Watched this video yesterday. Definitely worth a viewing.
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Do you like Liquid Glass on Mac?
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Reminds me of my design college days when we first discovered Photoshop filters. Drop shadow and Emboss EVERYTHING!!
I call this marketing psychopathy. It's a real danger in all companies. I think we've been watching, and experiencing, something similar happen at Apple over the years on the software side – Apple's hardware is still the best, in general [mistakes will and should happen occasionally].
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This right here is perfect.
I'm not a huge fan of smart phones in general but have never suggested it's not a good product for people who like them.
It's just a completely different product than desktop, for different purposes. Why would it ever make sense for one to artificially constrain the other?
For example I'm posting from my phone right now because I'm bored waiting in a parking lot. It's fine for that. But I'm not setting up an IDE or writing python ETL scripts on this thing.
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I enjoyed the video. I will have to watch it again. At this point it's over my head. I do wish he gave some real examples of the kinds of new thinking he is advocating. He did say a few times that he didn't want to do that, but it would have helped me. But, I'm not in his target audience, real UI designers.
The top one is hard to read, but I can't reproduce that on my computer. I've set my background to a solid grey to try to match yours, but my widget is quite readable. If I turn on dim widgets, it looks like this...
yeah I wish I could get that dark widget background! I just don't know whats happening ...ever since macOS 26 so many (visual) setting don't make sense. Im using an Apple Studio Display so maybe different Mac screens (MBP, Mair) look different? (which I would imagine/hope they wouldn't)
I selected the Dark Grey 'wallpaper' for easy of font visibility (for my eyes), but even with the stock Sequoia colorful 'wallpaper' its the same washed out fonts...
heres my desktop widget (in background)
heres the desktop widget (in foreground)
Selecting 'Dim' (instead of Automatic) in the Settings is the only option to remove the bright white on white. But the bigger question is; how is the 'white on white' helpful for anyone? what is the design concept there? And beyond some of macOS apps/widgets lacking some of the same functionality of their iOS counterparts (Home app); why is legibility not one of the top concerns in UI deployment across the whole ecosystem?
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You're using light mode on the Mac and dark mode on the iPhone. If you change the Mac to dark mode, the widget should then have the dark background.
Also, it looks like you have Reduce Transparency enabled. I think this is one of those things where it fights against itself in some areas. IMO, the widgets are easier to read when Reduce Transparency is disabled in light mode.
Apple has an algorithm that derives the widget's color from whatever is behind it. It's buggy; I don't think it's intentional.
I would definitely call Apple support. You will help others if you report this problem.
I did switch to light mode to test and my widget starts approaching the look of yours. But, I can still easily read mine and I can barely read yours. Have you tried changing color profiles for your monitor?
I have tried switching color profiles/'Display Presets' for the Apple Studio Display, but the "Apple Display P3" presents best and the only Preset that allows for 'Brightness adjustments'.
even using one of my 'dark wallpapers' the widget is still grey/grey (without that dark background in your post)
I'll just leave it at that. Though I have to say after almost 40yrs using Macs—and over 20yrs of vision issues—macOS 26 is the first OS which I've ever had such issues and difficulties.
even using one of my 'dark wallpapers' the widget is still grey/grey (without that dark background in your post)
I'll just leave it at that. Though I have to say after almost 40yrs using Macs—and over 20yrs of vision issues—macOS 26 is the first OS which I've ever had such issues and difficulties.
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(Me too!)
I'm not sure what you mean by "play nice" apart from continuing to prioritize the offensive similarities to visionOS over those that are more appropriate to the platform in question. For much longer than visionOS has existed, Apple folks have recognized that the point of a platform is to excel at being itself, so my feeling has always been that Tahoe – while we certainly didn't need the zealousness at all – is going to be the most zealous version of this slip on that front before it starts to equalize.
I think one either trusts that the people at Apple – many of whom toward the top have seen much of the deeper history of Apple much more closely than we have – retain the capacity to harbour insight, or one doesn't. I'm concerned about this year, but I still do, no question.
Not much in the way of concrete evidence there, but I hope it helps you entertain that you could be overthinking (or just thinking down some other path) a little.
Today I tried working with tahoe again. Well... I'm completely done. I hate literally everything in this OS. Just can’t look at this piece of sh. . Thank you Alan. 
Three months into the production version of macOS 26, I must admit that I hardly notice the Liquid Glass change. It’s simply fading away on macOS. Moreover, it offers absolutely nothing to enhance the user experience.
On MacOS its much less apparent. No liquid. No glass. Just weird floating things everywhere. The problem with Tahoe is the UX and placement of buttons and elements that tries to replicate iOS but has no place on a desktop system. It just makes it harder (and more frustrating) to use.
I've literally got rid of as many distracting elements as I can by customising the toolbar in almost every app. Below is my Safari & Finder menubar.
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Also captured the crappy window grabber in action too. So there's definitely a bug here and it's not us going mad!
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Legitimately hate all of Liquid Glass. I booted up an iPhone 4s I found in my closet and was immediately so happy to see that beautiful iOS 9 UI with very simple frosted glass and sharp defined lines. It was a very readable and clean experience.
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@CasualFanboy I’ve removed my previous message since it wasn’t on topic. Apologies for the mix-up!
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Are we doing forum convergence now? iPhone posts in the macOS forum?
Fair enough. My point was that my answer to “do you like Liquid Glass on macOS” is “No, I hate it entirely everywhere” with an example of when Apple had design language I like.
It is abundantly clear that for both iOS and macOS legibility was at the very last of the list of design criteria. Taking a turn an old saying, It is much better look good than actually be usable. Wonder what's next, a toggle to make all test invisible?