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iOS 26's Liquid Glass Design Draws Criticism From Users

turbineseaplane said:
I really wish it was this simple.
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Especially funny when you consider that we can’t downgrade. Tough to show Apple people “care” if you can’t go back.

I’d love to see those numbers if you allow downgrading and make it as visible as possible with a very clear support article on how to do it.

Maybe iOS adoption rates wouldn’t always be as high. In fact, iOS 26 has been rather divisive, even amongst those who updated initially, as they now cannot downgrade. Apple (yet again) only gave a week. If you weren’t paying attention, the downgrade window was easy to miss.
 
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turbineseaplane said:
People have no choice. That's not "liking what they see" -- lmao
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lol you know the mindset of hundreds of millions of apple customers? Please do share with us.
turbineseaplane said:
This user gets it 👇
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There’s a parable of the two old ladies in a restaurant. One says the “foods awful” and the other says “and such small portions”.

That’s Macrumors.
 
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FeliApple said:
Very funny. So I should know the opinion of every iOS user because speaking?

iOS updates are irreversible garbage. It’s high time you accepted that instead of making up even more preposterous arguments in their defense.
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Perfect example of the echo chamber effect I was referring to. It’s okay if that’s your opinion but your opinion is wrong.
 
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IMG_0279.jpeg


What time is it? Who knows!
 
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Haven't been here in ages but I felt the need to come say how obnoxious this update has been. Not only is full of bugs and instability, but it looks the worst iOS has looked in many, many years.

It's like all of my borders and framing are missing pixels and entire finishing lines, all while the already bad battery of my phone is now worse (I'm still on 12 Pro). It's so bad that I updated without checking what has changed first. I never expected this level of failure by Apple designers.

Holy moly, please, please bring back the old OS, this is just abhorrent and so unfair. Why no rollback option?
My phone so much worse now for no reason... other than me not realizing this update was a serious downgrade.
 
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I, for one, really like the Liquid Glass UI, and I’m glad they made the change. I went in a little apprehensive when we hadn’t seen what they were going to announce, and just had rumors to go off of, but after seeing the reveal at WWDC25, and getting to test it over the summer, I’m really happy with it. The new app icons are awesome, adds the depth effect I’ve been wanting from them since macOS Big Sur rolled out. And I love the overall UI design and aesthetic.

And I think the vast majority of users like it as well. I think there’s just a vocal minority that doesn’t like change. 🤷🏼‍♂️
 
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I like the idea of liquid glass. It just need more depth. It all looks like thin semi-transparent sheets of mylar or something. It'd be cool to add some depth so it looks like things have some mass. More holographic; things rolling off to the sides, or bouncing a bit and dropping into "bottom" of the interface.

But on my Mac, I do not like it at all. It's like using a giant 3-screen iPhone. Ugh.
 
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Mike_Trivisonno said:
I like the idea of liquid glass. It just need more depth. It all looks like thin semi-transparent sheets of mylar or something. It'd be cool to add some depth so it looks like things have some mass. More holographic; things rolling off to the sides, or bouncing a bit and dropping into "bottom" of the interface.

But on my Mac, I do not like it at all. It's like using a giant 3-screen iPhone. Ugh.
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I really think they rushed LG, was probably supposed to debut with all-glass iPhone 20. I was looking at the new first-party app icons lately and I am seeing inconsistencies in philosophy/execution, as if some are from a different design iteration/batch.

I'm not seeing this mentioned enough but LG was clearly designed for scrolling; the refraction effect only serves its visual function of edge separation during scrolling (of media) since the refracted pixels move differently than the scrolled media. UI icons are then the only non-moving thing on the screen, so they become (albeit poor) visual anchors. This is a big paradigm change (designed for media scrolling, which everything has devolved to), hence the cognitive clash. If the icons had strong shadows (anything to boost their edge contrast), most of the readability issues would go away, but then you wouldn't need a backing (glass or flat) at all. It's still deeply flawed since the refraction draws attention to itself during scrolling only to be a constant reminder of where an edge is; since that provides no value in of itself, people will learn to ignore it (so what was the point?). Same thing happened to scrollbars but they at least tell you something useful from time to time.
 
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Kal Madda said:
I, for one, really like the Liquid Glass UI, and I’m glad they made the change. I went in a little apprehensive when we hadn’t seen what they were going to announce, and just had rumors to go off of, but after seeing the reveal at WWDC25, and getting to test it over the summer, I’m really happy with it. The new app icons are awesome, adds the depth effect I’ve been wanting from them since macOS Big Sur rolled out. And I love the overall UI design and aesthetic.

And I think the vast majority of users like it as well. I think there’s just a vocal minority that doesn’t like change. 🤷🏼‍♂️
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It’s much easier to post a rant against something than to simply say I like it and move on. Acceptance is uni-dimensional while criticism is multi-dimensional.
 
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Kal Madda said:
I, for one, really like the Liquid Glass UI, and I’m glad they made the change. I went in a little apprehensive when we hadn’t seen what they were going to announce, and just had rumors to go off of, but after seeing the reveal at WWDC25, and getting to test it over the summer, I’m really happy with it. The new app icons are awesome, adds the depth effect I’ve been wanting from them since macOS Big Sur rolled out. And I love the overall UI design and aesthetic.

And I think the vast majority of users like it as well. I think there’s just a vocal minority that doesn’t like change. 🤷🏼‍♂️
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Great to hear you like it!

Always smart to stop short of assuming what the "vast majority of users" think.

It's almost impossible to say much about that, as the user base is so huge and diverse now.
 
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turbineseaplane said:
Great to hear you like it!

Always smart to stop short of assuming what the "vast majority of users" think.

It's almost impossible to say much about that, as the user base is so huge and diverse now.
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Reasonable people can make reasonable inferences about the “vast majority”.

For example one inference I can make is that millions and millions buy iPhones because of a positive experience and not because Apple is the best of the worst. To me that’s a reasonable inference.

I also believe out of the billions of iPhone users the vast majority like it as well. It would be all over the news and not just MR threads if a billion people did not like liquid glass.
 
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turbineseaplane said:
Great to hear you like it!

Always smart to stop short of assuming what the "vast majority of users" think.

It's almost impossible to say much about that, as the user base is so huge and diverse now.
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So, I agree, on many issues I would not assume what the vast majority of users think, and I think your advice is generally sound. 👍🏻

But I also do think it’s reasonable to conclude that if most users disliked Liquid Glass, Apple would be reacting differently, and not doubling down on it. 🤷🏼‍♂️. And I did say that that was just my opinion. I could be wrong, but to me, the evidence seems to point in that direction. 👍🏻
 
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The feedback I'm getting from my circle of friends (an admittedly small sample size...), who aren't Apple geeks like we are, is they think LG looks nice. However almost all of them have issues with often used features being changed or moved for no reason, a specific example being the phone app. Almost all of them have either changed back to the "classic" design, or asked me how to. Hiding often used features like voicemail, or, in the case of Launchpad on the Mac, getting rid of them entirely with no equivalent replacement, just causes unnecessary hassles for people who just want to get stuff done. They shouldn't have to research and relearn how to do basic tasks they've been doing just fine for 20 years.
 
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