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iOS 26.1 Beta 4 Lets Users Control Liquid Glass Transparency with New Toggle

Lowfi22mac said:
This is all I can see with menus + icons. Ugh.
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That actually is an appropriate re-interpretation of my warning there. My first paragraph of feedback to Apple after Tahoe's release was about the hope of disabling those entirely. (At least distinguishing their shade from that of the text would be a kind affordance.)
 
Joosst said:
These choices have nothing to do with design. This is about organisation.

Users should not be asked about legibility, if Apple just made the most legible version.
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(Laughs)

All right – we can inform the Apple staff that the 30-year legacy of Mac display options has nothing to do with design. I'm sure they'll find that most helpful.

Are you inviting me to collect screen shots of the bouquet-like collection of settings from across Apple's platforms related to text legibility, or…?
 
Starfia said:
(Laughs)

All right – we can inform the Apple staff that the 30-year legacy of Mac display options has nothing to do with design. I'm sure they'll find that most helpful.

Are you inviting me to collect screen shots of the bouquet-like collection of settings from across Apple's platforms related to text legibility, or…?
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The things you refer to are accessibility features, if you need a bigger typeface or whatever. This just feels different somehow. Like they don’t really know what they’re doing. To me it feels insecure and backtracking. Especially after they made such a big deal about Liquid Glass. To now say: ‘ah maybe not’ just doesn’t convey confidence. But maybe I’m wrong.
 
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Starfia said:
He's certainly on record for saying "choice is good" during a keynote, though that was during a momentary trepidatious mood.

I tend to recall this moment from the release of Leopard, though, when he appeared to be responding directly to user requests with respect to the interface. Listening to what people thought about Apple seemed like such a critical tooth of Steve's cog – as well as a critical part of Apple's success during his years – that I don't think it's that hard to know. Of course he'd be listening to users and take into consideration what he thought they wanted from Apple. I imagine the ability to gauge some of their applause instantaneously – an ability modern Apple has voluntarily waived – was another reason he loved the live keynotes.
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I like the prerecorded keynotes of nowadays.

The clapping and sycophancy from the planted at the front Apple employees of the late teens keynotes became grating

(I’m British - we are generally pretty cynical and reserved. At least I am!).

But I’d agree with you - the Apple of today seems curiously isolated and defensive. Clearly something is not working well there.
 
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Joosst said:
The things you refer to are accessibility features, if you need a bigger typeface or whatever. This just feels different somehow. Like they don’t really know what they’re doing. To me it feels insecure and backtracking. Especially after they made such a big deal about Liquid Glass. To now say: ‘ah maybe not’ just doesn’t convey confidence. But maybe I’m wrong.
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There are some features designated as accessibility settings, but I'm referring to plenty of things like "Sidebar Icon Size", "Text Size" (Dynamic Text), "Bold Text", "Display Zoom" – all legibility-related, and all surfaced on the Mac, iPhone and Watch at top levels outside "Accessibility". Likewise, this new Liquid Glass setting seems like it would have been appropriate to call an accessibility setting.

Anyway, thank you for elaborating – I think your intended point is that legibility should be like a metric, with the most legible rendering designated the default, and variations at least relegated to settings…?

To me, that brings to mind the counterexample of "Increase Contrast," which has long been available, long rendered the most legible version of text across the system, has never been the default, and it's always seemed like the right choice.

For the record, I've been one of the most concerned people I know about Liquid Glass – I felt from the week of the announcement that the most zealous implementation would be the initial one, and that "backtracking" was inevitable. That happened with Aqua, with iOS 7, et cetera. As when Jobs sometimes explicitly suggested he took user feedback into account, I don't think it shows a lack of confidence.

Hopefully you understand my original reply: your seeming motion – stated pretty unambiguously – was that presenting options (for legibility or otherwise) implied failure. That seems difficult to support based on Apple's history of tasteful and well-received options (for legibility and otherwise). Settings are a very delicate road to navigate well, especially when strong opinions are widespread, and I think this one is the first truly promising sign since the announcement.
 
