iOS 26's Liquid Glass Design Draws Criticism From Users

[richinaus]

I honestly dont care anymore. I think the phone is dead anyway, and this redesign confirms it. Meanwhile Meta releases AI glasses with a HUD.

 

[neutrino17]

It’s not terrible. The glass effect is a little disappointing. To me it looks a little like parchment or wax paper. I would like it to really look like glass. That would be cool.

I’m still wrapping my head around it. Mostly OK, I’ll get used to it. It does look a little cartoonish. I wish the feeling was more of fineness and precision.

 

[Pandyone]

I like it more than I thought I would. The visual design is nice, mostly. There are som glitches and bugs here and there. Especially with the keyboard I have noticed. The keyboard needs to "render" if a page is in dark mode or not.
Some of the UX design is just worse, more clicks is needed to do the same thing as just one or a few taps was needed before.

 

[Pedersenko]

Hate it. It almost bricks my iphone 13 mini. A capable machine but not with these animations.

Previous design was good. Resizing buttons would help and also some new features. But those are not too many. Just freaking glass

I will be returning my preordered iphone 17 once it arrives tomorrow.

Android is soo much leaner these days

 

[Taipan]

I guess the fact that some say the effects are too distracting, while others call them too subtle, means that it’s not really that dramatic.
Personally, I have fallen in love with the glass bubble at the bottom of the phone app.

 

[Fortimir]

I generally like the new direction but it needs plenty of refinement and fixes.

 

[Ralfi]

I hate that I can’t turn off the opening/closing animations. They’re really distracting. What’s the purpose of reducing motion if the option doesn’t work correctly?

I removes the animations for me.

 

[akbarali.ch]

I love it 👍 love the animation and all that little plays here n there. all good.

 

[Happiehappie]

To me design is subjective and I'm sure the UI will be polished and even be more elaborated down the line
my biggest gripe towards iOS 26 is mostly these 2 (16 pro max 512GB if it matters)
1) not sure if it is just me but since updating to iOS 26 I feel that every time I take a screenshot there's a small delay in execution
2) it bugs me more than it should but scrolling down Notification Center slowly, the Notification Center slides down along with your finger (liquid glass here is BEAUTIFUL imo), but if you swipe down slowly from control center, 1) it doesn't follow your finger 2) it's a straight up fade animation, for some reason this inconsistency bugs me a lot more than it really should lol

 

[Ctrlos]

Nobody likes change. By Christmas nobody will care.

 

[Pedersenko]

Why not liquid metal? Would have been soo much better with no transparency

 

[Not@Apple]

I hate it. Worst macOS that I can recall, even ignoring the bugs. In the two days since I installed it, it feels like I've spent half my time googling how to turn off annoying aspects of the redesign, like the Safari menu bar turning bright red to match a website, which is the last thing I want, and having to guess whether this is something I fix in the Settings > Appearance, or Settings > Accessibility, or the Safari Settings??? (It was the latter, under the Tabs option of all inexplicable things.)... And if I have a lock screen image image specified, why on earth would I want it blurred to be unrecognizable by default??? It's hideous.

 

[Jorggs]

You can. Reduce transparency in Accessibility

I turned on reduced transparency as i really dont like liquid glass, however, when you do various other elements seem clunky and unfinished. Also when reduced the dates of photos wen scrolling though photo library is no longer visible at all 😡

 

[livetofail]

Staying on 18 for a while. I’ve learned many times to NEVER update for a week or so, because problems and issues.

Yeah one week will make a major difference in the software ui.

 

[MDTyKe]

I guess the fact that some say the effects are too distracting, while others call them too subtle, means that it’s not really that dramatic.
Personally, I have fallen in love with the glass bubble at the bottom of the phone app.

This one?

 

[Donkey Man]

That’s Tim’s accounting-driven Apple - as a longtime Apple user, I still remember their mammoth Human Interface manual, which was a masterclass in how to translate basic interface concepts for the screen and input devices.
Nowadays? That book is probably in the trash and UI is being done by interns at Apple.

 

[whelmedjedi]

The last beta version of ios 26 i’ve been using was running way smoother than this weird os. And its draining battery 2x than my beta version. Apple??

 

[Avenged110]

To some people iOS 6 was the pinnacle of iOS design with no subsequent version being better.

iOS 6 remains the pinnacle of iOS design and no subsequent version ever was better. Just to prove your point, I still stand by that, wholly, to this day. I do like the SF Symbols collection, though.

 

[IIGS User]

Me to iOS 26.

We good, Boo.

I’m happy so far with it. I have a couple of complaints but most are related to figuring out how things have changed. So I shake fist at cloud, tie an onion to my belt (which is the style ANYTIME) and trade 5 bumblebees for a quarter. Then I move on.

 

[ikir]

iOS 26 is fast on old devices too. More optimization will come. People as always are evaluating it in the first 10 min during system indexing and other background processes

 

[d4cloo]

Although I agree with many of the criticisms listed, I don’t have that much of a problem with it myself.

The real issue I have is with macOS Tahoe. Now THAT is a mess.

 

[currentinterest]

I am really enjoying iOS 26. I think it is a brilliant update that makes the phone feel fresh and new. I love the changes in photos and the camera app as well. Adding backgrounds to messages, and a host of other things are really fun.

 

[romanobstuder]

Do we need these big curves? The traffic lights? On every window? Even more displeasure ad the bottom right in case you need to adjust the window size.
I am a designer and coder. Currently working on a playstation. Sounding like an angry old man, fully aware of that. But let's just say I would not let any of my apprentice designers get away with that.

 

[DunedinD]

All the clear and tinted icon styles highlight to me is how little I recognise most app icons by the forms within their icon. Colour is hugely important, at least until you end up with a screen full of icons where most designers have chosen the same colour, usually blue.

 

[Muceda]

Sometimes I love it and sometimes I hate it...You can't please everybody. People will always complain no matter what.
If the design is too similar, they say Apple is not innovating... If it's too radical, they say it is too different...
No matter what people say, I think there will be a s**tload of orders of the iPhone 17 Pro Max and the adoption of iOS 26 will be the biggest one so far.
We have to wait and see tomorrow...

That happens because you every time you mention the word “they” it is really referring to different people. Strange? No!

In a real life example.
if you paint the wall green, John and David complain.
If you paint the wall white, Dan and Will complain.

THEY are never happy???