Apple Announces Liquid Glass Improvements and Transparency Slider

[bluecoast]

This was as close to an apology as Apple was going to get. They even mentioned the corner radii! I may upgrade to this and skip Tahoe entirely.

I wish I had stayed on iOS 18 to upgrade to 27.

The improvements to tinted are most welcome.

However, I am holding out for fully opaque to appear sometime in the beta cycle.

I'm sure that Apple has the technology - with the upgraded Apple Intelligence - to do this ground breaking feature. /s

 

[Siliconguy]

They fixed a contentious feature. Great. Now what’s the CPU/battery cost for fully variable opacity?

Transparency requires the GPU to do more work, so setting transparency to zero percent should save battery power.

 

[TPALTony]

Wrong. We didn’t ask for it to be changed, we asked for it to be GONE.

I didn't. They have millions if not billions of users. We're all different. They gave us options. If they did nothing they are arrogant. If they took it away they upset people who actually liked the new stuff (and there are plenty even if you're not one of them). So they gave us choice and still they're still wrong? Last year was the first iteration. They listened to feedback and they refined from there. I really don't see what more we can expect of them.

 

[skiguy45]

Good! So people can finally stop crying about it. Looking forward to iOS 27!

The jury is still out. Transparency is far from the only issue.

The overly animated UI elements are a real problem, as are the flashing of elements from light to dark. On MacOS, I'm super glad they are ditching the overly rounded corners and ridiculous space left of tool bars in windows.

 

[DocMultimedia]

They listened. Impressive.

I agree. Very impressive for them to listen to feedback for a change.

 

[pinkkie]

wow I might a actually update my mac from Sequoia. never updating from iOS17 though, the UX is still a mess

 

[Marx55]

If it ain't broke, don't fix it. NO more obstrusive Liquid Glass. STOP it.

 

[Sami13496]

The fact that they added a slider only shows that they’ve completely lost sight of the original idea what made Apple the design company. Apple has always been the company that designs the best possible solution. One so well thought out that the user simply uses it. The user shouldn’t be deciding how transparent the UI is; that’s the designer’s job. This is absolutely ridiculous.

What they should have done was simply admit that Liquid Glass was a bad design and fix it in iOS 27. Instead, they added a slider as a workaround.

The guy who originally came up with Liquid Glass left for Meta, the king of mindless doom-scrolling apps, so sometimes it almost feels like he deliberately made iOS 26 as awful as possible before leaving.

 

[RealE]

You're actually probably in the majority but the minority are more vocal.

I bet the majority don't have strong feelings one way or another so long as they can still use it.

 

[Edgecrusherr]

This is great. Apple should've held back Liquid Glass last year, or made it optional, because it wasn't ready. This is how it should have been released. I also like the sider, as I thought about a frosted glass interface (inspired by the Vision OS) before Liquid Glass had even been announced.

 

[droplink]

I guess this news is as good as we can expect from Apple at this point.
Its not a full reversal, but it is a climb down and ...hopefully we can get even less liquid in OS 28.

 

[Mac Fly (film)]

The slider should be a stepped slider so you can set all your devices to the same transparency.

 

[Spotlighter9]

So...did they bring back Launch Pad or are we still stuck with the jury-rigged Apps Folder?

 

[redheeler]

Good! So people can finally stop crying about it. Looking forward to iOS 27!

The default is fine for me! Or maybe even more translucent? 😅

I get the complaints about contrast though. Everyone is different. I see this as an accessibility feature, but one which can be used to suit aesthetic preference also. It's rare that Apple lets us change anything about the UI, so any time they do is a win.

Next let's have a setting to turn on gloss and make my Liquid Glass shiny, please!

 

[jorisw_]

Just installed the iOS 27 Developer Beta and pulling down the lock screen from the top is still entirely transparent, despite having selected as opaque as Liquid Glass offers

 

[iStorm]

The user shouldn’t be deciding how transparent the UI is; that’s the designer’s job.

