Liquid Glass - A must read critique

[Happy_John]

Spoken in Soy Face: "Apple, just take my money!"

What money? The updated are free. If you mean that people will no longer buy Apple devices because of unhappiness with the OS, that’s not going to happen. The vast majority of iPhone buyers do not follow feedback about betas, and they don’t spend time on forums obsessing about it. In that sense we are an insignifikant minority to Apple’s bottom line. Secondat, that insignificant minority will NOT stop buying Apple devices. If we did, there would be nothing to rant or cheer about.

Irrespective of what’s being said here and on other forums / comment sections, the only important feedback on the Os will be sales figures on iPhones after it, and this year’s batch of iPhones, are released. Money talks.

For Apple fanboys and Apple haters alike, Apple is McDonalds; no matter if they claim to love or hate the products, they still are customers. And 95%+ of the cusomters are not really going to care enough about OS versions for that to effect their purchasing decision.

But none of this talk will matter, what will matter is how many phones Apple sells. And Liquid Glass, irrespective about how a person feels about it, proably won’t have much of an effekt on that. Cost of the phone, battery life, and camera quality are far more important factors whether people buy or not. And Apple’s really only going to care about purchases,

 

[CasualFanboy]

People who are inexperienced with computers and smartphones are confused by flat design and would benefit from the visual cues offered by skeuomorphic design.

It's not even purely a question of usability or discoverability. It's also aesthetic. The drastic oversimplification is its own goal, and it looks cheap and amateurish.

 

[CasualFanboy]

What money? The updated are free. If you mean that people will no longer buy Apple devices because of unhappiness with the OS, that’s not going to happen. The vast majority of iPhone buyers do not follow feedback about betas, and they don’t spend time on forums obsessing about it. In that sense we are an insignifikant minority to Apple’s bottom line. Secondat, that insignificant minority will NOT stop buying Apple devices. If we did, there would be nothing to rant or cheer about.

Irrespective of what’s being said here and on other forums / comment sections, the only important feedback on the Os will be sales figures on iPhones after it, and this year’s batch of iPhones, are released. Money talks.

For Apple fanboys and Apple haters alike, Apple is McDonalds; no matter if they claim to love or hate the products, they still are customers. And 95%+ of the cusomters are not really going to care enough about OS versions for that to effect their purchasing decision.

But none of this talk will matter, what will matter is how many phones Apple sells. And Liquid Glass, irrespective about how a person feels about it, proably won’t have much of an effekt on that. Cost of the phone, battery life, and camera quality are far more important factors whether people buy or not. And Apple’s really only going to care about purchases,

I use a Macbook Pro. I don't use, care about, or think about iPhones.

 

[shijan]

I posted this in other thread, but i guess it should be posted here as well. Just few examples why Big Sur+ and Tahoe UI are not practical and not user friendly. From Tiger to Catalina Apple changed icons and backgrounds from version to version, but that classic structure remained the same. Even so, it was easy to change icons and customize the system.
But started from Big Sur they completely damaged the structure. And it will not look nice anymore even change icons and backgrounds.

 

[CasualFanboy]

I find it funny that:

• People are chanting "everyone else is scared of change," when there are real, legitimate rules of UX and UI design (including around hierarchy and contrast) that the current Tahoe betas are letting down, if not outright breaking. You can only really say this if you think UX/UI is some kind of magic, rather than a discipline with rules.
• Apple is double-downing on spreading the interface for a VR headset that most people don't care about to all its other, more successful products.

The second issue seems most damning to me, from a big-picture perspective.

I learned a long time ago that when people accuse me of being "scared" of things I don't like, they are not to be taken seriously.

And on the second point, I wonder.... does Apple think the bad desktop interface is going to entice people to want VR? Because that has always been and remains near the bottom of my priority list.

 

[Parowdy]

I think Apple will have Tahoe sailing pretty smooth and looking good by then. I have some confidence in them. Let's hope they get it to your liking better by then too!

To be fair, I have zero knowledge about Tahoe and as much hands on time. I already juggle with responsibilities running a dev. ETA and my main iPhone, but my Mac? Nope. I have plenary experience resetting iPhones but I don’t want to restore a Time Machine backup for some reason.
Anyway, I too hope that macOS will be done deal in September although my confidence is Anyway, I too hope that macOS will be done deal in September although my confidence is waning.
I hope the macOS teams are working together better than the iOS engineering teams.

 

[Parowdy]

There's going to be a lot of Fallout from this New Vagueness.

Pun intended?

