Apple Updates Design Resources for iOS 26 Liquid Glass Interface

[johnsawyercjs]

would be interesting if someone fed these design resources into chatGPT and asked it to analyze how well iOS 26 adheres to Apple's own Human Interface Guidelines

In my experience, ChatGPT would probably offer some cogent analysis, while also mixing in one or two things that never happened, and ending with "...and that's how Willie Mays won the World Series."

 

[johnsawyercjs]

I think we're in for a long period of Apps that don't get updated for this new look.

Big cross platform companies/apps come to mind.

From what they said at WWDC, many of the elements that make up most apps, including their icon, will get the glass look even if the apps' developers don't update things, since the appearance of many of those elements is generated by the OS.

 

[sracer]

The “envelope” is truly mystifying. Maybe the designers have never seen a classic envelope in real life?


The Camera icon is now inconsistent with the ones in Control Center and on the lock screen, though.

If they made the envelope more realistic then it would be skeuomorphic.

 

[klasma]

If they made the envelope more realistic then it would be skeuomorphic.

I guess we should be lucky that they aren't making it a glass envelope.

 

[turbineseaplane]

From what they said at WWD, many of the elements that make up most apps will get the glass look even if the apps' developers don't update things, since the appearance of many of those elements is generated by the OS.

That’s actually more concerning

 

[johnsawyercjs]

People are talking about it as if everything was glass reflective transparent and what not. I've used the beta in the past two days and I can barely notice the difference compared to iOS 18. It's more or less the same.

You sure you don't have 'Reduce Transparency' turned on, at Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size, as well as 'Increase Contrast'? That's what I've always done for the versions of Apple's OSs that support these options, and this gives the various relevant 26 OSs a nice subtle rendering of Liquid Glass rather than the full-bore translucency of too much stuff bleeding through UI elements that makes many things look cluttered.

 

[johnsawyercjs]

That’s actually more concerning

Could be, if it takes away from developers their ability to control the appearance of their apps to an undue degree. I wonder if apps have, or will have, an option or flag to allow developers to tell the OS whether they want to opt into this or not.

 

[SpaceJello]

I wonder what’s the rationale behind the elongated toggles and slider handles. Just to make it look different I guess?

iOS went on ozempic. Elongated toggles do make it easier to identify. One doesn’t have to squint when not wearing glasses. Aside from that, it kinda looks “lighter” and not as chunky and bloated? 🤷‍♂️

 

[SpaceJello]

This is what they spent the last year doing?

I am sure the design team wasn’t working on Siri, don’t worry. 😉

 

[SpaceJello]

The “envelope” is truly mystifying. Maybe the designers have never seen a classic envelope in real life?

The envelope looks like all the other envelopes made out of translucent paper. They do exist, and are used a lot. It’s just not you conventional mailer.

 

[klasma]

The envelope looks like all the other envelopes made out of translucent paper. They do exist, and are used a lot. It’s just not you conventional mailer.

The translucency here suggests that the envelope only has top and bottom flaps, no side flaps. I don't think that makes physical sense for an envelope.

Furthermore, the way the triangular flaps start in the middle of the rounded corners doesn't seem physically possible for paper that is folding over, due to the curvature. It's just a really weird thing.

 

[SpaceJello]

The translucency here suggests that the envelope only has top and bottom flaps, no side flaps. I don't think that makes physical sense for an envelope.

Furthermore, the way the triangular flaps start in the middle of the rounded corners doesn't seem physically possible for paper that is folding over, due to the curvature. It's just a really weird thing.

🤣 Yes, it is weird. But not impossible.

You just need to cut the piece of paper so that when the triangle flap is flipped over as in the icon, it covers the envelope’s edges perfectly, nothing more or less. The side flaps could also be so perfectly cut as well to not show up when folded over.

It would just be a very expensive die job to get that specific cut. 🤣

 

[klasma]

🤣 Yes, it is weird. But not impossible.

You just need to cut the piece of paper so that when the triangle flap is flipped over as in the icon, it covers the envelope’s edges perfectly, nothing more or less. The side flaps could also be so perfectly cut as well to not show up when folded over.

It would just be a very expensive die job to get that specific cut. 🤣

Yeah, please take a picture of how you're sending a letter that way.

I mean, we're talking about Apple of "attention to detail" fame here. I think they are slowly losing that reputation.

 

[johnsawyercjs]

I mean, we're talking about Apple of "attention to detail" fame here. I think they are slowly losing that reputation.

I wonder if there's a design term for taking creative liberties with skeuomorphism. Skeuomorphism Lite? Minimalist Skeuomorphism? Or maybe just Apple Skeuomorphism.

 

[thiscatisfat]

You sure you don't have 'Reduce Transparency' turned on, at Settings > Accessibility > Display & Text Size, as well as 'Increase Contrast'? That's what I've always done for the versions of Apple's OSs that support these options, and this gives the various relevant 26 OSs a nice subtle rendering of Liquid Glass rather than the full-bore translucency of too much stuff bleeding through UI elements that makes many things look cluttered.

Yep.

 

[wanha]

In my experience, ChatGPT would probably offer some cogent analysis, while also mixing in one or two things that never happened, and ending with "...and that's how Willie Mays won the World Series."

lol you're probably right

 

[johnsawyercjs]

Yep.

Yeah, on trying Liquid Glass/Transparency a little more on my iPhone, as you say most things look pretty much as they do without it, except for folders on home pages being annoyingly translucent, and buttons and some other UI elements being translucent, but thankfully less than home page folders. Most things (at least so far), like icons, etc., were designed to be opaque no matter what settings you choose, so it seems that will remain the case for at least a while.

I was hoping to have a few seconds marveling over icons changing their glassy glint when I move the iPhone around, simulating light coming through glass at different angles, and then turning off transparency once I had my thrill, but I'm not even seeing that.

 

[Philip_S]

The battle between UX and UI. UX is all about making something as intuitive as possible for users.
UI is about making something look pretty. Good UI does this in a way that enhances the UX and doesn't detract from it.

The transparency aesthetic here is all about UI and, judging by the launch video, risks harming the UX by making text harder to read. I think if they are willing to compromise a little and make tweaks that enhance the contrast (e.g. increasing the blur applied to background items, apply a shadow to the glass elements to darken the background and increase contrast of icons and text) then this could be a really good modernisation of Apple's software design language and I do like the look, but as it is right now I think its falling a bit short on usability.

From Apple’s presentations on it, it’s supposed to be adaptive to the background so that it achieves that without being dull and sludgy the way wallpaper tinting can be on macOS. They don’t appear to have got it quite right yet.

 

[Populus]

Have they modified much the common icons and gliphs from the systems? The classical share, copy or navigation arrows, for instance. I’m curious, Apple is quite an “attention to detail” company to be honest, so I expect at least some minimal tweaks.