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Fuzzy blurry mess

Thanks for the replies. I’m surprised some people can’t see a difference. It’s very noticeable to me and I would never have allowed the update if I’d known it would look like this. My friends (on android) have asked what’s wrong with my phone and the only person who hasn’t been able to tell any difference is my granny but she has cataracts and I think everything is blurry to her.

I guess I’ll just have to get used to it on my phone but at least my iPad hasn’t updated yet and I spend much more time on that. Is it safe to turn off auto updates and just stay on ios18? Will that be a security risk?
 
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turbineseaplane said:
I don't know what you mean.
Can you please help us out by posting screenshots?
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I've explained it above.

In order to compare the same app's icon side by side, you have to zoom in the iPhone icons. A lot.
Which means that any comparison is pointless.

The only way I can show this is by opening them in 2 Viewers, zooming both at 1:1 and showing the 2 windows together. So this is a screenshot from my desktop.

Screenshot 2025-12-12 at 16.14.13.png


Inevitably, if you enlarge an icon from the left to the same size of the ones on the right, it will become slightly more pixelated. You're not comparing apple to apples.

That said, it's undeniable that the new icons have colors with gradients (the bullets of Reminders), more details (the Photos petals with white borders... and gradients), which some of you might not like.
 
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Crystal21 said:
Thanks for the replies. I’m surprised some people can’t see a difference. It’s very noticeable to me and I would never have allowed the update if I’d known it would look like this. My friends (on android) have asked what’s wrong with my phone and the only person who hasn’t been able to tell any difference is my granny but she has cataracts and I think everything is blurry to her.

I guess I’ll just have to get used to it on my phone but at least my iPad hasn’t updated yet and I spend much more time on that. Is it safe to turn off auto updates and just stay on ios18? Will that be a security risk?
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I can see a difference, I just don't interpret the iOS 26 icons as blurry or have any concerns with the UI. I see the icons as having more depth and various visual effects than the flat icons of prior iOS and macOS versions, but don't count that as blurriness. Sure, I could interpret it as blurriness, but I'm not sure how that would change how I use the phone. I don't stare at the icons, pondering their existence, for longer than to see the app I'm looking for and touch the icon. The phone is a utilitarian device. I appreciate the Liquid Glass visual effects, but don't dwell on them.

For the record, I have perfect eyesight.

I don't personally know anyone (outside internet commenters -- but I don't personally know them) who thinks iOS 26 looks blurry or who has any significant complaints about how it functions or looks -- well, other than my daughter. She didn't like it at first, but she really doesn't like change and has protested every iOS update; she has always adapted within weeks and ends up liking the current version more than the prior ones.

Nothing I write should be taken as suggesting you or other people don't see blurriness or don't have problems with the design. I'm simply offering my perspective that I, and many others I've talked with, do not see blurriness or have problems with the design.
 
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HouseLannister said:
Can we rename Stolkholm syndrome to be Apple syndrome?
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turbineseaplane said:
For real.
I'm just at a loss for words on how far the defense of Apple extends.

It seems like they could claim "water is not wet" and some faction of folks would support that view.
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Tig_one said:
The Liquid Gaslight syndrome.
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Have your opinions, but this holier-than-thou “Apple Defense” junk as if the-only-way-that-anyone-could-possibly-agree-with-Apple-is-if-they’re-blinded-by-bias is tiresome and silly. If you have an argument against the opposing view, make it and have it stand on its own. No need to resort to lowest common denominator “here come the Apple fanbois/gurls who are so in the tank for Apple their opinion is invalid” crap.

People have different opinions. Some like iOS 18 better, and some like 26 better. Everyone who likes the look of 26 better isn’t in some reality distortion field (although they probably have younger eyes), and isn’t “defending Apple” (we’re in a forum casually trading opinions, not a court of law) just because they align with Apple on some decisions.
 
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Crystal21 said:
I stupidly didn’t do any research into how bad ios26 is
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It is quite sad. Back in the days I’ve done many similar mistakes too when installing updates. However there are at least 3 huge topics on MR about how bad iOS 26 is from both visual and technical standpoints (Windows Vista-like popups included). For example I absolutely love the “I absolutely loathe iOS 26” thread. If Apple designers ever read this thread they might see how much hate there is about their “precious work”. Happily, there could be some major changes in Apple’s design team in the future so we might see iOS 27 as an ultimate bugfix OS.

Imo iOS design was a downfall ever since iOS 7. There is even a conspiracy theory on the Internet that the ensh**tification of everything with minimalism is a part of bigger plan to make people depressed, anxious and blind so they would crave more meds from big pharma.

