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turbineseaplane

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Mar 19, 2008
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Louie Mantia has posted a superb critique on the Liquid Glass situation.

Link: https://lmnt.me/blog/ive-got-better-things-to-do-than-this-and-yet.html

Some highlights (or lowlights I suppose)

Titlebars which were merged into toolbars years ago are now imperceptible.
Who knows where it’s safe to drag a window around now?

Almost every icon has an unfortunate concession to fit into this Liquid Glass model.

But what I can’t help but notice for 12 years now is that without visual effects serving to differentiate one control from another, we’ve lost immediate recognition of different UI elements. Title bars merged with toolbars. Toolbars merged with tab bars. Is this icon an action or a tab? Will it open a menu or switch the view? It’s anybody’s guess.

...makes me think someone doesn’t understand there is a difference between these kinds of UI elements.

Some edges are awfully sharp. Apple is hitting HDR levels with their brightness, but the clipping or masking in some apps for these buttons seems a little crunchy.

Every time I see an issue, I ask, “What problem is this solving?” And every time, there is no answer. There is seemingly no benefit to any of this.

I’m watching a video. I don’t need a big honkin’ pause button in the middle of the window, you know?

But wait a minute, why is there a big honkin’ pause button in the middle of the window anyway? That’s not how it used to be.

Going back to when UI was more visually separated from something like your photos, that puts the focus on the photos, because it differentiates the content area from the UI. Whereas now, it conflates the two.

...an over-the-top circular glass pause button that sits on top of a playing video.

At the point when you have to blur the content area to make the UI stand out from it, how can you possibly argue that it gets out of the way? It makes no sense.


It’s not just bad taste. It’s bad judgement. It’s bad design.
 
ah, a critique. am sure apple will read that, realize that the time & effort they've put into liquid glass was wrong, and change everything. after all, history shows us that this is always the way (ppl complain online, and apple changes everything to accomodate everyone).

i don't care much about the finder icon. i have work (& play) to do. and i have adapted to the look of tahoe (& ready for whatever fine-tuning is to come before official release).

i do care a lot about aesthetics, am not afraid of change, and mostly... want to use my mac, not complain about it.

but nothing like a lively discussion ☺️
 
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I just read his blog post. I'm disappointed he didn't use screen grabs to illustrate his comments. But I'm also not going to get upset over a product in beta. I'm sure the details will get ironed out. Even if not by the public release of Tahoe, by the next version of macOS.
 
It baffles me, that people seemingly STILL don't understand it's in early beta and things can and will change.
Especially for visuals, I would wait for a (near) final build to give judgement.
In the past I would 100% agree. But the current Apple culture is to convince people they are right, not to do what's right. I can picture the higher ups in the UX department scoffing at the comments, complaining that people are 'looking at it wrong' and not doing a thing between now and September when the general public gets hold of it.

I hope I'm wrong. I really do. But the inherent problems that Liquid Glass brings to their devices is not siloed to one product; it could poison their whole product line. Maybe they'll walk it back with 26.1. Or maybe it will take people seeing how similar a Samsung dervice is to the way their iPhone used to look that will make them pay attention.

I'm being hyperbolic. Surely Apple still listen to criticism? Current evidence bets against them.
 
Apparently a few of you have no idea who Louie is.
??????? He's a graphic designer ( focusing a lot on icons) and a blogger. Finding out who he is doesn't really help your argument, as he's pretty much a "Apple should pay me money to do their icons, so of course I'm going to criticise Apple's icon work because I'm advertising my own skills". Not a very smart comment to post.
 
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When it comes to design, critique is always appreciated. Tho I would have liked for Louie to give more details on some aspects such as “HDRification” of everything inside the iOS, this is especially interesting since people might be experiencing more eye strain and headache due to emulated 10 bit color spaces in UI elements (microflicker basically).

I watched his website and portfolio and he definitely knows what he is talking about, as well as he got some real taste in icon design - flat but beautiful, skeuomorphic but modern. Quite interesting choices.

