Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
After one-and-a-half decades of Tim Cook's so called "leadership," which has been marked by cluelessness and mediocrity, iOS is in desperate need of a Snow Leopard-style update that has no new features and instead seeks to fix bugs (many of which are longstanding for years), get rid of numreous lines of code, get rid of other bloat, and optimize many other things.
 
Fix the dam keyboard, also we didn’t get much last year just Liquid Glass which isn’t much, we need major new features but all we get now is bug fixes. So your telling me the 3 months of beta testing the final in September will be perfect and won’t need any point updates as there won’t be any bugs lol cause there’s always bugs. Just give us exciting new features and ways to use the phone
 
What don't you like exactly about Liquid Glass? I understand it's not really useful, but I barely notice it.
So you're saying you don't use your devices? Otherwise, you would have noticed how illogical and unusable the design is.

Here are a few examples:
Previously, the search function was discreetly accessible by pulling down the respective menu. Today, the search function is a separate layer.

The second point is that it always looks different.
In Settings, it's a layer with a text field; in Health, it's a magnifying glass button with an additional function at the bottom right; in Reminders, it's a magnifying glass button without an additional function at the top right.
In the calendar, the search function is also a magnifying glass in the top right corner. However, it is not in the first position from the left, but in the middle.
As you can see, Liquid Design lacks consistency and logic.

Thirdly, functions are unnecessarily hidden.
In Health, categories can no longer be found by an individual buttons, but with a tap on the magnifying glass.
In Photos, the collections still have an individual button. The “Shared Albums” do not, however. Meanwhile, in Health, “Share Health” has its own button.
The App Store also still has the Arcade button, even though it is now a separate app.
In Music, there is still the “old menu bar” consisting of four buttons. But only with a click on “Home”.

Should I continue?
Regardless of its appearance, Liquid Glass is an absolute disaster in terms of user guidance. There is no consistency whatsoever, no similarities anymore. Every app now works and is operated differently.
 
Last edited:
Not surprised. With iOS 26 bringing a lot of changes, this year will be all about fine tuning it along with improvements to Siri and Apple Intelligence.
 
  • Like
Reactions: mganu
Guys, do not be delusional. LiquidAss requires a lot of resources to work and optimisation already done. Sure, they can do small tweaks but mostly it is done. This iOS design is a new vision for decade.

The release of a conceptual new design is indirectly a deliberate step towards artificial obsolescence of devices. This strategy that Apple has been using regularly for decades.

“Simple consumer manipulations”
 
  • Love
Reactions: bigandtasty
You'd swear most of the Apple staff are using Android devices. Or they are so used to development builds that are full of bugs that don't even realize the day to day issues that people need to put up with.
Lol, Android 16 on my Pixel 10 pro xl is far better than iOS 26 on my iPhone 16 Plus.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: iPAU
I don’t want much. I’m a simple man. How about start with having my notifications sync between all of my Apple devices? My Watch says I have 32 unread messages, my Mac says 6 unread and my phone has 0 unread messages.
I've wanted this since like the early days of ipad. It's so egregious than in 2026 icloud mail read status is not synced. I open my ipad and I'm bombarded with notifications of stuff I already dealt with on my iphone. Every year this is like my #1 hope. Each year I'm let down. At this point I've given up.
 
Mimicking stock apps of course is the easiest way to make your app feel intuitive. It’s quite tricky to achieve.

If only the stock apps would all follow the same rules.
And that, in my opinion, is the biggest problem with Liquid Glass (on every platform). There are no longer any common design rules.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ForkHandles
a deeply integrated chatbot in iOS would have such a big impact that they could get by with very few new features. Claude does a decent job at being useful across macOS, but it can only integrate so far, especially on iOS. Apple could integrate so deeply into the system that some very exciting things are possible.

My hope is that Apple doesn’t wiff at the last moment and make it look super powerful without actually giving it deep and broad capabilities.
My guess is we’ll have regulations that state AI has to be a completely separate entity to an OS, not an integral part of.
 
What don't you like exactly about Liquid Glass? I understand it's not really useful, but I barely notice it.
1) subjectively it’s ugly and I can’t choose to have it or not. Choice is key. 2) It’s distracting 3) it’s not user friendly on a small screen (sure, a 360 degrees 300" screen on your face it’s fine) 4) Even Apple can’t implement this big a change without months of bugginess, so it shouldn’t be forced upon my parents et al 5) it’s too candy/"sweet", makes it feel like a toy 6) I can’t choose to have it or not. It’s like forcing everyone to have the same background (no menu systems isn’t the same, that’s a universal usability feature, not an aesthetic choice.m
 
Knew we were getting a Snow Leopard-style release next.
The fact that iOS 12 and OSX Snow Leopard are famous for their performance and stability gains just goes to show bad Apple has gotten for quantity over quality of features.

Deliver Siri 2.0 and then do both else but opmization and bug fixes.
 
The keyboard is since release buggy. If I change from English to German it won't take over letters like ü,ä,ö and include many more which the German language doesn't use. They even don't get the basics right.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.