The UI is an interesting concept. It almost exists in three dimensions (+depth) rather than just two.
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iOS 26 Adds All-New 'Clear Look' Option Alongside Light and Dark Mode
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Let's be honest. It's been a long time since Apple was generally associated with stellar UX design and human interface principles.
Who asked for this? Did Apple even use focus groups for this redesign? This is giving "what would Jony do? Oh, I know: glass everything."
Good for them, but if they continue in this direction, the money may become a little, tiny bit less for them
I'm sure this was going to be the default to "radically simplify" the OS and make everything look "clean and consistent". Luckily someone outside the design department stopped it. Now it's just an option but they still ship it as this is what Liquid Glass was supposed to look like.
I’m trying it, but I’m just not feeling it. Everything seems a little unclear and it generally feels a bit cluttered. Liquid glass seems a backward step to me. Maybe it will improve over the next few months.
This picture cant be real…right? Right?? That looks like a usability nightmare. What is Apple doing??
Liquid Glass feels like planned obsolence. Too gimmicky, sparse value for users.
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Me thinks thou dost protest too much…
The visceral reactions here are surprising. It’s not like they made it the default view. You have to specifically choose it, which means “you don’t have to use it.”
And even if you do, there are an infinite number of choices you can make (solid colors, gradients or photo backgrounds and the ability to shift the tinting of what you choose) that affect how it presents.
Add to that, this is db ONE of the base OS and it’s only June. Plenty of time for tweaks and changes before we get to initial launch in September when the new devices are released.
Personally… I like it and my 58 year old eyes can read it just fine.
The visceral reactions here are surprising. It’s not like they made it the default view. You have to specifically choose it, which means “you don’t have to use it.”
And even if you do, there are an infinite number of choices you can make (solid colors, gradients or photo backgrounds and the ability to shift the tinting of what you choose) that affect how it presents.
Add to that, this is db ONE of the base OS and it’s only June. Plenty of time for tweaks and changes before we get to initial launch in September when the new devices are released.
Personally… I like it and my 58 year old eyes can read it just fine.
Now THIS is the first real criticism I agree with. The keynote was very “blah.”
But all the doom & gloom about the UI is a bit much. But I get it.. Everyone wants what they want and plenty of people don’t want this.
What I want to see next is for them make the UI “stand out” in almost a 3D or depth of field manner the way you can with photos.
Somewhat related, if were talking about night mode / dark theme etc , but....In addition to light mode day theme and dark mode night theme for viewing text, can we get a slider for a grey theme to adjust how we see fit? Thank you
well... something not good xD
tbh on my android device I use b/w icon set and it works just briliantly (and I have shapes to help finding icons faster)...
I think this is something you have to actually see and experience in your hand. It may be a bit like the whole iOS/macOS 26 UI, in reality and in video's it looks much (much!) better than on single screenshots.
I probably don't like this clear mode personally, I'm that much attached to normal icon colors that I always run iOS 18 icons in "light" mode even though my iPhone is almost permanently in Dark mode.
I probably don't like this clear mode personally, I'm that much attached to normal icon colors that I always run iOS 18 icons in "light" mode even though my iPhone is almost permanently in Dark mode.
When the M1 MacBook Pros arrived it seemed as though Apple had remembered that function is at least as important as form.
The clear look is certainly clean, but unless you have the sharpest eyesight in the world it's going to cause a lot of squinting. The same goes for some of the text on the 'liquid-glass' menus and buttons which look pretty hard to read in some of the video.
I like the look, but they need to do more to make it usable. It needs more contrast, even if the design team doesn't think higher contrast will look as pretty.
The clear look is certainly clean, but unless you have the sharpest eyesight in the world it's going to cause a lot of squinting. The same goes for some of the text on the 'liquid-glass' menus and buttons which look pretty hard to read in some of the video.
I like the look, but they need to do more to make it usable. It needs more contrast, even if the design team doesn't think higher contrast will look as pretty.
This would be a lot more usable if the clear part was limited to the squircle box housing the icon/widget and then still having colour for the rest of the graphic. A frosted squircle that blurs the background and provides some contrast to enhance colourful graphical elements on top.
Both my wallpapers are pure black. So this clear mode icon will actually look pretty good on my iPhone.
There’s a reason why people often run into glasses, it’s hard to see. The UI is pretty, but hard to see
They really seem to suffer from the design team, apparently, all being young and with perfect eyesight.
Can we skip this stage and go back to skeuomorphic and call it the latest greatest thing?