When Liquid Glass was out I first was happy but then I realized that they didn’t change much: a bit of icon refresh plus more transparency. Honestly they should have put more effort in something they call “most radical redesign since 2013”. To me it looks like a slightly upgraded flat design than neuomorphic aqua-aero stuff. I know they are used to drip feed users with features and plan to implement the rest in the coming years, I think they should put more effort in refining this design so it turns out better in September than it is now.

One big plus for me in this system is that they have made some improvements to horrible Photos app that they have destroyed in iOS 18, the reason I am still on 17.

Still, I don’t quite understand why for so many macOS versions we have such a horrible, unusable settings menu. Are there people who actually like it or prefer to stuff from >Monterey era?
1751624979433.jpeg
 
Love it or hate it (I'm reserving judgment until I download the official product), we're looking at the evolution of the next Apple aesthetic. And no amount of blogging or commenting will get Cupertino to change their vision.
If a user doesn't like it though they are then faced with the realisation of leaving their systems on current OSes (and not getting security patches) or leaving the Apple ecosystem. Unlike previous years where it might have been contained to just the iPhone but not the Mac, it has infiltrated everything. If public reaction turns to negativity (still a maybe at this point) its a big PR issue for Apple when the walled garden becomes a prison.

Its easy to say 'get on board or get off the train' but if you're workflow or livelihood depends on a piece of Apple esclusive software but you're struggling to even make out whats on the screen it is a big deal. Doubly so if your employer automatically installs all the computers and you have no control over it.
 
When it comes to design, critique is always appreciated. Tho I would have liked for Louie to give more details on some aspects such as “HDRification” of everything inside the iOS, this is especially interesting since people might be experiencing more eye strain and headache due to emulated 10 bit color spaces in UI elements (microflicker basically).

I watched his website and portfolio and he definitely knows what he is talking about, as well as he got some real taste in icon design - flat but beautiful, skeuomorphic but modern. Quite interesting choices.

When Liquid Glass was out I first was happy but then I realized that they didn’t change much: a bit of icon refresh plus more transparency. Honestly they should have put more effort in something they call “most radical redesign since 2013”. To me it looks like a slightly upgraded flat design than neuomorphic aqua-aero stuff. I know they are used to drip feed users with features and plan to implement the rest in the coming years, I think they should put more effort in refining this design so it turns out better in September than it is now.

One big plus for me in this system is that they have made some improvements to horrible Photos app that they have destroyed in iOS 18, the reason I am still on 17.

Still, I don’t quite understand why for so many macOS versions we have such a horrible, unusable settings menu. Are there people who actually like it or prefer to stuff from >Monterey era?
View attachment 2525819
I still think MacOS has looked terrible since Lion!
 
In the past I would 100% agree. But the current Apple culture is to convince people they are right, not to do what's right. I can picture the higher ups in the UX department scoffing at the comments, complaining that people are 'looking at it wrong' and not doing a thing between now and September when the general public gets hold of it.

I hope I'm wrong. I really do. But the inherent problems that Liquid Glass brings to their devices is not siloed to one product; it could poison their whole product line. Maybe they'll walk it back with 26.1. Or maybe it will take people seeing how similar a Samsung dervice is to the way their iPhone used to look that will make them pay attention.

I'm being hyperbolic. Surely Apple still listen to criticism? Current evidence bets against them.
There is a great feedback app for people to comment on ios26. It allows for really drilling into specific features.

If enough devs give feedback I am sure departments will notice the volume for their individual projects.
 
I have always assumed I could turn all the transparent **** off. Is this not the case? I need a new computer, please don’t tell me I have to avoid M5 to not get the glass crap. I have waited so long to upgrade my hardware.
 
With UI in general, you go transparent because of either case:

1) You want to not steal focus off the content. But transparency is not the answer. The problem is probably you’re trying to show so many options at once and that is why content gets obscured. Minimize options shown at the lowest level instead.

2) You do not understand the options and therefore you don’t understand how they are useful to users. In this case they just become ugly to you. So you’ll want to hide them since you are not allowed to remove them. Hey let’s make them transparent!

Both these cases bear witness of people in charge who have no idea what they’re doing.
 
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