 

[fisherking]

I find it funny that:

• People are chanting "everyone else is scared of change," when there are real, legitimate rules of UX and UI design (including around hierarchy and contrast) that the current Tahoe betas are letting down, if not outright breaking. You can only really say this if you think UX/UI is some kind of magic, rather than a discipline with rules.
• Apple is double-downing on spreading the interface for a VR headset that most people don't care about to all its other, more successful products.

The second issue seems most damning to me, from a big-picture perspective.

'rules of UX and UI'; invented by.... people! and can be changed by... people!

there's time between now and tahoe's official release, and we'll (hopefully) see some improvements. and then we'll adapt, and all will be well 👍

i've adapted already, and it's great to work and not be stressed about rounded windows, app icons, etc.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

That is the elitist argument that many people used to justify flat design. It’s an ignorant argument that reeks of privilege.

speaking of elitist and privilege, how is it not elitist and privileged that Steve Jobs forced the design team to design the Lion calendar using the same leather inside of his multimillion dollar private jet?
it flat design is elitist and privileged, I don’t know what you would call that.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

hmm, how hard is this 🤔

"this is the Notes app, for taking notes" "this is Mail, for email". "the 'send' button sends your email".

regardless of whether a button is flat, or 3D, or abstract, once you know what that button does, it will always do that thing.

if we can learn geometry, how to cook, how to tie our shoelaces, we can learn anything...

completely agree, and I don’t even get the argument.
apples insane streak of realism (ie: the leather calendar, the contacts book that looks like a contact book, the green cloth in the Game Center) was literally only around on the Mac for two years.
going with this guy’s argument, the Mac was impossible to use before Lion, and practically useless after Yosemite.
despite the fact that that era of UI was only on the Mac for what… 27 months?
and that’s even assuming people upgraded to lion and mountain lion, the updates back then used to cost real money so most people probably jumped right from SL to Mavericks.
This entire argument is silly, the only reason the calendar was leather for a couple years was because Steve liked it, and it’s likely he would’ve moved on eventually as well. It’s not like there wasn’t a redesign every three or four years underneath his leadership.
also, guess who was in charge of macOS software engineering during the release of both lion and mountain lion? Oh yeah, Craig Federighi. *not* Scott Forstall, Scott was never, ever head of macOS, only ever iOS.
before that, he was the vice president of platform experiences, again not head of macOS.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

Developers are the one who are complaining, and two months isn't much time to fix all the stupid decisions made in a year or more. They showed it publicly, so it's normal that everyone and their cats and dogs are going to say something about it. All if they fix some things because people rightly complains, all the better.

I am a developer, and the first impression was "what's this crap".

apparently, Aqua got that exact same reaction 25 years ago.

Cabel Sasser (@cabel@panic.com)

One of my strongest early developer memories was being in the “UI Feedback Forum” at WWDC after they introduced Aqua. Think of a live Q&A, but developers giving notes to a team of Apple engineers. To these veteran Mac coders, the reaction to Aqua was universally negative. People were actively...

social.panic.com

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

'rules of UX and UI'; invented by.... people! and can be changed by... people!

there's time between now and tahoe's official release, and we'll (hopefully) see some improvements. and then we'll adapt, and all will be well 👍

i've adapted already, and it's great to work and not be stressed about rounded windows, app icons, etc.

Also, Scott and Steve stomped on Apple’s own human interface guidelines all the time.
Brushed metal being the most famous example, apple human Interface guidelines specifically said to only use it in applications that had a real life analog like a calculator…
and then they spent all of Panther and Tiger slathering brushed metal on every single application they could. Finder, Safari, QuickTime, iTunes, apps that shouldn’t have had it because it completely violated the HIG… but they did it anyway. And that was 2003-2007.

 

[ThomasJL]

It’s ironic how Tim Cook supporters who supported iOS 7’s flat design and criticized iOS 6’s skeuomorphism for having so-called “excessive” graphics, are now praising iOS 26’s glassmorphism.

 

[turbineseaplane]

It’s ironic how Tim Cook supporters who supported the flat design of iOS 7 and criticized iOS 6’s skeuomorphism for having so-called “excessive” graphics, are now praising iOS 26’s glassmorphism.

It's the usual "yay Apple!" to whatever Apple does.

