I hear this one all the time haha. but like, can you show me examples? its just so interesting in a world full of rounded corners, why we associate the rounded corners of a UI window with a toy?

Apple Park is 100% rounded corners. AirPods, iPads, MacBook Pros... the list goes on and on. Why is it that when its a UI window do ya'll lose it?

 

[twinpeaks_sf]

The clearest Liquid Glass step on iOS is much clearer (with warping along the edges visible) as compared with the macOS screenshot in the article. Perhaps this will shift, or the clearest macOS will let the user go is going to still be frosty.

 

[mielie]

I'm not a fan of the icons, but they don't bug me nearly as much as the rounded corners everywhere in menues. In Tahoe, the menu title (e.g., "File", "Edit"), the drop down menu, and the selected menu item all have four rounded corners, making them look like disconnected elements. I hope they bring back the previous appearance, where a menu title and its drop-down items appear connected.

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It’s called the take away. Apple are getting so bad at innovating they have to periodically downgrade features so they can then make a big announcement when they put them back in.

The UI and design language I came to really love from Apple was mostly inspired by Ive’s. Since he has gone they seem a bit rudderless to me, more likely to sit on their hands and see what everyone else is doing.

At least this UI tweak does start to unpick the mess that is Tahoe.

 

[iamdrew]

I wish they would have actually refined Liquid Glass instead of going back to the old sidebar and corner radius. The new (old) sidebar feels completely out of place with the rest of Liquid Glass. I also liked how the content next to the sidebar changed its colors.

The different window corner radius was there for a reason and I think Tahoe looked more consistent. The old corner radius feels out of place with the buttons of the toolbar.

Also I feels sorry for the developers who put in so much work in order to make Liquid Glass work for their application.

Yes! This!! Totally agree. Bring back the Tahoe Radii!

 

[jimothyGator]

Siri its a joke (even more so in the EU... and now incoming rant from the Americans... before you start, say thank you for USB-C, and the fact that its BlueTooth in your AirPods, and that you can soon change the battery, and you don't have to come here if you don't like it, but Samsung, Xiaomi and Google figured it out, im sure you can to Apple)

I’ll thank the US companies (Intel, Apple, HP, Texas Instruments) that created USB C instead I’m thankful that the EU didn’t get its way in 2011, or we’d likely still be stuck with micro USB to this day.

But the EU does deserve thanks for cookie and GDPR pop ups that make web browsing so much fun. And I thank them for going after American tech successes, after their own companies like Ericsson and Nokia fell into irrelevance in the phone market.

 

[RedWeasel]

yes yes I hear this one all the time haha. but like, can you show me examples?

Exhibit A

 

[2ilent8cho]

If it's suppose to be Liquid Glass, why are the traffic light icons not more like Aqua, when they actually looked like glass filled with coloured liquid? I loved the Aqua effect on buttons years ago.

 

[platinumaqua]

Golden Gate… it’s the first macOS name that sounds a bit weird to me, maybe because it is a bridge… but I guess Ill get used to it.

Golden Gate is the name of the strait that the bridge crosses

 

[platinumaqua]

I still prefer pre-Big Sur Aqua where there's a dedicated title bar and the active window is very obvious with a dark shade of gray. Big Sur and later is too blindingly white

 

[GrumpyOldGuy52]

It makes me so upset that we can’t enjoy new experiences because the boomers will complain and ruin it for these of us (i want my old stuff back!!!).

I'm not a boomer, and I found Liquid Glass to be the same mistake Aqua was. Perhaps you shouldn't make broad assumptions about who likes what.

 

[ricketysquire]

The question is why? Why do we need a new UI? Even more importantly, why can't we choose how we want to experience MacOS? Why can't we have themes or even just to switch back to a Classic Tiger/Leopard experience or maybe Mavericks or some other flat experience? Why are we at the whims of Apple when it comes to how we experience our own devices.

 

[capamac]

I’ll reserve judgment until I see it for real but this sounds promising. I agree they need to rollback on the icons in the menus as well but overall if they’ve listened and acted on the negative feedback then they deserve credit for listening.

The main thing I’m excited about is all the big fixes. It’s not “exciting” in marketing terms but the last time they did this (Snow Leopard) it was a huge success. Interesting that both of these “big fix” updates were when Apple dropped support for an old architecture - PowerPC in the case of Snow Leopard and Intel in the case of Golden Gate.

I’m optimistic about the update!

The Beta of GG has several bugs according to this guy.

 

[nonuser]

UX Practitioner here.

For iPads/iPhones, the whole point of accessibility is to lower the barrier for anyone to use a product, by making these changes, we've lost so much legibility and clarity Apple has followed on - for years. Basically alienating customers who need to actually read stuff or do stuff. I'm 30 and struggle to read the time on my iPhone.

For Macs, these changes in the Liquid Glass made the interface take 20% more space and improved virtually nothing. The changes would make sense if the interfaces are touch-first, which they're not. This changes are welcomed but are short steps going in the obvious direction...

That direction is simply using more proved UI. Because, go figure, UX laws apply because we'll still be humans, and humans experience the world in a specific way.

 

[M4irmidnight]

Seems like a lo

When Liquid Glass launched in macOS Tahoe, Apple faced criticism over how the design looked on the Mac. Some people felt that Liquid Glass in macOS Tahoe was an afterthought with little impact from the design update, while others had issues with contrast, readability, rounded corners, and design consistency. There were long complaint threads on the MacRumors forums and on Reddit, and some people refused to update.

Apple is making several changes to Liquid Glass and the overall macOS Golden Gate design, and while subtle, some of the changes could make Liquid Glass on Mac easier to digest.

Transparency and Diffusion

Apple added a full Liquid Glass slider under System Settings > Appearance. It changes the translucency of Liquid Glass elements, and users can choose a clear version of Liquid Glass that allows some of the background to show through, select a more opaque, tinted version that improves the legibility of text, or choose something in between.

Unfortunately, there is no ultra-clear version of Liquid Glass available with the slider. Even the setting that's as clear as possible does not match the original version of Liquid Glass that Apple showed off at WWDC 2025.

Apple changed the overall Liquid Glass opacity, and it now diffuses complex content more effectively. Apple says a darkened edge and brighter specular highlights establish more depth and separation for the UI.

Toolbars and Window Shapes

Apps have uniform toolbars to make text headings and groups of controls more legible. Windows also all have the same corner radius for more consistency between apps.

macOS Tahoe​

Corners of apps are not as dramatically rounded in macOS Golden Gate, and the difference is noticeable.

macOS Golden Gate​

It's easier to tell when a window is active because of the sidebar design, the opacity update, and changes to window shadows.

Sidebars

Sidebars are no longer floating and are instead edge-to-edge. It's a design that's less distracting and more uniform because there's no unnecessary sidebar shadowing that just takes up space.

Sidebar icons have color again, which is something Apple removed in macOS Tahoe.

Icons

Apple didn't budge on requiring squircle Mac icons, but it did change icon design. Icons have more layers of Liquid Glass to improve detail and sharpness in light, dark, tinted, and clear icon modes.

Apple is also using icons for some menu bar items to make it easier to find commonly used actions.

HDR

Apple is using HDR for depth and dimension in the macOS Golden Gate interface.

Launch Date

macOS Golden Gate also includes all of the new Siri AI features coming in iOS 27, along with performance improvements that make the Mac feel faster.

The update is limited to developers right now, but Apple plans to release a public beta in July. macOS Golden Gate will launch this fall.


Article Link: All the Liquid Glass Changes in macOS Golden Gate

Seems like a lot of backtracking to sequoia, very smart and good looking . I’m happy with it .