How to turn liquid glass into a solid interface
Can't wait for them to release iOS 27 and announce they've made a useable UI again. "Hey friends, those accessibility settings you've used for a year? You don't need them anymore. Apple is where innovation happens!!"
Some people are always upset with change.
So stop redesigning your damn UIs!
I know why they do it. That's because if you don't change the UI, it is like you didn't change anything, and people don't feel the need to upgrade. It is important for marketing and therefore I don't expect it to change.
But if you really care about usability, don't change your UIs without a good reason. Also, keep in mind that not every user is a young tech addict, it is hard enough to explain to my grandparents how to use a computer/smartphone without them being thrown off by UI changes. Ok, it may not be where your money is, but that's part of accessibility.
Yes, people are upset with every UI redesign that is not an incremental change.
Speaking for myself, it's also annoying when the redesign is half assed. I think it's awfully embarrassing that you can still dig deeply enough into settings panels in Windows and get XP themed panels. Hell, dig deep enough and there's probably even older ones lurking still.
You may like or may not like the new settings panels, but making them incomplete and redirecting you to the old ones for the missing features is just wrong. Even worse, they have been gradually adding the missing features for more than 10 years, breaking all familiarity, and they still didn't manage to finish the job.
I don't know what happened internally but Microsoft went from being arguably the best in the world to something that is objectively terrible. You may not like liquid glass, but at least, there is intent behind it. With Microsoft today, it looks like a collection of internship projects.
UX is not timeless, features emerge or go out of fashion, user behavior and expectations change, the hardware on which the UI/UX is operated changes. You only can incrementally evolve your ui/UX so far, as you can’t know what the future will look like.
There are zero legitimate benefits to it. It's just neat and cool, which is a very poor reason to do something.
They should've just... Not done it.
Isn't this the case for all UI redesigns? When youtube changed to their current design there were posts about browser extensions to restore the old interface.
Yes but UI redesigns usually involve UX redesign as well. It's not just visual so you actually gain something from it (even if at first it feels like a regression).
But liquid glass helps me do what... see my background?....!?
Seriously unsure who thought it might be a good idea and why. Possibly just a diversion from the AI development falling behind schedule and competitors. I really cannot imagine a user cohort falling for this gimmich in large enough percentage to push this, I'd rather think no serious UX A/B testing was done.
Modern design is already pretty bad and usability and readability being almost ignored aspects, but this is the most arrogant step I met recently, despite the ambitious attempt by Posthog website redesign to be the champion in user-hostile UX category.
Isn't this the case for all UI redesigns?
This one is particularly bad because it's shit. It makes the device harder to use for most users. It introduces a load of utterly pointless, and/or confusing, patterns/motifs... like:
- why do some navigation buttons hover about 3 meters above the panel they control (the enormous drop shadow around back/next/close buttons)
- why is the settings sidebar floating above the settings panel content, such that only the image carousels but not the text slide under it?
- why are the rounded corners of panels and windows so round that about 40px of every window's height and width becomes unusable?
- why do I have to see my wallpaper, blurry, under every fucking control, icon, component, list and panel? It started with Lion where the wallpaper would bleed through the sidebars of windows, even when they had other windows beneath them
Someone at Apple decided the "desktop" paradigm that made their computers usable has become redundant, but they're taking it apart in tiny steps, drawn out over years and multiple releases. The desktop paradigm was really good: you could have multiple apps open side by side and drag & drop content between them, just like you could if you were assembling physical things on a physical desktop. With Liquid Glass, you wouldn't imagine that was possible, because parts of the apps hover 3m off the surface, making it visually unsettling to navigate your windows. And your windows are made of various grades of glass which is brittle, and smooth, and you can't stick anything to it. Glass isn't a work surface unless you're doing stained glass windows. To do work, you need the confidence the surface will hold up beneath your actions, and a little bit of friction so your materials and targets don't slide all over the place. Why on earth are Apple creating the illusion of an unworkable work surface?
I'm convinced they're trying to deprecate the menu bar entirely by making it less and less usable (thinner text, transparency), but they're not willing to move it to the tops of windows like on Windows. Are they hoping we'll all give up using (because they've made it shit) it so they can just let it go? (like iOS?).
All of these are fixable without backing away from the big idea. But it’s pretty rough so far.
