Is Liquid Glass optional or mandatory?

[fisherking]

😆

That’s a very poor way to defend something, almost apologetic. By this logic, every successive product or service delivered by a company is automatically an improvement just because it’s new?

So you’re essentially that: if I have difficulty navigating the new Tahoe user interface because of the design choices Apple made, then it’s okay because that’s a change that I don’t like?

am not seeing how a simple,factual statement is 'almost apologetic', but i see you like to argue, so... will move on.

change that some people like and others don't is just change; how hard is that idea to grasp? and how many people are having difficulty navigating tahoe? (raise your hands) 🙄

 

[Viscount_Carnacki]

All I want is a UI with square-cornered windows...

 

[benwiggy]

All I want is a UI with square-cornered windows...

I'd settle for pages of PDFs in Preview having square corners, rather than rounded ones. Will Apple be selling rounded sheets of paper?

 

[fisherking]

I'd settle for pages of PDFs in Preview having square corners, rather than rounded ones. Will Apple be selling rounded sheets of paper?

and when will web links work on printed paper? 🙄 why can't my mac perfectly copy the physical world? 🤷

 

[benwiggy]

and when will web links work on printed paper? 🙄 why can't my mac perfectly copy the physical world? 🤷

Even in the "virtual world", Preview doesn't show you the corners of PDFs; but it does for PNGs. Please defend the idiocy of that, if you want.

 

[Silverstring]

No, it’s not an opinion.

If a window covers an area of a document/image that you wish to view, it is not an opinion that this is poor design on Apple’s part.

I don’t wish to view the very end corners of a PDF. Your opinion is that this results in a “poor design”, mine is that it doesn’t.

You mention several times that you don’t need to explain yourself; but if you’re going to make childish comments, then one assumes you have a reason for disagreeing.

Arguing with anyone who thinks their opinions are facts is a waste of time, as they’ll simply declare that whatever opposing rationale you give them is invalid for “objective” (read: subjective) reasons.

Ultimately, we’re talking about pixels on a screen. The idea that people need to “defend” or justify a multibillion dollar corporation’s UI choices like we’re opposing litigants, Apple spokespeople, or choosing sides in a holy war is silly. “Answer for your UI preferences or else!”

Someone might like the new look and think it’s an improvement—they don’t need to answer any questions or “defend” their perspective any further to justify commenting. That goes double when one recognizes the futility of debating with minds that enter those exchanges already closed, having convinced themselves they have the incontrovertible “facts”.

 

[Moka Akashiya]

I don’t wish to view the very end corners of a PDF. Your opinion is that this results in a “poor design”, mine is that it doesn’t.

You cannot just ignore design standards, make page numbers in corners or other content there unaccessible and then pretend that this is not a fact of poor design. That's just a useless discussion if you call everything subjective as if there is no ui/ux guidelines and contrast ratio rules to make content accessible for millions of users. And I am pretty sure this ******** will be patched at some point since it will be considered objectively (by the majority of users) a bad thing. You can have your opinion that this is not bad design, sure, and don’t need to answer any questions about your opinion if you don't want to. I just think this looks like an empty opinion if you don't want to back it up.

 

[MacHiavelli]

make page numbers in corners or other content there unaccessible and then pretend that this is not a fact of poor design

Hello. I rarely use PDFs, but I have opened a few up in Tahoe and so far I have not seen anything that is inaccessible, because Preview has constrained the PDF pages inside the curvature of the corners. Are you seeing something different?

Don't really care about the inner corners; think the corners on the whole Preview window waste a little bit of space, although if I open to full screen nothing is wasted.

I guess also that if Apple doesn't change the design choice, users will still be able to view PDFs in other apps that display pages as they prefer. People don't have to use Preview.

Not fussed about this one way or another, but genuinely interested to see a PDF where content is lost. Think something like that would be useful to file with Apple as feedback.

🤝

Here’s a sample PDF in Preview. Headers and footers in the corners of the page all display. Same for other users?

 

[agregson]

I’m not fussed on the round edges either. It seems this would be an easy one to have as a user preference. Books app allows setting colours, fonts and things so clearly user preference is a thing that can be supported.

I wonder if Apple should focus on fixing things and ensuring things they have promised are available and work. Safari sync between devices especially for tabs and history has always been hit and miss for me. I have lost count of ho many times I have gone through support issues with Apple. At least once on every new major OS version which assured me this would be fixed. It never is. Yet Brave can get it perfectly even across OS and with no iCloud. Same for Firefox and even Edge. But not Safari and not Apple.

Then there is the whole AI promise. I am not keen on it and its best feature is it does at least have a switch to turn off - another example of accepting user preference and making allowance for it.

I wonder if Apple knew liquid glass and UI changes would be divisive and generate a lot of discussion even heated argument. A handy smoke bomb to hide the numerous things that don’t work properly or are not fully implemented. Maybe I am just getting too cynical.

 

[benwiggy]

Well, Apple have clearly taken some notice, and reduced the rounding significantly in the latest beta, though not entirely. (Bitmap images still display with square corners.)

Interestingly, my own app that uses PDFView still maintains right angles, and I can't see anything in PDFView.h describing the option, so third-party developers are at least spared this folly.

 

[Warped9]

Thanks for comments. I had hoped (probably naively given Apple’s desire to control and dictate the user experience) there would be an option to disable the effects and simply have an opaque and flat version.

It is not that I dislike adopting new features. I simply prefer a flat, more minimal look. Others may prefer the glass look. I just hoped there would be an option to allow selection of which elements to use and not use.

