I have to agree. My first impressions and experiences are mostly negative. I like the design, it’s just implemented very badly.
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iOS 26's Liquid Glass Design Draws Criticism From Users
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I am not usually one to jump into rash or overzealous criticism. In fact, this is the first time I find myself fundamentally at odds with Apple’s direction.
Design is a discipline. It is an art that demands mastery. You guide the eye through color, form, clarity, movement—all with one goal: to allow users to work with focus, free from distraction and novelty gimmicks. The more complex the system, the harder it is to hold it together as a unified whole. And at Apple, that unity is now fracturing—disastrously.
Distracting, meaningless frills have even crept into the venerable macOS. Menu items cluttered with gratuitous icons have left many of us laughing bitterly. But one does not need to be a GUI designer to feel a sense of shock at what is unfolding. It seems as though the professional, cross-disciplinary guardians of order have been sidelined—or worse, sabotaged.
The inconsistency is glaring. Compare the Apple Music app icon with that of Apple Music Classical, and you’ll see it instantly. These uneven levels of execution appear two or three times on every single screen—a phenomenon unthinkable in Apple’s past.
Of course, there will always be contrarians who find the new chaos “livelier.” Yet in serious design, the rule has long been clear: use as few attractors as possible. Advertising thrives on noise; design thrives on restraint. Apple’s former strength lay in its calm, professional aesthetic. Even younger audiences quickly learn to appreciate the power of an unflustered, distraction-free environment. The outside world is noisy enough—Apple should not mirror that jittery zeitgeist with a sloppy, inconsistent GUI.
It was better before.
And in decades of using Apple products, I never imagined I would have to say that—so fundamentally.
Design is a discipline. It is an art that demands mastery. You guide the eye through color, form, clarity, movement—all with one goal: to allow users to work with focus, free from distraction and novelty gimmicks. The more complex the system, the harder it is to hold it together as a unified whole. And at Apple, that unity is now fracturing—disastrously.
Distracting, meaningless frills have even crept into the venerable macOS. Menu items cluttered with gratuitous icons have left many of us laughing bitterly. But one does not need to be a GUI designer to feel a sense of shock at what is unfolding. It seems as though the professional, cross-disciplinary guardians of order have been sidelined—or worse, sabotaged.
The inconsistency is glaring. Compare the Apple Music app icon with that of Apple Music Classical, and you’ll see it instantly. These uneven levels of execution appear two or three times on every single screen—a phenomenon unthinkable in Apple’s past.
Of course, there will always be contrarians who find the new chaos “livelier.” Yet in serious design, the rule has long been clear: use as few attractors as possible. Advertising thrives on noise; design thrives on restraint. Apple’s former strength lay in its calm, professional aesthetic. Even younger audiences quickly learn to appreciate the power of an unflustered, distraction-free environment. The outside world is noisy enough—Apple should not mirror that jittery zeitgeist with a sloppy, inconsistent GUI.
It was better before.
And in decades of using Apple products, I never imagined I would have to say that—so fundamentally.
Thank you sir, for clarification. I just never thought, I will not update to the new iOS …
Haven't run into anything like that so can't comment.
The "Printer Features" in macOS is now one layer LESS, but the dialog that appears is now one internal non-categories non-grouped eternal list of options... like having no space between paragraphs of text, it is a NIGHTMARE to read through really struggling each time to turn on stapling (which is now TWO clicks - selecting where you want a staple (not at all, top left, etc) but you also now need to tick that you want stapling at all... better yet whichever one you select first you have to click a warning prompt that you also have to select the other... I can only presume they WANT to piss you off).
I’ll wait at least a month or two before I upgrade and if I’m being honest, I’m a little more worried than I was the last few times about upgrading given the drastic change.
I hope Apple offers the customization/toggle options for people who want to tone it down. It’s possible I’ll be okay with it, but just in case I’m not…
There's a few little bugs I'm finding, but overall I love it. Feels fresh and modern, whilst at the same time puts me back to the days of OS X Tiger, when interfaces were playful and fun. I've not noticed any sluggishness on my 13 mini, and in fact swipe typing feels much faster now than it did before.
Not sure if this should count as positive comment...
This post is worth quoting - professional, objective view that addresses my objections against LiquidGlass as wrong design language in its core. Every next beta or update will be just making it less LiquidGlassy to improve usability or more LiquidGlassy to stay consistent with wrong initial decisions. Always compromise. Terrible. And all because Tim Cook decided to launch Apple Vision (where such design more less fits) which hardly anybody wants and which will be canceled as soon as Tim Cook is replaced in CEO position.
This! With the reduced transparency options it's all quite readable but there are some new issues like the not so nice looking dark grey control center or the address bar in Safari. A frosted glass slider would be a great solution.
Choppy animations, ugly icons, unneccessary visual effects. It's trash.
I'm usually a sucker for new things but it didn't last an hour on my phone.
iOS 7 was polarizing, but at least when Jony Ive was involved you could assume there was some logic behind the design choices. What have Apple’s current software designers done to earn that kind of trust?
I'm usually a sucker for new things but it didn't last an hour on my phone.
iOS 7 was polarizing, but at least when Jony Ive was involved you could assume there was some logic behind the design choices. What have Apple’s current software designers done to earn that kind of trust?
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I noticed more stable battery life after the indexing was done. My 15's battery is usually **** but it's holding up surprisingly well.
A well-designed OS should get out of your way as much as possible. You shouldn't look at the OS, you should look through the OS at whatever you're actually doing. You work through the OS, you don't work on the OS, just as you look through your eyes, you don't spend a lot of time looking at your eyes.
"Fun, boring, depressing", etc, shouldn't really be talking points. All that matters is whether, with iOS 26, the OS gets out of your way and so makes it faster, easier and more efficient to do the things you actually want to do (good), or it does the opposite (bad).
I think guitars look pretty. But, really, it doesn't matter if a guitar looks pretty, what matters is that the guitar plays well. Because it's a tool to make music with, that's its primary purpose.
Phones are tools. It's nice that they can be pretty, but looking pretty shouldn't be their primary function.
"Fun, boring, depressing", etc, shouldn't really be talking points. All that matters is whether, with iOS 26, the OS gets out of your way and so makes it faster, easier and more efficient to do the things you actually want to do (good), or it does the opposite (bad).
I think guitars look pretty. But, really, it doesn't matter if a guitar looks pretty, what matters is that the guitar plays well. Because it's a tool to make music with, that's its primary purpose.
Phones are tools. It's nice that they can be pretty, but looking pretty shouldn't be their primary function.
Did people complained this much when OS X v10.0 was released? That was the first major redesign for the OS from Mac OS 9. I thought it looked so beautiful, even better is that the iMac matched the OS look. Apple can come up with great design, but this time they didn't.
What OS X v10.0 looked like:
This has been the case forever. Watch can be running an older os than the phone it is paired with (obviously by release year rather than version until the version numbering unification of 26) but not newer.
Completely transparent icon folders would look so much better than the Glass icon folders on the Home Screen. The glass folders only look decent with a very limited amount of colors or wallpaper.
This is what happens with DEI....hire the people MOST qualified not by how they look.....I have a feeling Apple went off the deep end with this.
I’ll sit this one out for a while to see where the chips land. Hopefully the OS’s rattle onto the tracks a bit better after a few more patches. I’m a little caught off guard by some of the design decisions coming from Apple on this one.