I like my buttons and navigation to be distinct, clear and legible.
I do not understand this Apple fetish to blend everything together.
Whether you love it or hate it, there is no shortage of opinion on Liquid Glass. I have thoughts about what it is, but today I want to focus on why it exists. Apple’s public rationale for the new design language is that it offers a universal solution across platforms that takes advantage of...
furbo.org
This blogpost does a pretty good job at explaining why controls are now above content instead of separate from it, but basically it comes down to Apple preparing developers for an all screen bezel free curved edge iPhone, currently slated for 2027.
“. One thing that’s clear from this work is that you never want a control or container that touches the edge of the screen.
It’s like when safe area insets appeared in iOS 11: it wasn’t clear why you needed them until the
iPhone X came along with a notch and a home indicator. And then it
changed everything.
There has also been an emphasis on “concentricity”. It’s an impossible thing to achieve and an
easy target for ridicule. But it’s another case where Apple wants to take control of the UI elements that intersect with the physical hardware.
All of this makes me think that Apple is close to introducing devices where the screen disappears seamlessly into the physical edge. Something where
flexible OLED blurs the distinction between pixels and bezel. A new “wraparound” screen with safe area insets on the vertical edges of the device, just like we saw with the horizontal edges on iPhone X.
The user interface work of the past few months will all make a lot more sense, and developers who haven’t been paying attention will have their “holy ****” moment.
I can see this new physical design being very successful with touch-oriented devices: it will feel natural with a phone, tablet, or watch. Hardware and software becoming one in classic Apple fashion”