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bluecoast said:
I like the prerecorded keynotes of nowadays.
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Yeah, I like them too. But I sure do lament the complete disappearance of the Jobs format.

bluecoast said:
The clapping and sycophancy from the planted at the front Apple employees of the late teens keynotes became grating

(I’m British - we are generally pretty cynical and reserved. At least I am!).
Click to expand...

(I'm also half-British – close enough to fathom that dispositional ilk, I think.)

I didn't really notice the later contrived applause you mentioned – perhaps I would have with time, particularly when the invited audience was largely media people who would have been there to spectate rather than to applaud – but certainly, WWDC each year remained a pretty genuine source of the pretty genuine reactions of people worldwide who cared about Apple's software expending a great deal of their time and money to appear and fill the room. And in the earlier days, the applause was distinctly applause – euphoric acknowledgment of something someone did – when Apple began finally putting in the work to accomplish thing after thing that people seemed to intrinsically feel was possible, but no other company in the industry was clearing their minds and putting in the work to do well. Perhaps we miss the genuine applause because we miss what Apple did to earn it. One fact seems that many of the most obvious things have now been accomplished. We've lived for decades now in a world of computers and phones that are way more excellent and luxurious than people generally need, and there's more of an open frontier.

bluecoast said:
But I’d agree with you - the Apple of today seems curiously isolated and defensive. Clearly something is not working well there.
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I didn't mean to be commenting at all on Apple's tone today. Since you mention it: they do seem to be more "corporate" than ever. Anyone would expect that from one of the world's most successful companies of all time, but Apple also has some of the world's biggest merit- and value-related shoes to keep full. Even for those who believe they're navigating these paramount challenges reasonably well, as I do, our eyes are certainly attentive to everything about how they're going. It's clear there have been challenges.
 
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Starfia said:
Yeah, I like them too. But I sure do lament the complete disappearance of the Jobs format.



(I'm also half-British – close enough to fathom that dispositional ilk, I think.)

I didn't really notice the later contrived applause you mentioned – perhaps I would have with time, particularly when the invited audience was largely media people who would have been there to spectate rather than to applaud – but certainly, WWDC each year remained a pretty genuine source of the pretty genuine reactions of people worldwide who cared about Apple's software expending a great deal of their time and money to appear and fill the room. And in the earlier days, the applause was distinctly applause – euphoric acknowledgment of something someone did – when Apple began finally putting in the work to accomplish thing after thing that people seemed to intrinsically feel was possible, but no other company in the industry was clearing their minds and putting in the work to do well. Perhaps we miss the genuine applause because we miss what Apple did to earn it. One fact seems that many of the most obvious things have now been accomplished. We've lived for decades now in a world of computers and phones that are way more excellent and luxurious than people generally need, and there's more of an open frontier.



I didn't mean to be commenting at all on Apple's tone today. Since you mention it: they do seem to be more "corporate" than ever. Anyone would expect that from one of the world's most successful companies of all time, but Apple also has some of the world's biggest merit- and value-related shoes to keep full. Even for those who believe they're navigating these paramount challenges reasonably well, as I do, our eyes are certainly attentive to everything about how they're going. It's clear there have been challenges.
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Thanks for your thoughtful reply.

Although I like the more polished nature of the keynotes now, I’d agree with you that the loss of live demos is important, as it allows Apple to demonstrate working software.

A live demo would not have allowed the vapourware Apple Intelligence / Siri features of June 2024 - some of which are nowhere to be seen still - to be demonstrated on stage.

So you’ve changed my mind 🙂 I’ll agree with you now, that the WWDC keynote should be live again.

It’s meant to be for developers and it’s meant to be demoing features that Apple has built. The current WWDC keynote is now aimed at end users more than developers imho.

I do miss the days where Craig F would talk about why keyboard input was so slow on the Mac and how they made it faster.

The hardware presentations I think are ok to be prerecorded and slick. It’s marketing.

And anyway - if the hardware is going to be in reviews a week after and users’ hands two weeks after the presentation, then Apple had better not be lying!
 
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bluecoast said:
A live demo would not have allowed the vapourware Apple Intelligence / Siri features of June 2024 - some of which are nowhere to be seen still - to be demonstrated on stage.

