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Do you like Liquid Glass on Mac?
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By all accounts It’s taxing perception cognitive cycles too which is equally compounding of the damming failure.
No question that we cannot say with 100% certainty and accuracy that any performance degradation is due to the increased overhead due to liquid glass. What we can say is that adding level of transparency and eye candy does come at a cost, and while Apple Silicon can handle it, more cpu/gpu cycles translate into less battery
I'm not overwhelmed by it, but I have two concrete examples of being mentally taxed by liquid death. One is minor and it's on macOS. One is major and it's on iOS.
1 - Preview's title bar on macOS is mentally taxing. The document's content is not often problematic but it has been. If I have to work on a document that is problematic for a long time, it's a constant bother.
2 - Safari on iOS - at the bottom right there is the little circle that allows me to choose from open tabs. Every time I touch it, the animation bothers me. I use this control a lot. It's hard for me to understand why I haven't just gotten over it, but it really wears on me. I have a 12 Pro Max. I think the problem has something to do with the fact that I always click on "All Tabs" after it opens. The delay and the way it exposes that choice feels unnatural. I played a bit with it just now, trying to figure out what was wrong with it, and I found myself getting a bit nauseous.
In some cases, I like Liquid Glass.
In other cases, it's a readability nightmare.
In other cases, it's a readability nightmare.
Apple support would suggest moving to a smaller home. Feedback closed, resolved.
I vaguely remember Steve Jobs mentioning they had 'studied and perfected the radius of the corners so it looks and feels just right'. Im paraphrasing as I cant quite remember exactly what was said or what he was referring to. I believe it was probably the app icons on the iPhone but it was a long time ago. But since then Apple have changed the corner radius on everything TWICE! What happened to that research?
Don't worry that will be 'fixed' with a shadow in an upcoming update.
I actually really like this post. I remember when you bought an Apple product in the past there was a real wow factor when unboxing and discovering everything. Nowadays it just all seems like everything else. Maybe Im just getting older and don't care as much but as a designer a new Apple product used to be inspiring. The PowerMac G4 in its aqua like plastic case and the beautiful curves and contrasts between materials. It all was reflected in the UI too, the attention to detail and design cues from the hardware reflected in the software. It was all inspiring and made you want to use the machine.
Im all for minimalism, it's very much my style but the MacMini staring back at me is just a grey block with two slots and a light. Not very inspiring and then you turn it on and you're greeted with Liquid Glass. It just makes you not want to use it.
This makes it obvious why translucency is a bad idea for text. There are smart folk at Apple. I don't doubt someone asked the question: what about when half the underlying image is black and half white? Because this is the obvious result. Someone declared this: not a problem. One can only guess that it was because they didn't want the entire concept shot down. This sort of inadequacy should lose you your job, because it's so clearly ridiculous.
This simulate material approach as a substitute for actual UI/design is totally daft but when you work out the literal metaphor. It becomes even dafter.
Glass is a crystal.
One of the primary applications of the material that is a universal benefit is in the window. Ironic right?
The purpose of a window is to see in and out, i.e. allows light transmit through a solid layer.
Thus we can see things inside an enclosed space.
We open a window to view the contents somewhere on a computer, a metaphor that works so well. No mention of "glass" because we see through it and no need, it is understood from the perfect descriptive metaphor.
The functional quality of glass is it keeps bad things out, rain and wind(oh!). So that which is inside is safe and dry. The things we love.
We are not here to look at the glass. This is why window cleaning products are a multi-million dollar industry, and cleaning a window is important because no one wants to look at illuminated dirt on a sunny day through their window.
Very similar to how some iMacs and MacBooks had to reflective a transparent protective-screen which made it hard for the eye to focus on the actual LCD/LED screen. Anti-glare screens were developed as an excellent solution. Here the Glass layer was removed completely for a very good reason.
Now we have what was a very physical problem with Mac screen essentially replicated in a virtual way across the entire suite of OS GUI's.
Liquid Glass is actually molten glass, and it will burn you, and is the material in a state of transition, and Apple has sadly burned it's user base more than anticipated with this UI transition!
