Liquid Glass UI: Early Thoughts Across iOS, iPadOS, and macOS

[nortonandreev]

Not sure this is the right category, since this touches all OSes and not just iOS — feel free to move it if needed.

I wanted to share some early impressions of the new Liquid Glass UI Apple introduced yesterday. I installed the betas across devices and… I’m quite conflicted.

Quick background: As a product front-end developer, I'm really into design, user experience, and human-machine interfaces, so I’m usually excited to explore new concepts and changes. But as it stands now, I’m not convinced this is the best direction.

Of course, it’s early days, and the current implementation is still very glitchy, which definitely affects the overall experience. I’ll revisit my opinion closer to the official release this Fall. But for now, here are my first thoughts across platforms:
iPhone (iOS):
With some refinements, the new design could work here. I do like that many controls have been moved to the bottom of the screen — that’s a solid UX choice. However, contrast and legibility are currently a big problem. This is an issue that carries over to other OSes too.
iPad (iPadOS):
I haven’t spent a ton of time on the iPad yet, but from what I’ve seen, apps like Mail and Music feel overcomplicated. With the new Menu Bar and more layered navigation patterns, the UI is starting to feel unnecessarily complex. And since iPadOS still doesn’t run full desktop apps, I’m unsure how useful the Menu Bar really is. Over the years, Apple seems to have added more and more interaction models without phasing out older ones — the result is starting to feel chaotic.
Mac (macOS):
This is probably where I’m most disappointed. As someone who relies on macOS for pro work, I do want it to look modern — but the current implementation of Liquid Glass feels oddly dated and overly flashy. For example, Safari dynamically changes its appearance based on the site you're visiting, complete with animations — I find that more distracting than helpful. There are also various glitches like overlapping UI elements and random dividers, which really shouldn’t be there.

To be fair, major redesigns often take time to settle. The iOS 7 refresh needed a couple of years to feel polished. On the flip side, Big Sur introduced a new look that remained mostly untouched — and some questionable decisions made then were never addressed. This new redesign does fix some old issues, but it also introduces quite a few new ones — and many are worse.

Curious to hear your thoughts — what do you think about Liquid Glass?

 

[one more]

Well, as a power-user and an Apple fan since 2002 I am not impressed. iOS 7 looked quite sleek and fresh (to me) when it was introduced, iOS 26, in its current state, looks half-baked.
I am not a graphic artist, but even to my regular user eye the glassy areas and elements look like they have a transparency and depth imbalance.

Just a few examples when using Apple’s own Weather background:

1) The search bar just above the dock is barely visible/readable once the weather background goes dark in the evening;

2) The Control Center is way too glassy-transparent, to the point that it is quite difficult to use;

3) Not quite the Liquid Glass issue, but the new rounded corners of the keyboard also feel somewhat off. I understand Apple’s idea behind it, nesting a bunch of roundish “bubbles” on top of each other, but something does not look right there, compared to iOS 18 and before.

4) Control element sizing inconsistency - if we look at the new control buttons, say in Notes, they have been made huge, compared to the text, and lost some useful ones. For example, we now only have a large Undo button there, vs Undo and Redo as before. Why is that? This is bad ergonomics and will require extra clicks to get the same thing done.

On a plus side, I quite like what they did with Safari, that looks quite nice.

Will keep on exploring, but for now it does not feel like a solid design shift, as Apple were presenting it yesterday.

 

[Jkeith85]

Winamp in 2000 looked better.

 

[gorillapox]

I understand why they did it, they had all this money and time invested in visionOS and nobody was really using it because it was hitched to a failing product. But… it’s not going to make it.

The main problem is the design team apparently can’t differentiate between what looks cool (on occasion anyway) and good ui/ux. How did nobody anticipate the backlash based on poor readability? Ironically Apple learned this lesson once before in the early days of OS X Aqua but apparently forgot it. I won’t argue stylistic choices like weirdly elongated switches or icon design because that’s subjective but the growing online consensus for LG that I’ve seen (not necessarily here) is an overwhelmingly sense of the ick.

Second most problematic to me is this needlessly wastes battery to add useless frippery. Even if you can turn some or all of it off there are still countless hours of engineering spent on it rather than improving performance or squashing bugs.