I don’t tend to believe these typa theories but the fact that more people are noticing it cannot be unseen. Competition is not much better, especially Google and Microsoft, their designers should be sent to North Korea to design propaganda pamphlets not user interfaces…

Crystal21 said:
The photos show comparisons of my iPad and iPhone and you can see how blurry the apps look on the phone. It just looks broken. Like an old VHS tape.
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From technical standpoint I can totally see what is wrong with icons. They added depth with transparent elements but decided not to add a lot of shadows, as well as left color scheme as acidic as in all other iterations of the OS. In fact, what they made turned out as awful mess that is much worse than before
 
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Crystal21 said:
Is there any way to fix this? My phone has auto updates on, and I stupidly didn’t do any research into how bad ios26 is. The photos show comparisons of my iPad and iPhone and you can see how blurry the apps look on the phone. It just looks broken. Like an old VHS tape.

Both devices have reduced transparency on and the iPhone has increased contrast which only helped slightly.


View attachment 2587049View attachment 2587050
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You are correct, but you’ll get over it with time.
 
uacd said:
There is even a conspiracy theory on the Internet that the ensh**tification of everything with minimalism is a part of bigger plan to make people depressed, anxious and blind so they would crave more meds from big pharma.
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Relatively late entry, but this has rocketed to the top of the leaderboard of “Most mind-numbingly dumb thing I’ve read on the internet in 2025”. I’m not talking about your post, just this tidbit from others about UI designers being in bed with Big Pharma you’re passing on.

No wonder humanity is cooked. Unreal.
 
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turbineseaplane said:
It can't be seen by some because Apple did this.

If Samsung had done this it would be clear as day and an affront to design and they probably would be blamed for copying it from somebody.
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The vast majority of the people on this planet don’t give a toss about the UI (whether it’s Apple’s or Samsung’s) and don’t spend their time nitpicking every change because… simply they have better to do.

Many will forget soon even that there was a different UI, especially the new generations.

Samsung will be blamed for copying from Apple when in a few years they will imitate Liquid Glass. Then Apple will change again and people on this forum will decry the change.
 
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Silverstring said:
Relatively late entry, but this has rocketed to the top of the leaderboard of “Most mind-numbingly dumb thing I’ve read on the internet in 2025”. I’m not talking about your post, just this tidbit from others about UI designers being in bed with Big Pharma you’re passing on.

No wonder humanity is cooked. Unreal.
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Hahah, yeah. But people are actually making content like that! No, I mean I really saw such a post on reddit and I guess few TikTok videos.

That only means people are REALLY tired of this flatness all-around.

Similar stuff about “build cheap, build fast” but without big pharma and stuff. Not about UI but comparison of medieval architecture vs modern
 
Silverstring said:
Have your opinions, but this holier-than-thou “Apple Defense” junk as if the-only-way-that-anyone-could-possibly-agree-with-Apple-is-if-they’re-blinded-by-bias is tiresome and silly.
Click to expand...

No, the siliness was bringing that bias into the discussion instead of offering help to the OP. People here are telling the OP that they can't see the difference, defending that it is not blurry, saying the first screenshot looks better, telling him he'll get used to it. That's just gaslighting. He had a valid complaint and other people told them their opinion instead of acknowledging his issues. Just a complete lack of common decency.
 
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The new icons are blurry and liquid glass is a terrible design concept that should have never made it to market. Anyone who can’t see how comparatively blurry the icons are needs to have their vision checked.

This reminds me of the butterfly keyboards mess from a few years ago. Those things had their defenders as well, and it took Apple way too long to get rid of them. Maybe in four years we’ll get an iOS design that isn’t terrible. For a company that talks about “bravery” all the time, they don’t seem to realize that true bravery is admitting that you made a mistake.
 
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VisionOS is surely to blame for all this.

Dye has no human interface acumen; he genuinely believed that a GUI designed for a spatial headset experience could be ported down to slabs of glass that are viewed from a distance, and the depth-effects would somehow compliment a static screen.

People can make all the arguments they want for “Yeah but it’s cool” - but all this does is highlight that the effects are a gimmick and serve to distract from how Apple can’t be bothered to design separate and appropriate experiences on every computing level.

There is not a single objective benefit to Liquid Glass. It’s the sort of feature I would expect on Android for users to go “WoAHhH iPhone cAnT do THIS! haHA idiots!”
 
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just to point out that both iPhones and iPad at that size would be with your face a 'handwidth' away from the screen. resize the images to match the real screen size (reduce size about 75%) or stand back about 2-4' and the blurriness is more prevalent
 
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