So you’ve changed my mind 🙂 I’ll agree with you now, that the WWDC keynote should be live again.

It’s meant to be for developers and it’s meant to be demoing features that Apple has built. The current WWDC keynote is now aimed at end users more than developers imho.

I do miss the days where Craig F would talk about why keyboard input was so slow on the Mac and how they made it faster.
Click to expand...

I hadn't thought to bring that up, but you're right: even the perceived veracity of demos is an issue with pre-recording. Greg Joswiak is on record claiming that early "intelligent" Siri demo was real software running on camera – but even if he was telling the truth, the pre-recordedness was the single factor that made room for everyone from laypeople to John Gruber to understandably suppose or even assume it wasn't.

Genuineness of the demos completely aside, live presentations lend demos an irreplaceable air. Even two decades later, people all around the world think back with tremendous warmth, fondness and recalled excitement on a historic Apple demo working (or not quite working). It feels to me like every pre-recorded event is a waived opportunity to seed new such feelings among new such people.

But it's their choice. I wasn't even asserting the keynotes should be live again; just that I miss them. ^ ^

I think WWDC was always aimed at developers as well as users because it was always broadcast (it took me a span of early years to understand that WWDC was even about developers).

And, yes, all the keynotes used to be much more amenable to technical digressions, or more generally, digressions along the lines of "here's what we were thinking when we made this; here's what we think we want and what we think customers want, and it's about these sub-reasons," and so on. That's another big reason why I miss them. That was Apple as Steve Jobs presented it: cutting out the marketing junk and just striving to make sense. Lately I've thought The Talk Show with Apple executives has been the inheritor of that, but… well, here we are this year. ^ ^
 
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The liquid glass toggle doesn't seem to affect the amount of transparency on my home screen. It definitely affects transparency of notifications on the lock screen, and various UI elements in stock apps. But on my home screen, the translucency of folders and the app tray at the bottom is completely unaffected by the liquid glass toggle.

It's hard for me to think of a reason why that would be intentional. I wonder if this will be changed in the RC.
 
Apple says that the new toggle was added because during the beta testing period over the summer, user feedback suggested that some people would prefer to have a more opaque option for Liquid Glass.​

so they listened to the feedback during pre-release beta testing, then all the retching after it dropped, just to make sure, and finally wheeled out this groundbreaking toggle in v26.1 4th beta?

must take a while to gather all the best and brightest, but well done!
 
I like some aspects of the new UI, but will 100% use the frosted look option over the liquid transparency mess. This should have been an option day one.
 
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Starfia said:
I hadn't thought to bring that up, but you're right: even the perceived veracity of demos is an issue with pre-recording. Greg Joswiak is on record claiming that early "intelligent" Siri demo was real software running on camera – but even if he was telling the truth, the pre-recordedness was the single factor that made room for everyone from laypeople to John Gruber to understandably suppose or even assume it wasn't.

Genuineness of the demos completely aside, live presentations lend demos an irreplaceable air. Even two decades later, people all around the world think back with tremendous warmth, fondness and recalled excitement on a historic Apple demo working (or not quite working). It feels to me like every pre-recorded event is a waived opportunity to seed new such feelings among new such people.

But it's their choice. I wasn't even asserting the keynotes should be live again; just that I miss them. ^ ^

I think WWDC was always aimed at developers as well as users because it was always broadcast (it took me a span of early years to understand that WWDC was even about developers).

And, yes, all the keynotes used to be much more amenable to technical digressions, or more generally, digressions along the lines of "here's what we were thinking when we made this; here's what we think we want and what we think customers want, and it's about these sub-reasons," and so on. That's another big reason why I miss them. That was Apple as Steve Jobs presented it: cutting out the marketing junk and just striving to make sense. Lately I've thought The Talk Show with Apple executives has been the inheritor of that, but… well, here we are this year. ^ ^
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To prove your point - the unveiling of the original iPhone by Jobs, all done live onstage, is still a - the - masterpiece of consumer tech product unveiling.

(Even though its 'revolutionary' features feel every day for us all now - how far the smartphone has come!)
 
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