That unfortunately is all I am seeing in favor of it are subjective comments. Nothing like works faster or improves productivity. Something that can be measured.
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iOS 26's Liquid Glass Design Draws Criticism From Users
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As a minimalist iPhone user, the UI is crap, no doubt.
I've installed it because there are changes to health monitoring that I want, and the live in-person translation will be a killer app for my job. Those were the only reasons I had to upgrade but were functionally enough to make me do it.
I've been able to tweak things back to usable and minimal, but the UI looks horrible in grayscale (again, I'm a minimalist iPhone user). My other issues are that "Reduce Transparency" and "Reduce Motion" really should have a full-fledged off mode for each—the reductions make it even more distracting, sadly.
I've been an Apple user for over 30 years, so I understand the argument that we just have to wait and get used to it. However, I've also been an Apple user long enough to know that when they don't listen to their users, they tend to fall flat on their face. I submitted more tickets during the beta than I have in all the others combined, mostly because the glass effects are truly gimmicky—glass simply doesn't work the way the UI thinks it does. Sure, there's the "liquid" effect, but that's where the gimmick comes into play.
Had they adopted elements from visionOS, I would have understood that it was to fulfill a need for a more common design language across the platforms. But adopting the VR UX (that's cosplaying as an AR UX) onto non-VR or -AR devices is not understanding the platforms the operating systems are for. This is a classic example of form over substance.
Jobs said the real art was knowing what to leave out. Apple's missing that essential point here.
I've installed it because there are changes to health monitoring that I want, and the live in-person translation will be a killer app for my job. Those were the only reasons I had to upgrade but were functionally enough to make me do it.
I've been able to tweak things back to usable and minimal, but the UI looks horrible in grayscale (again, I'm a minimalist iPhone user). My other issues are that "Reduce Transparency" and "Reduce Motion" really should have a full-fledged off mode for each—the reductions make it even more distracting, sadly.
I've been an Apple user for over 30 years, so I understand the argument that we just have to wait and get used to it. However, I've also been an Apple user long enough to know that when they don't listen to their users, they tend to fall flat on their face. I submitted more tickets during the beta than I have in all the others combined, mostly because the glass effects are truly gimmicky—glass simply doesn't work the way the UI thinks it does. Sure, there's the "liquid" effect, but that's where the gimmick comes into play.
Had they adopted elements from visionOS, I would have understood that it was to fulfill a need for a more common design language across the platforms. But adopting the VR UX (that's cosplaying as an AR UX) onto non-VR or -AR devices is not understanding the platforms the operating systems are for. This is a classic example of form over substance.
Jobs said the real art was knowing what to leave out. Apple's missing that essential point here.
Reduce Transparency actually also decreases contrast, even when you have Increase Contrast turned on.
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I love it! However it looks like there are lots of bugs and inconsistencies that need to actually be addressed, unlike usual where bugs remains for years. Also, I think the clear icon look with color elements is actually better than than the default it give a better visualization of glass but it's something that only exists in renders. Apple should go all out with Liquid Glass and adopt that style as an option at least.
I’ve already had issues with third party apps being worse while still on 18. This design language is trending and causing issues where buttons that used to be anchored to the top or bottom of the screen or accessed in a drawer are now floating in the middle of the screen taking up space and cutting themselves off. Nevermind aesthetic preferences where some third party icons have a baked in glow around them, contrasting with all other flat icons.
I'm normally pretty forgiving of Apple and willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, but Liquid Glass is really half-baked, and honestly should not have been released in its current state. You could even tell during the beta process that Apple didn't entirely know what it was doing, with each beta having substantial changes to aspects of the design, and even flipping back and forth between changes.
My biggest frustration is an overall lack of contrast in windows and b/w interface elements. In addition, while some of the animations are certainly cool, they're too slow and make the entire interface feel slow (even though it isn't actually slow).
While I am confident Apple will get things figured out, it's worrisome that this happened at all. Even worse, this was an unforced error. I imagine many people are thinking back to the Apple Maps fiasco, but at least when that happened, Apple had a real reason to move away from Google Maps and needed to do something, even if what they did was obviously rushed. In this situation, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the existing interface. I understand Apple's desire to unify the design language b/w the various OS', and I also understand the want to spruce things up a bit, as the previous interface style had been around for quite a while; but again, Liquid Glass was not thought through all the way, and probably should not have been introduced for at least another year. There are enough new (and legitimately good!) features across all of the OS updates that they still would have been worthwhile upgrades even without Liquid Glass (and in many ways the updates would be even more worthwhile WITHOUT Liquid Glass).
My biggest frustration is an overall lack of contrast in windows and b/w interface elements. In addition, while some of the animations are certainly cool, they're too slow and make the entire interface feel slow (even though it isn't actually slow).
While I am confident Apple will get things figured out, it's worrisome that this happened at all. Even worse, this was an unforced error. I imagine many people are thinking back to the Apple Maps fiasco, but at least when that happened, Apple had a real reason to move away from Google Maps and needed to do something, even if what they did was obviously rushed. In this situation, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the existing interface. I understand Apple's desire to unify the design language b/w the various OS', and I also understand the want to spruce things up a bit, as the previous interface style had been around for quite a while; but again, Liquid Glass was not thought through all the way, and probably should not have been introduced for at least another year. There are enough new (and legitimately good!) features across all of the OS updates that they still would have been worthwhile upgrades even without Liquid Glass (and in many ways the updates would be even more worthwhile WITHOUT Liquid Glass).
