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Do you like Liquid Glass?

  • Yes

    Votes: 116 46.2%
  • No

    Votes: 101 40.2%
  • Eh its okay - Between Yes and No

    Votes: 34 13.5%

  • Total voters
    251
Feels like they haven’t got the balance right just yet but I do like the concept. People will complain that it looks messy using the worst wallpaper/colour combos imaginable, which equates to dressing up in ridiculous mismatched clothes and saying “look how bad I look!”
 
All accessibility concerns aside, I like the "fluid" aspect of it (e.g. how it behaves like liquid and reforms UI elements). I'm in general in favor of simple and unobtrusive UI, that does not try to grab your attention. Liquid glass is sadly too busy for my liking, they should've opted for a more milk / frost glass look... but then again, it'd probably look too similar to pre-IOS 26 translucency effects.
 
Not really. I've watched a few of the design videos they put up and I can totally see what they're going for, and I even believe they can solve the glaring accessibility issues now that I have a better understanding of how they're doing it... but it's still just not a visual style that I enjoy.
 
Some of it looks nice, but in other areas I think it needs more tweaking, notifications often feel harder to read, and the quick toggles drop down is horrendous.
 
It's okay, but not a game changer. I hope they can make it run a bit faster, it seems slightly lagging on the iPhone 15 Pro.

I suppose that will improve as they work on it.
 
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People spent all of iOS 18’s lifecycle complaining about bad visual UI glitches and they are going to be doing that for the next year as well.

I actively hate it. I hate that Apple wasted all their redesign efforts on bad Windows Vista-esque effects rather than actually rethinking functionality and adding more features. Instead they spent their time trying to make the most fugly OS. Sure, they can walk some of it back, but it is disappointing that they didn’t try to do something new.

I do like parts of the OS. The Android features they lifted are quite welcome.
 
I actually like it. I’m still more a fan of Material Expressive on my Pixel but overall I really like the changes. The menus and bar changes, the messages changes are subtle but good, and as a swipe typer the keyboard seems improved to me. I can take or leave the Liquid Glass aesthetics. I do like some of the effects but sometimes there are readability issues where the text just tends to blend into the background.
 
In its current state it is half-baked and needs some serious fine-tuning before the final release, IMHO. I like the concept, but do not like its current implementation, so cannot really vote neither Yes nor No.
 
I've only seen the videos which I'm sure present it as perfectly as possible but - using your phone outside in the desert sun is already difficult. It appears this will be a big issue for me.
 
Totally love it. Would have preferred it to be even more skeuomorphic and shadows added to the text in some areas for better legibility, but overall it is a unique hybrid of minimalism and skeuomorphism, reminiscent of aqua design aesthetics just more power-beefy since new icons are multilayer ones.

Finally there is some fresh air. Finally iOS 7 era is DEAD.
1749561114602.png

Look, just look at the icons!!! My eyes literally want to jump out of my head when I look at iOS 7-18 high contrast fugly icons. The iOS 26 is like iOS 6, but actually useful with TONS of features. So I don’t really understand why some users criticize iOS for lack of features. Guys, what else do you want, a terminal and being able to set up a server from your old phone?:) Well it would be fun but…
 
Totally love it. Would have preferred it to be even more skeuomorphic and shadows added to the text in some areas for better legibility, but overall it is a unique hybrid of minimalism and skeuomorphism, reminiscent of aqua design aesthetics just more power-beefy since new icons are multilayer ones.

Finally there is some fresh air. Finally iOS 7 era is DEAD.
View attachment 2518330
Look, just look at the icons!!! My eyes literally want to jump out of my head when I look at iOS 7-18 high contrast fugly icons. The iOS 26 is like iOS 6, but actually useful with TONS of features. So I don’t really understand why some users criticize iOS for lack of features. Guys, what else do you want, a terminal and being able to set up a server from your old phone?:) Well it would be fun but…
I was about to mention iOS 6 actually. Toned down skeumorphism reinvented and I'd go for that for sure. After all each trend comes backs later with a brand new name and a new appearance.
 
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I'm trying to see the design in its final form, not the beta form that's going to be buggy and not fully ironed out. I like the idea of it, and I'm all for change - that's why I love beta testing. As it stands right now, I'm very 50/50 on it and hoping to fully fall in love with it by the end of the beta cycle.
 
I like it, but I think it needs to tweaked a little, be that more blur on the background, or frosted glass.
 
Yes if we're talking about it conceptually.

No if we're talking about it practically. The execution is off. Everyone's mentioned legibility but there's also a coherence issue where it looks like liquid glass elements were slapped onto the existing iOS 7 era design language... because it was! So it's really jarring and half baked. If liquid glass is a return to some form of skeuomorphism then every single other element needed some form of skeuomorphic treatment too.

Take the Music app on iPhone, the only thing that's liquid glass is the new nav bar and everything else is still iOS 7 icons and flat design: album art, the now playing page, list views, and so on all look the same. The moment you look at the liquid glass nav bar your brain goes "oh, thats the new thing I guess."

I suppose then my criticism is that they didn't go far enough in the redesign unlike iOS 7 which changed EVERYTHING at once because it was decisively a new design language. Here it feels like they're trialing Liquid Glass, timidly applying it in some areas as an effect whilst leaving almost everything else alone. The message I'm getting is Liquid Glass is an addition to the existing design language -- that for me is where the problem lies.

Apple say "liquid glass is for the nav layer, don't use it on the content layer" (in other words, leave almost all of your app as-is with the old design) but either we're going with a new form of skeuomorphism or we're not. I'm not saying Liquid Glass needs to be applied everywhere but rather the content layer design principles needed revision too so everything feels cohesive.

And no, this is not a case of "its the first beta."
 
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