 

[fisherking]

It's the usual "yay Apple!" to whatever Apple does.

speaking only for myself, am apple fan, not a fanboy. i like some things (a lot), others... not so much (for example. i've had the dock locked away with a terminal command since OS X 10.3.9)

but it's ok to like different things, as much as it's ok to not like some things. it's not a battle, it's just an internet forum, filled with people who don't all think the same. i think that's great fun

 

[flowrider]

All this negativity about a new OS feature😖 If you don't like it - don't use it. All it takes to get rid of it is a simple click and voila, no more liquid glass👏

Lou

 

[turbineseaplane]

All this negativity about a new OS feature😖 If you don't like it - don't use it. All it takes to get rid of it is a simple click and voila, no more liquid glass👏

Lou

?

I'm not sure you're understanding what's going on here Lou.

There will not be a "simple click" and "no more Liquid Glass!"
(I wish)

 

[maxoakland]

They’re doing a terrible job of that, installing iOS 26 dev beta on my iPhone 14 confirmed my decision to keep this phone for 5 years. iOS 26 is running well (rare dev beta glitches notwithstanding) for me. I particularly love the new Safari.

iPadOS 26 feels much slower on my iPad, even without multi window mode turned on

 

[maxoakland]

'rules of UX and UI'; invented by.... people! and can be changed by... people!

The rules of UX and UI weren't just made up, they were based on lots of in depth study of users actually using the software, which is obviously not the case with Liquid Glass. It doesn't even seem like the team that designed it has used Liquid Glass.

The point of following the UI rules is to make software usable, legible, and accessible even to people with some impairments. If you're gonna break the rules, you should have a good reason that's backed up by user testing.

Otherwise it's just change for the sake of change and it's bad design

 

[flowrider]

?

I'm not sure you're understanding what's going on here Lou.

There will not be a "simple click" and "no more Liquid Glass!"
(I wish)

Reduce Transparency doesn't do it for you - HUH🤔

Lou

 

[turbineseaplane]

Reduce Transparency doesn't do it for you - HUH🤔

Lou

It does not, no.
(Sadly)

That affordance, while nice to have, is quite often pretty ugly, and really a subpar experience that one should not have to endure simply to gain better legibility, clarity and contrast … all of which should be there in the main design to begin with.

 

[Macbookey]

Apple itself has no idea what the hell it’s doing anymore. By the time this is released it might as well be liquid condensation. The lack of good, consistent, and opinionated design is just not there across the board. What sucks even more is that years will be spent finding a balance with this new design ethos, while end user features in core apps are few and far between. Improvements to mail and calendar, nada. Stage Manager and Mac system settings improvements, maybe next year or so. As examples. Completely mismanaged in key areas that aren’t immediately related to financial results.

I don’t mind if they have a vision for something and execute well on it, but the way the recent betas have backtracked tells us everything we need to know. Don’t feed us uniformity across platforms when you have tab view differences in Safari between Mac and iPhone, and when you can hold charge on an iPhone to 80% but need 3rd party tools to do it on the Mac, which needs it more. They are so full of their own hubris they miss the obvious. “Design is not just how it looks, but how it works as well.” They need new “designers” and ones that don’t report to the one that got them in this mess with narrow vision.

 

[Apple Knowledge Navigator]

They are so full of their own hubris they miss the obvious. “Design is not just how it looks, but how it works as well.” They need new “designers” and ones that don’t report to the one that got them in this mess with narrow vision.

Well said.

I’m honestly baffled that this is the result of, allegedly, years of R&D, and that the fundamental issues with usability were not identified near the beginning.

What’s even more baffling is that people are willing to defend Apple on these decisions just because Liquid Glass is novel.

 

[fisherking]

The rules of UX and UI weren't just made up, they were based on lots of in depth study of users actually using the software, which is obviously not the case with Liquid Glass. It doesn't even seem like the team that designed it has used Liquid Glass.

The point of following the UI rules is to make software usable, legible, and accessible even to people with some impairments. If you're gonna break the rules, you should have a good reason that's backed up by user testing.

Otherwise it's just change for the sake of change and it's bad design

yes, decisions made based on observation.

do ppl think OSes are designed over the weekend, with no in-house testing, no discussion? anyway... progress happens when ppl are brave enough to make it happen. and if it seems like 'change for the sake of change' to you (and we've heard this on the macrumors forums with every new OS), then that's ok. but the world is a big place, and some of us like things moving forward, like change.

rules are made to be updated, amended. there's no finite rules on UX/UI.... hence all the changes we've seen to-date.

 

[Bungaree.Chubbins]

iPadOS 26 feels much slower on my iPad, even without multi window mode turned on

I have no opinion about iPadOS 26. My iPad is stuck on iPadOS 15 because it’s so old.