As has happened in the past with Apple OS releases some are superb and some not so (personally rather than universally). Liquid Glass will have to be one of those things I will have to learn to endure and not cringe every time I have to suffer looking at it. Sorry. I know some love it. I can also imagine more than a few will dislike it.

I did wonder if liquid glass was an Apple distraction. Knowing it will be polarising and generate a lot of debate it could be a very handy and welcome distraction from other OS changes and non-features such as AI.

I’m with you on this. Despite the hype it just looks overly gimmicky to me and, well, juvenile. Reminds me of customizable instrument displays in modern cars—nothing but a stupid gimmick and unnecessary complexity for the video game generation to play with.

Here's an example of Liquid Glass on macOS Tahoe. Legibility / usability issues? Not a thing.

My settings are default out of the box as an upgrade from Sequoia

View attachment 2534605

Yeah, I really don’t like that. Firstly I don’t care for dark mode, but whatever. But having the control panel translucent with the text behind made blurry looks bad and gimmicky. I agree with the OP—the flat and more minimal look works better. All the truly functional upgrades could have been done without this gimmicky look.

 

[throAU]

All the truly functional upgrades could have been done without this gimmicky look.

You could have said that about every individual UI tweak since the original Aqua.

But as a reminder, here's what that looked like:

This is just yet another evolution and you will get used to it. One benefit of the liquid glass UI is the way the buttons fade out mostly and allow you to see more content.

I've been using the new UI(s) for a few weeks now and the more I use the more I like. Going back to my older macOS installs feels like a step back.

 

[fisherking]

You could have said that about every individual UI tweak since the original Aqua.

But as a reminder, here's what that looked like:


View attachment 2535317



This is just yet another evolution and you will get used to it. One benefit of the liquid glass UI is the way the buttons fade out mostly and allow you to see more content.

I've been using the new UI(s) for a few weeks now and the more I use the more I like. Going back to my older macOS installs feels like a step back.

great post! ppl forget how, with each new change in the GUI, there is hysteria and disappointment; then we all adapt 🤣

 

[Warped9]

But you could turn the transparency way down if you wanted. And thats what I’ve always done.

It doesn’t matter what I prefer. We’re going to be stuck with it.

 

[tkermit]

Well, Apple have clearly taken some notice, and reduced the rounding significantly in the latest beta, though not entirely. (Bitmap images still display with square corners.)

yup, Quicklook seems to have been fixed, too. Used to look ridiculous:

Cabel Sasser (@cabel@panic.com)

Attached: 1 image Quick Look in Tahoe wants to preview your image in a very significant round rect — and so, when you preview a tiny little 32 × 32 square icon, it becomes round! 🫥

social.panic.com

 

[tomtattoo]

Because the new design language looks like s**t, my friend.

Left : current
Right : future

Horrible, the new one. It looks like a bug where the slim line around the widgets is broken.
Just pathetic.

 

[Tozovac]

It reminds me of the glorious days of Yosemite announcement when everyone said Apple had completely lost it in terms of interface design because the OS looked like a toy... Fast forward to 2025 and now people crave for the flat UI ☺️

I don’t think that’s an accurate statement. The first iteration of Yosemite was horrible. Fisher-Price My First OS. Too flat, too low contrast. Then Apple slowly backtracked a lot of those short-sighted changes to where we are today. Things are much less flat than the early, dark (my opinion of Yosemite at the time, not Yosemite's silly overly-bright pastel-like appearance), flat days of Yosemite.

I wonder if what he meant by “wanting more flat” relates to the nonsensical blurring out some text near an edge of another window or element on the screen, to (unnecessarily) show “depth.” If so, here I agree, wholeheartedly. My eyes seem to want to deblur any blurry text. I can’t help it and it’s an extreme distraction. Maybe similar to how some people were affected by parallax effect on the icons. It’s not a preference, it’s a real accessibility issue introduced by Apple and apparently “non-turn-offable.”

 

[izzy0242mr]

I did wonder if liquid glass was an Apple distraction. Knowing it will be polarising and generate a lot of debate it could be a very handy and welcome distraction from other OS changes and non-features such as AI.

I don't think it was an intentional distraction. It's Apple; they probably thought they created a genuinely good design and didn't test/socialize it enough before realizing they needed to tone it down due to basic accessibility issues.

But in real life, most people who aren't tech nerds don't really talk about the way a beta version of Apple's device OSes look. Like, that's just not a normal everyday conversation for 90% of people, in the same way that conversations about AI are.

I guarantee that the minor discussions niche online tech communities have had about Liquid Glass are not detracting from the general realization that Apple has little to no value-add offerings in the AI space. That's why they're facing not one but two lawsuits over their false AI promises.

Liquid Glass is not a "feature." It's a UI change. It doesn't add anything to the way people use their Macs, iPhones, or iPads.

 

[sleestak]

I finally made the leap and installed the latest public beta on my M4 Air. I was more than a little concerned about Liquid Glass after watching the WWDC intro and seeing screenshots, but decided I needed to see it for myself. I have to say, I actually kind of like it. It's not even remotely as offensive as I had *assumed* it would be.

To me, it feels like a bit of a return to the days of OSX 10.9 and earlier where the OS had a little 'character' and a 3D feel that we haven't had since the 'flatenning' back in 2013/2014. There are definitely some quirks and oddities still lingering, but I suspect they will be addressed over the next month or two. Overall, I actually like the direction Apple is heading with Liquid Glass. You really have to use it to make a judgment, it doesn't seem to show well in screenshots.