Some people are always upset with change
You defended "change" in general, not in this particular case. "Change could be good so this change must be good" is a weak argument that can be used to defend any change. This is a shallow dismissal of the complaints instead of a solid defense of the change.
The poor contrast of the UI strains the eyesight, all the transparency and glass effects are distracting and tiring, so are many of the animations which just introduce a delay for no reason, and so on. I unlock my phone and the top row of icons is "thrown" on the screen with a big delay and a very ample motion to the point it was disturbing.
These aren't useful changes, they cause a loss of practical value to many users even if they bring esthetic value to others. The changes most brought up in complaints are objectively worse that what we had before. It's form over function and tells the world the designers had no ideas how to practically improve the UI so they added visual bells and whistles, flashes and sparkles.
I'm still mad at Youtube for their redesigns, to the point that I moved over to Freetube, since I found normal Youtube that hostile of an experience.
Went to Youtube Music instead, which doesn't seem to ever get updates and likely has been relegated to Google's project limbo.
It's fantastic. It's arguably a worse service, but I'll take that over the frustration of having to figure out yet another new and improved music listening experience every other time I open the Spotify app.
Ultimately, good design stays out of the way. Design changes is design getting in your face, ... which is the diametric opposite of staying out of the way.
The Liquid Glass design has awful contrast, and seems really amateurish with how stuff on the screen overlaps. Looks like the stuff you'd see in KDE 10-15 years ago[1], back when compositing window managers were kinda hot and new.
[1] This is from 2012, and arguably deals with the transparency-induced readability issues better than Liquid Glass seems to: https://imgur.com/a/x1LmBAQ
I'll just say this: the fact the most discussed thing about the new iOS version is how to make their terrible new UI (that no one asked for) off is telling something about the state of innovation at Apple.
I observed that too. Polled a few people I know who upgraded and they all have the same impression that they'd rather turn it off. I shared the accessibility settings with some to help them out. I haven't upgraded my main phone might have to wait a while longer.
This has to be resume driven. I presume designers at Apple have to end the year with a review to justify their salaries. "So Bob, what would you say you do here?". The answer "Well not much, we designed things nicely already, and now we're just chilling, listening to podcasts and having 2 hour lunches" is not going to fly. They want to say something like "That flashy glass thing, we did that!". Except, in this case I wish they'd all just be chilling and having 2 hour long lunches, instead of messing with the interface since they apparently managed to make things worse.
I can't comment on the battery life, since it's plugged in almost all the time. I haven't noticed any change on my regular phone (14 pro).
This is just jumping the shark, as they need to push out something that can be talked about their products, and Apple Intelligence is a flop so far. As the saying goes: “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.”
1. There's actual value in getting used to things. Part of the reason older people can't use computers well and get scammed is because trendy software companies constantly reshuffle the same stuff and they can't keep up.
2. A lot of UI progression is objectively worse, and I do mean objectively. Less legibility, more clicks to do the same actions, etc. We just get used to back software.
iOS 26 is bad software. We might get used to it being bad one day. It's still bad.
Similarly, Windows 8 was bad software. We actually undid that one.
Similarly, Windows 8 was bad software. We actually undid that one.
Windows 8 was bad software for desktop and laptop computers. I will say though that it was great for hybrid tablet computers and they should have kept that interface for them. Using a Surface running Windows 8 is much nicer as a tablet than what Microsoft has done since. I have no idea why they thought a tablet interface was a good idea for desktops though.
1. There's actual value in getting used to things. Part of the reason older people can't use computers well and get scammed is because trendy software companies constantly reshuffle the same stuff and they can't keep up.
The first rule of UI design is don't change things. The second rule is to make it easy to revert exactly to the prior layout. For webpages and apps, it's not hard. Don't change things. Do not change things. Do. Not. Change. Things. But UI designers are too stupid to grasp the simple rules.
I'm a bit too old to have been privvy to any Win XP design backlash, but I think the more apt comparison is with Windows Vista, where transparency was also a major part of the design philosophy (usability be damned). We have pretty good ideas about what makes a good UI/UX and none of those ideas involve using transparency to make readability worse while also not really making what's under the half-transparent element visible or readable.
I’ve been an early adapter since my first iPhone in 2009. But the new UI is plain ugly, lacking general accessibility, and full of bugs to the point that it’s just user hostile at this point.