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I think Liquid Glass is intended for future products. Apple products are not the same. Vision Pro, Mac, iPad, iPhone and Watch are different products and work differently. The software cannot be same across all products. They require different software configured to their hardware. When they tested it internally, they probably did not get the honest feedback, that is needed. I am fine with the Liquid Glass look, but I hear that many people do not like it.
in the spirit of (better) understanding, do you mean "I am fine with the look of LG" as a concept or in practical everyday useage?
I ask to try and understand how 'the users that like LG' feel about all the images of poor design and anomalies posted here. I posted an image of WHITE on WHITE And light GREY on GREY earlier and would honestly like to hear from users if that is... 'do-able', acceptable, workable for you in your everyday Mac usage.
Dannyyankou's post is another great example of the issues with LG
I'm not looking for a heated discussion 'for or against' on the topic, just honest feedback (from the PRO-LG camp) on how these elements 'don't bother/hinder you' in realistic terms of using the GUI everyday. (If anything maybe itll help me gauge just how bad my sight is now... some of the macOS 26 issues seem too big to just hinder me. 😄)
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I've seen some sci-fi movie/TV shows where they're using iPad-like tablets, but they look like clear sheets of glass.
Obviously, such a tablet would be nearly unusable: for example, if you had black text on the tablet, and you're standing on a floor that is black in color. It's the same problem liquid glass has. Gotta have contrast. This is very basic level graphic design.
There is a reason why, for example, paper is white, and typewriter ink is black.
Obviously, such a tablet would be nearly unusable: for example, if you had black text on the tablet, and you're standing on a floor that is black in color. It's the same problem liquid glass has. Gotta have contrast. This is very basic level graphic design.
There is a reason why, for example, paper is white, and typewriter ink is black.
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That's a great question.
It might be hard to get to the bottom of it. Everyone has different experiences, even looking at the same things. For example, I cannot get the screen mirroring popup to be problematically translucent as shown in Dannyyankou's post. Even on my own computer, I've had variable experiences with the exact same part of a window.
I seems like translucency in any area of the screen that is intended to communicate information is a mistake.
Why does this screen mirroring window look like this but the Wifi network selection drop down window look totally different? The inconsistencies are maddening!
To see what im talking about access the screen mirroring window like in dannyyankou's attachment and then click the wifi icon to the left in the menu bar. Why are these two styled differently yet the text logic is hierarchically the same?
It really does feel like they forced Liquid Glass onto MacOS, realised it was crap and then added in another kind of style to fix bits they knew where it simply wouldn't work. So we get different menu styles, massive shadows to fix the bits where this alternative style won't work or will look jarring and/or just plain illegibility. The more I use it the more I hate it. I would have got fired if I put this crap out, that's what annoys me the most plus the fact they force you to use it by not allowing downgrades.
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A designer with good internal spatial facility would know reflexively that it would be total crap before lifting a finger.
There are ZERO excuses for what I'm seeing in this topic and others, even one instance of this slipping through, but it seems systemic failure throughout, and again, a persona with a good production head would avoid this madness too.
That word again sabotage is wanting a word in our ears.
Apple's flagshipOS or originOS undermined like this IMHO requires a level of concerted execution bordering on if not what is know in other areas as Treason or in corporate aka Industrial Espionage / Sabotage - because it is hard (but not impossible) to believe if so many teams and people were involved, that group wide incompetence is to blame, then we would need to see this express in other areas as viciously as liquid glass (which is the case with the superb silicon position or say the new rectified MB Pro & MBAir lines), because if so, it means internally Apple is in a very dire situation indeed.
There is a big burden of proof for group wide incompetence on the level and that's why buck stops where? applies absolutely.
With more than a hint of Occam's razor, it could simply be Apples Korean Airlines moment, but that too can leave an operation open to anyone perfectly placed to maliciously leverage that Korean-Airline culture without being so easily detected, until too late.
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Gosh, I do wonder if someone at Apple directly involved with this work is reading this thread. Or any other Liquid Glass related topic around here. I genuenly wonder how they feel, what they are thinking. Is the department internal Slack channel flooded with our messages and our examples?
I know I was able to reproduce what you're seeing, each of those controls being rendered differently. However, now, as I try again, they look identical on my computer. They both appear as your wifi popup appears. So, not only inconsistent across space, but also across time.