Haha. Coming in IOS 27!
It's so sad how Apple is going backwards. It really took them putting out a Dev Beta to realize their liquid interface is hard as hell to read.
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Everything New in iOS 26 Beta 3
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It's so sad how Apple is going backwards. It really took them putting out a Dev Beta to realize their liquid interface is hard as hell to read.
Yeah basically the only (minor) visual change introduced by iOS 26 is now almost completely gone and the new iOS looks the same as any iOS since 7. And that’s not a good thing as iOS looks hideous.
Nah it looks awful. I for one ant a redesign, and a major one, not just the pathetic small tweak iOS 26 is going to be.
I didn’t try Beta 1 so I can’t comment on that.
I signed up for a dev account yesterday and installed Beta 2. The glass effect is pretty good and that surprised me. Legibility wasn’t anywhere near as awful as everyone had been banging on about and the glass effect was very fluid and satisfying. Everyone’s been knocking its appearance because, “in theory”, clear UI elements have to be less legible, but that wasn’t what I saw. Beta 2 had a lot of subtle visual feedback which made the glass elements very distinctive and helped them stand out in an unobtrusive way - paradoxical as that sounds. I loved some elements’ dynamic behavior as I interacted with them. Quite magical, TBH. Still pictures don’t do it justice.
So today I installed Beta 3 and it’s a bit samey and boring really. I’m stuck in flatland now and I want Beta 2 back. Apple needs to have a bit more courage and stick to its guns. What does the internet know? How to pile on and make noise, I’d say.
Just for reference, my test device was an iPhone 13 mini.
I signed up for a dev account yesterday and installed Beta 2. The glass effect is pretty good and that surprised me. Legibility wasn’t anywhere near as awful as everyone had been banging on about and the glass effect was very fluid and satisfying. Everyone’s been knocking its appearance because, “in theory”, clear UI elements have to be less legible, but that wasn’t what I saw. Beta 2 had a lot of subtle visual feedback which made the glass elements very distinctive and helped them stand out in an unobtrusive way - paradoxical as that sounds. I loved some elements’ dynamic behavior as I interacted with them. Quite magical, TBH. Still pictures don’t do it justice.
So today I installed Beta 3 and it’s a bit samey and boring really. I’m stuck in flatland now and I want Beta 2 back. Apple needs to have a bit more courage and stick to its guns. What does the internet know? How to pile on and make noise, I’d say.
Just for reference, my test device was an iPhone 13 mini.
oh wow that really is drastic. looks nothing like glass indeed
Man what a shame this looks nothing like liquid glass. I actually loved the change, it looked so refreshing. More white & boring again…
If Beta 3 is truly backtracking (and not just field-testing a different variant) then it’s concerning. The engineers and creatives clearly know what they’re doing, but leadership might be losing its nerve?
I see no change . In music app like you . Glass is still there in beta 3. Did you try in front of a dark background ?
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Hmm. My glass isn’t nearly this opaque in Beta 3. Still looks pretty glassy to me
Man what a shame this looks nothing like liquid glass. I actually loved the change, it looked so refreshing. More white & boring again…
During the pre-OS X days, third-party programmers figured out how to "theme" the Mac's OS, giving users options like changing the colors of window controls, the design of window title/grab bars, the shapes of the window control buttons in the upper left corner of most windows, etc. This went on for a few years, but Apple eventually "cracked down" on this since they claimed it allowed people to sully the unique design of the Mac OS as Apple had planned it, supposedly making it unrecognizable as a Mac operating system.
I never bought into that argument, and it seems Apple is backing off somewhat from it, introducing some theming options, mostly color choices, in the betas of its various 26 OSs. Since Apple is now allowing some simple theming options, it seems they should also allow the user some options in how glassy the OSs will look on their personal devices. I think it's user-friendly to allow people to personalize many UI elements across the board, on all of Apple's operating systems, so if some people want the full Liquid Glass look, or none of it, or somewhere inbetween, they could.
Well I think that transparency that lets you read the letters underneath is absolute sh*t design. It wasn't just cheap before, it was garbage.
If a cosmetic rather than a functional change is the “main selling point” for going from iOS 18 to 26, then Apple has a problem.
My 13 mini went from satisfyingly glassy to frosted. Maybe it’s device/processor dependent? Or screen size-dependent?
Lots of people posting that they are not showing any backtracking
This tells me
1. MacRumors didn’t even test iOS 26 properly
2. Users posting without experiencing update themselves .
This tells me
1. MacRumors didn’t even test iOS 26 properly
2. Users posting without experiencing update themselves .
Bravo. Well done, sir or maam or hdyjshgdg.
I prefer translucent objects to opaque. The most legible combination is going to be black on completely opaque white. Everything else is a compromise to some degree.
With translucent objects in real life, the information on them isn’t always glanceable. They have depth, and refractions, and sometimes need to be moved about to get all the detail from them.
So in this case, sometimes you had to scroll a bit to be able to read the glass elements more easily. It made it feel very organic and less static, I liked it a lot. Hopefully they do give us a slider for those that enjoy it.