They broke almost all of their design guidelines and make everything useless bubbles, I just cannot believe that Apple released this ugly thing to billions of devices.
I thought the latest dev beta of iOS would fix this but it's still here.
Instead now we have a phone operating system UI posing as macOS. There’s no proper text alignment, padding, or good margins. It’s just not elegant at all, it feels like a knockoff.
The other day, the keyboard stopped showing up in Safari, I was getting an empty keyboard tray when I click into a text input. How in the frozen hell are they able to achieve this level of incompetence. What’s the goal of this, just extract money from people and enshitify everything. I’m just so tied of macOS at this point that I started enjoying my work computer which is Windows 11.
Can't wait for them to release iOS 27 and announce they've made a useable UI again. "Hey friends, those accessibility settings you've used for a year? You don't need them anymore. Apple is where innovation happens!!"
I'd actually be impressed if they were that responsive. Fixing a problem is the second best thing after not creating it in the first place.
Doubling down and not acknowledging a poor choice would be so much worse.
I've only just started developing in SwiftUI, but I do know that some of these changes are automatic based on the components you use not necessarily a specific choice by the app developer. I started developing my app with the prior iOS version, but using standard components. After updating to iOS 26, the glass-effects were automatically added.
We’ve heard a lot of feedback about the incredible design changes we made in iOS 27. In order to meet the challenges set out by our users, we invented a new type of glass that is both transparent and opaque… at the same time! Physically impossible, you say? Not at Apple.
Apparently, solid doors made of steel or wood are too last century.
So I am happy for a fresh breeze. I don't mind it. I actually enjoy having some movement in my computers' appeareance, and I feel it's really cool and tastefully done... for my use. Just to mix it up a bit. I'm happy about it. Be a bit whimsical from time to time. Is gudd!
But stuff like that feels dated quickly, and nowadays I can understand the drive to have less distracting UI elements. I still don’t hate it but I understand those who do.
It is amazing how much time and effort must have gone into developing this liquid glass and rolling it out across products and platforms, all for a worse outcome in the end.
compare: Safari, Finder settings, "Get Info" in finder
Original Apple guidelines started with things like "Simplified Jungian Perception" on page 18 https://archive.org/details/apple-hig
Microsoft collected and analyzed hundreds of thousands of data points about their software. See "No Distaste for Paste" https://web.archive.org/web/20080316101025/http://blogs.msdn...
Now?
Modern designers wouldn't understand what a book is if one hit them in the face. And their "research" is all vibes: "Quantified factors" are "32% increase in subculture perception", "a 34% boost in modernity" and "a 30% jump in rebelliousness" https://design.google/library/expressive-material-design-goo...
It looks to me that the research they did only showed them mockups, not actually using this new design. And why are all color choices so bad right now? They just scream, it puts you on edge just looking at it.
I feel like we saw similar changes with the previous shift where new graduates knew GSuite and MS Office was some the software their parents would complain about. It's my shibboleth for identify my generation of computer users.
Used to be when your morning alarm goes off on the bedside table you can just reach over and swipe right... now there are two buttons at the bottom of the screen and you have to look at it and carefully press the correct one.
Also when setting an alarm it used to be set after you selected the day and time. But now they added an extra 'save' button. I am not the only person who thought they set a morning alarm and got a nasty late surprise.
Just changing things for no reason and making them worse.
Otherwise, the UI stays mostly the same, just becoming a bit more bloated ("finger friendly") with every release.
The most annoying thing for me is the waste of screen space from the bubbles around notifications and menu options. Apparently, having stuff floating now gives a "perception of lightness and motion".
I am a bit skeptical that they are "reaching for the best."
Once you start to hire and promote folks with a certain "corporate culture," they start hiring and promoting folks that fit that culture (and driving out ones that don't). I suspect that the problems actually started years ago, and now, those managers are hiring less-than-stellar SWEs, managers, and designers.
The thing about the really good people at Apple, is that they don't need to be subjected to an ugly corporate culture. They'll take their toys and go home (or to other companies), which is pretty much exactly what the less-than-stellar people want. The dichotomy of hiring high-Quality talent, is that they don't need to work for you, so you have to figure out ways to keep them. Often, money isn't the biggest driver. The good ones don't do it [just] for the money, and they'll always be able to make plenty, so, as their manager, you need to figure out what they really want.
Anyway, whatever Apple is doing right now reminds me a lot of that.