Disagree. This would be like saying the user shouldn't be deciding what text size they like, or what brightness they like, or what volume they like.

Apple did decide how transparent the UI is last year, and people complained. Some wanted it more translucent, and others wanted it more opaque. If you want Apple to decide for you, then stick with the default setting. The default setting will be what they intended the transparency to be.

 

[ls1dreams]

The jury is still out. Transparency is far from the only issue.

The overly animated UI elements are a real problem, as are the flashing of elements from light to dark. On MacOS, I'm super glad they are ditching the overly rounded corners and ridiculous space left of tool bars in windows.

Floating toolbars at the bottom are a stupid waste of space for users, and also require developers to come up with some fake blur BS esp when there isn't content in that space. Everything about liquid glass breaks UX and developer sane practices. Thank god that POS Dye is gone

 

[SebCohen]

Good! So people can finally stop crying about it. Looking forward to iOS 27!

I still have plenty salty eye discharge left for until when that point in time this gets to 27.1 🥲

 

[subjonas]

I’m in the minority group but I want more glass, so I’m going left!

Ah so you're a leftist, huh? I think I'll be moderate myself, maybe right-leaning.

 

[subjonas]

I really don't see what more we can expect of them.

An OS custom designed from the ground up for every individual user, and to know what the individual wants more than individual does. I don't think that's asking too much.

Edit- /s 😆

 

[CarAnalogy]

I can't help but wonder how different things would be if Alan Dye were still around. Would they have made these exact same adjustments anyway? Were these already planned and it was just a rush job last year to distract from the 2024 debacle?

They do still need to adjust some more control sizes, that demo picture shows how there's far too little active area to accurately hit controls.

But this slider combined with the other adjustments and polish they announced will be a huge improvement.

Now if only they had released this version as the version to abandon so much currently in-use and perfectly fine hardware on...

 

[CarAnalogy]

An OS custom designed from the ground up for every individual user, and to know what the individual wants more than individual does. I don't think that's asking too much.

That's more or less Android. You can do that. But it seems to me most people really don't want to go to the effort it takes to do that.

 

[subjonas]

That's more or less Android. You can do that. But it seems to me most people really don't want to go to the effort it takes to do that.

No no, I didn't mean a customizable OS, I meant from the GROUND UP an OS custom made for each user that is not customizable because it already knows exactly what the user wants/needs haha. Kidding, obviously (hopefully).

 

[CarAnalogy]

No no, I didn't mean a customizable OS, I meant from the GROUND UP an OS custom made for each user that is not customizable because it already knows exactly what the user wants/needs haha. Kidding, obviously (hopefully).

I mean how ground up are we talking? Richard Stallman would like a word about what ground-up really means.

I think you're talking about an OS with an AI at the core that dynamically generates the interface and functions based on the user's needs.

Which sounds awesome and is something I, too have thought about. But we're nowhere near that yet and even if we were no one will make it in the way we want.

They don't care what users want. They care how many opportunities they can take to advertise at us and upsell us.

 

[subjonas]

I mean how ground up are we talking? Richard Stallman would like a word about what ground-up really means.

I think you're talking about an OS with an AI at the core that dynamically generates the interface and functions based on the user's needs.

Which sounds awesome and is something I, too have thought about. But we're nowhere near that yet and even if we were no one will make it in the way we want.

They don't care what users want. They care how many opportunities they can take to advertise at us and upsell us.

Yeah, the underlying point of the joke was that it's an unreasonable ask for any number of reasons--except of course if the custom-made OS is made by AI, yes. On that subject, I expect AI will be able to do that at some point, and if it's possible then it's probably eventually inevitable. But I'm just not sure if an OS will even be necessary for most people at that point because by then, AI might be the only interface most people will need. There will probably be a niche group of people who will prefer doing things themselves though, and I'll probably be in that group.