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Loving the UI but it’s buggy as hell so far on my Mac Mini M4 and iPhone 13 Mini:
Some things:
On Mac, I double click any song other than track 1 and track 1 starts playing. I click the play symbol in the row of any other track than the first and track 1 starts playing. I have to click the skip buttons to get to any song other than track 1.
I shut down this morning after getting pissed off and haven’t check it again. Will check later maybe just needed a reboot.
For iPhone, when you flip horizontally when typing a text, that button to draw appears. If I flip back to vertical layout, I’m still somehow triggering the draw button even though it’s not visible at all.
The UI flickers and flashes between light and dark mode sometimes when going between apps. Kind of jarring as you can see it trying to figure out how hag mode it’s in and why it’s settling on. Very un-Apple to see something like that.
Auto-complete and suggestions seem to be worse somehow.
On Apple Watch, my pinned contacts in messages aren’t showing in the
Pinned contacts complication. Can’t get them to show or sync at all even after unpinning and repinning them.
Other than those few observations, things have been okay. I’m happy I updated but it’s evident this has been the buggiest rollout for me since I got my iPhone 6 Plus, what ever iOS that was, I forget.
Some things:
On Mac, I double click any song other than track 1 and track 1 starts playing. I click the play symbol in the row of any other track than the first and track 1 starts playing. I have to click the skip buttons to get to any song other than track 1.
I shut down this morning after getting pissed off and haven’t check it again. Will check later maybe just needed a reboot.
For iPhone, when you flip horizontally when typing a text, that button to draw appears. If I flip back to vertical layout, I’m still somehow triggering the draw button even though it’s not visible at all.
The UI flickers and flashes between light and dark mode sometimes when going between apps. Kind of jarring as you can see it trying to figure out how hag mode it’s in and why it’s settling on. Very un-Apple to see something like that.
Auto-complete and suggestions seem to be worse somehow.
On Apple Watch, my pinned contacts in messages aren’t showing in the
Pinned contacts complication. Can’t get them to show or sync at all even after unpinning and repinning them.
Other than those few observations, things have been okay. I’m happy I updated but it’s evident this has been the buggiest rollout for me since I got my iPhone 6 Plus, what ever iOS that was, I forget.
I would probably install iOS 26 if I didn’t hate macOS 26 so much. To be fair, I’ve only experienced macOS 26 in a VM, but I can’t stand how blurry so many app icons are, especially Photos, how big the buttons are, the stupid margins around sidebars, and the bulbous cursor.
But since macOS looks so awful, I’m really in no rush to update my other devices.
But since macOS looks so awful, I’m really in no rush to update my other devices.
The contrast/blur on things like messages - the "text on text" issue noted on the previous page, for example - is a little bit weird, I somehow find the Photos app even less intuitive than the iOS 18 version, but overall I generally like the direction they're going with all this. Close enough, welcome back Frutiger Aero, etc.
Cool. You like reflections in the UI. How do you feel about text on top of text and buttons that are more difficult to see or menus that are more deeply hidden and elements taking up more space in the UX?
Surely Liquid Glass will appeal to the young easily amused who delight in colorful animated on screen effects.
The faithful who endorse anything Apple believes is best for them, say "you'll get used to it".
For others it simply is what it is, like it or not.
The faithful who endorse anything Apple believes is best for them, say "you'll get used to it".
For others it simply is what it is, like it or not.
iOS is fine, iPadOS needs to get Split Screen reinstated. The real problem is MacOS 26, it is bad. I mean it is stable and it works fine, but the UI is too inconsistent ,there's actually almost no liquid glass at all and the glass "buttons" on Safari and the Finder simply look absolutely awful and don't look like glass at all.
Funny. I see it the other way round. I love it on macOS and iPadOS, but I actually reverted my iPhone to iOS 18, something I have never done before... Was much easier than I feared, but is only possible for the next few weeks, of course, as long as Apple still signs iOS 18.
Tappy, tappy, tappy. Tap, tap, tap. Says Happy Gilmore.🤣
Autocorrect is also a bit of a dumpster fire. I’m checking what I type. If you look up thread, there are what look like spelling and grammatical errors in people’s posts which are probably connected to this. One of our cars doesn’t have CarPlay so it’s just Bluetooth. Every once in a while when playing music it gets hung up and skips. You have to close the music app and reopen it to get it to work.
Oh well, i can't hear any more of this marketing BS babbling "Oh, the A19 is more efficient, so that the battery lasts longer" - bla, blub, bla, bla...
...and on the other side now Apple finally found a way to eat up all this "efficiency" in the OS by wasting a considerable amount of the energy stored in the battery for unnecessary, gimmicky and distracting bling-bling, that even goes in the way of normal interaction with the UI. At least a relatively eye-candy way to waste more cycles of the battery life to fulfill the demands of the shareholders for earlier purchase of a newer model for more and more money.
If they would really care about system efficiency - then how about an efficient OS instead of such a wasteful one?!
...and on the other side now Apple finally found a way to eat up all this "efficiency" in the OS by wasting a considerable amount of the energy stored in the battery for unnecessary, gimmicky and distracting bling-bling, that even goes in the way of normal interaction with the UI. At least a relatively eye-candy way to waste more cycles of the battery life to fulfill the demands of the shareholders for earlier purchase of a newer model for more and more money.
If they would really care about system efficiency - then how about an efficient OS instead of such a wasteful one?!
I genuinely like the redesign. I kinda expect there to be complaints with the first iteration of any redesign. It'll take a while for this to truly mature and users get used to. It happens all the time.
How can you love this? It looks absolutely awful, that button right beside the search bar doesn't even do anything when you click on it! And it might just be me but this doesn't look glassy at all.
Tahoe was a rush job and it shows. Hopefully this gets fixed before MacOS 27.
