Bland and easy to read eh? With that kind of mindset we'd still be using CP/M.
A Tandy TRS-80 is a tool. A smartphone is a lot more.
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Apple need to tweak the Liquid Glass Design badly
- Thread starter Aoligei
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A Tandy TRS-80 is a tool. A smartphone is a lot more.
I'd argue that that's not actually very easy to read.
Decided to install the beta on my iPad, and played around with the new design some. Surprisingly, the transparency doesn't bother me as much as I thought (barring the notifications and Control Center—those are really bad). I still think it's an unforced regression, but I can tolerate most of it.
The main issue I have in this beta is that the animations are way over the top. Every menu and button now a "fancy" bouncy animation, and they're all slow as molasses. And the new animation for opening an app from the Home Screen bothers me. It flies in at an angle, almost like the Genie animation effect on macOS, but it just doesn't look good imo. I hope this is just a beta thing and the release version is toned down and snappy.
The main issue I have in this beta is that the animations are way over the top. Every menu and button now a "fancy" bouncy animation, and they're all slow as molasses. And the new animation for opening an app from the Home Screen bothers me. It flies in at an angle, almost like the Genie animation effect on macOS, but it just doesn't look good imo. I hope this is just a beta thing and the release version is toned down and snappy.
Good thing Jobs, Ivy and others at Apple eh thought different
Design was always in Apple's DNA.
Devices can look good and work.
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Ive was the head designer on iOS 7, which was their big attempt to go minimal. If he had stayed on software, it would be much more minimalistic than where we ended up. That was his style. I think he would have hated Liquid Glass.Good thing Jobs, Ivy and others at Apple eh thought different
Design was always in Apple's DNA.
He was also involved in more product design. I just don't care for the flat design no matter what they do to it and Ivy should walk the plank of shame for the flat crap.
You'd be well served. I sold my iPhone and went back to Android after 48 hours with the Beta. I accept the lack of polish due to pre release nature of it but the general aesthetics weren't going to change between then and September.
I find the ultra-minimalism of Nothing OS to be to my liking.
It really does look dated. I was really happy with Apple finally got rid of it, I never want to see that tacky skeuomorphism UI again.
I actually purchased a Pixel 9 when the beta came out. I’d rather use Android than iOS 26. I’m going to use iOS 18 as long as possible then switch over. The only thing I’ll really miss is the Apple Photos app - it’s better than anything on Android. Otherwise, my core apps are basically cross platform. The latest version of Android is as good as iOS, surprisingly and the Pixel takes ok photos. Gemini beats Siri so much too, it’s not even funny.
Apple is still the best at hardware, for sure. The software seems to lack taste, visual design wise.
Its easily my favourite Android phone of the minute. The skin borrows just enough from iOS whilst doing its own thing and the 2a has a nice lightweight plastic build. I am so over large, heavy glass phones.
NothingOS is a really clean skin if you really like monochrome with a dash of colour. The glyph lights on the back are actually quite useful. They give you a nice visual nudge when your phone is flipped to silent, They're a much softer torch at bed time and a useful self timer.
Back in that era however the amber on black was supposed to be very easy on the eyes. It's similar in how night shift tones everything warmer in a similar respect, albeit to avoid the harshness of both the flat UI straining the eyes and the effect blue light has on sleep.
Back in the CP/M era, people were expected to sit in front of their monitors for hours doing rather mundane work, and the amber colour of early monochrome helped avoid eye strain.
MS-DOS Edit. Believe me I lived that era and it's one reason I can't stand Flat Design today. The UI of MS-DOS Edit is identical to Professional Write as well (the word processor program I used through high school). White text on blue, grey menu bars, keyboard driven, 'formatted' text in various colours representing italic, bold, underline, strikethrough; zero WYSIWYG.
Here's a home automation system menu that runs in CP/M that was in early '80s mansions
Somehow the early 2010 models are far more pleasing to the eye and make far more sense:
Here's a home automation system menu that runs in CP/M that was in early '80s mansions
Somehow the early 2010 models are far more pleasing to the eye and make far more sense:
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This is just naive. They haven't fixed some annoying bugs or strange design choices that were introduced in iOS 18.
When iOS 7 was introduced, the early betas had quite a few visual problems that were largely addressed during the beta process. Apple then spent the next several years really dialing that particular design language in. The exact same thing is already happening with iOS 26.
iOS 26 is a brand new design language. Early betas, like iOS 7, are going to have a lot of rough edges, so to speak. We saw some adjustments already with beta 2, and based on what I, and others, are seeing in beta 3, that trend is continuing. This is a major shift in design; it's going to take some time to figure out where to land and a lot of that happens during the beta phase.
Maybe one day they will "fix" App Library which launched in iOS 14 and hasn't been touched since.
But a lot of the "new design" is really not new, it's a skin. Sure the menu bars and such is redesigned, but the annoying UI bugs I'm having in iOS 18.5 that should have already been fixed, will be the same in iOS 26.
Widgets should not get this skin on top of every single widget. If I want the transparent look, every person in Photo widgets will look like ghosts, or if I want a green tint, they suddenly become Hulks
It's a bad design choice that widgets and icons are treated the same.The dark-mode icons for apps is still there for some apps, when dark mode has been turned off. Calendar icon not updating its icon...
I could go on with bugs that I just can't understand Apple hasn't fixed, but the design choices is just bad UI.
I think the development for change, just for the sake of change, has been to rapid and I wish Apple would focus on stability and fixes, but next year it will probably be a new skin again and things are still broken.
Based on the liquid glass reversal in beta 4, the continued legibility issues, and the fact that Gurman says they have been working on this design for 3 years, I have little faith Apple will have it where they need to be by September for mass adoption. I think it's quite possible that the iPhone 17-series still ships with iOS 18 still and we are told we will be getting iOS 26 by end of year.
A damning statement, considering Apple is a software company that just happens to make its money from hardware.
(Or "People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware")
From John Gruber’s site:
Liquid Glass isn’t ready for prime time. I know it’s a couple months before the new OSes ship but unless there are major fixes before then I don’t see how Apple can ship it.
Liquid Glass isn’t ready for prime time. I know it’s a couple months before the new OSes ship but unless there are major fixes before then I don’t see how Apple can ship it.
I agree that macOS is really atrocious. For all the people screaming "it's just a beta, they'll fix it before release!"...you must not have been paying attention to Apple for many years. Pretty much every year the new software is shown, it goes into beta, then public beta, and it rarely deviates greatly from the first showing when it releases to the public. Liquid Ass is what we were shown and Liquid Ass is what we are going to get...check back in like 4 years when it might be ironed out
What they show in the WWDC design video session looks very polished. What’s in the betas is very much not.