I’m mostly just disappointed this is where Apple’s head is at right now. There are real areas where Apple is failing in usability and function and this is their response?

 

[C7 POWER]

I absolutely love it on my 16 PM

 

[Joseph C]

Not sure this is the right category, since this touches all OSes and not just iOS — feel free to move it if needed.

I wanted to share some early impressions of the new Liquid Glass UI Apple introduced yesterday. I installed the betas across devices and… I’m quite conflicted.

Quick background: As a product front-end developer, I'm really into design, user experience, and human-machine interfaces, so I’m usually excited to explore new concepts and changes. But as it stands now, I’m not convinced this is the best direction.

Of course, it’s early days, and the current implementation is still very glitchy, which definitely affects the overall experience. I’ll revisit my opinion closer to the official release this Fall. But for now, here are my first thoughts across platforms:
iPhone (iOS):
With some refinements, the new design could work here. I do like that many controls have been moved to the bottom of the screen — that’s a solid UX choice. However, contrast and legibility are currently a big problem. This is an issue that carries over to other OSes too.
iPad (iPadOS):
I haven’t spent a ton of time on the iPad yet, but from what I’ve seen, apps like Mail and Music feel overcomplicated. With the new Menu Bar and more layered navigation patterns, the UI is starting to feel unnecessarily complex. And since iPadOS still doesn’t run full desktop apps, I’m unsure how useful the Menu Bar really is. Over the years, Apple seems to have added more and more interaction models without phasing out older ones — the result is starting to feel chaotic.
Mac (macOS):
This is probably where I’m most disappointed. As someone who relies on macOS for pro work, I do want it to look modern — but the current implementation of Liquid Glass feels oddly dated and overly flashy. For example, Safari dynamically changes its appearance based on the site you're visiting, complete with animations — I find that more distracting than helpful. There are also various glitches like overlapping UI elements and random dividers, which really shouldn’t be there.

To be fair, major redesigns often take time to settle. The iOS 7 refresh needed a couple of years to feel polished. On the flip side, Big Sur introduced a new look that remained mostly untouched — and some questionable decisions made then were never addressed. This new redesign does fix some old issues, but it also introduces quite a few new ones — and many are worse.

Curious to hear your thoughts — what do you think about Liquid Glass?

I completely agree with your points, especially about the Big Sur update seeing minimal adjustments after Beta 1, leaving numerous unresolved issues.

I'm upset to have lost unified/compact Safari toolbar on Mac. The Podcasts/Music now playing area is terrible in terms of legibility on Mac (and the other platforms) too. We don't see any refractions on the icon glass edges, even when hovering over them, which seems a shame.

The TV app sidebar is horrific on Mac. Things like this should not be surviving the 26.0 beta cycle and must be fixed.

It's imperative that Apple takes the time to refine the Liquid Glass UI significantly in THIS beta cycle, as in, in time for what the next iPhones get.

Addressing the design bugs and improving aspects like contrast, legibility, and stability across devices will be absolutely key, preferably also somehow without making it more dull and less 'glassy' – which is a challenge.

Considering the iOS 7 redesign took a couple of years to polish, there's hope that with focused effort between now and the September releases, the Liquid Glass experience can be much improved.

It's nerve wracking for sure. It's a good start and has promise but it must be seen as a 'beta' in the truest sense of the word – not just by us but actually more importantly by Apple.

 

[HouseLannister]

I’m mostly just disappointed this is where Apple’s head is at right now. There are real areas where Apple is failing in usability and function and this is their response?

Agreed. The energy spent on this skin over an existing OS could have been spent on improving App Library (edit category names, move apps between categories, list view default toggle), giving us an actual dock (autohide, magnification, more icons), giving us more control over how the OS behaves and more customization (allow apps like icon pickers and launchers), etc. I want an OS to be minimalistic and get out of my way. But this is an OS that wants to remind you every moment that it is NEW. (And it doesn't look new. It looks like Windows Vista.)

 

[Saint_Blaise]

I've been using it on my spare iPhone and iPad. I hate it. I even cringed during the livestream. I've hated the Control Center design and now everything looks like a blinged out Control Center. Just give me basic flatness, subtle layer depth, and contrasting colors.