These days I use a minimal tiling window manager and no animations whatsoever. As I'm of a certain age I still get a kick out of the fact I can make a floating window translucent and see the video playing underneath. But that's only because I know it was a technical feat to get there. It's hard to imagine why gen Z or younger would get a kick out of this stuff, though.
I had a highly customized setup I really liked (I was even using the advanced features to target dropdowns and popups to give them their own effects, or disable effects for specific programs for speed), the only reason I moved away from it was all the customization disappearing. Some of that dropped functionality included keyboard controls for new ways to navigate or arrange windows, losing those indirectly led me to tiling window managers.
I updated my old/spare phone - an iPhone SE3, which I think has a similar processor and memory (A15 and 4GB). It became a lot more sluggish. I learned my lesson not to upgrade my main phone, also an iPhone 13 mini.
I also noticed a disappointing slow down on a 9th gen iPad, which has even older internals. Actually, perhaps I should be quickly looking into downgrading that if it's possible.
[0] https://developer.apple.com/documentation/BundleResources/In...
The thing that we have to keep in mind, is that some very "strong-willed" folks have staked their egos on LG, and will choose it as their hill to die on. We've seen that happen in many other instances (not just at Apple).
And frosted glass elements on iOS have been around since iOS 7.
But note how the blurred/frosted background is a background and doesn't conflict with the icons on top of it.
Note how the designers of Liquid Glass failed to learn from this.
XP is sort of like Fisher-Price for Windows, but is usable. Vista ... was something else.
I wonder where a decent alternative will be lurking in the next few years? Apple is losing some grip, but all others are still worse overall.
On iOS it feels unfinished, on macOS it feels unpolished. This has the potential to be pretty, or at least usable if you don't like the glass look, but someone needs to finish the process of porting to liquid glass.
I have more a problem with the menu structure then the glass effect.
I see many critics of Liquid Glass (for iPhone, anyway) use the notification centre half down as an example of how bad Liquid Glass is, but it's way more legible when it's completely down and the background tints significantly.
I thought that'd be the case for ios 26. But after installing it... yeesh. I can barely see anything. It's just awful.
The main problem is getting new certificates, because the ones bundled in the OS have expired. It took a lot of searching to find something that worked and I'm not sure if it was one "solution", or the result of multiple "solutions" being tried out.
The secondary problem is new software won't run properly, like corporate/commercial VPN clients. It took a lot of fiddling to get Tunnelblick to work with a commercial VPN, and I couldn't get some corporate client to work, even using an old version.
And iOS already had really bad contrast, like how you can't tell if the Wifi/Bluetooth are enabled/disabled depending on the background.
My issue is that the iOS 26 update degraded the performance and probably battery life of my iPhone 13 mini. Just switching between home screen pages went from 60fps to 10fps even with liquid disabled.
There are also weird changes like how the Safari url bar displays even less of the URL. On HN I only see "news.ycomb[[inator.com]]/item?id=1234", jeez. Only slightly better on a normal iPhone.
I had no business trying out iOS 26 on a four year old phone. Should have just stayed with iOS 18(?) security updates until EOL.
My biggest gripe is the buggy keyboard. It shrinks a bit horizontally every time I open it. When using a mobile browser (I tested on a few), website footers and similar elements will get stuck above where the top of the keyboard would normally be, as if there was an invisible keyboard.
These tweaks to minimize the glass effect go a long way, such that I'm not as put off by the overall design as I was in its stock configuration.
Welp, Apple went ahead and essentially (and needlessly) forced a similar problem onto my normal screen. Maybe looks cool for a second on Apple marketing materials, but actual usage makes me want to pile drive everyone at Apple responsible for this crap.
Calling it a “meta material” in my eyes is the same ballpark as “You’re holding it wrong”.
So sad that this is opening up the floodgates for bad UI which won’t be restricted to just their platforms and will take years to clean up.
What a huge relief to just have normal sidebars in Finder etc, and window border radiuses that make sense and match the physical screen rounded corners.
It's also incomprehensible that Apple, once focused entirely on user experience, would not test all their accessibility features for a release centered around a UI redesign.
I'm currently in the process of adding support for the new UI to my macOS app. The biggest problem is to make it look good on the previous macOS version and on the new one. I still have more than 50% users on pre-glass.
https://tidbits.com/uploads/2025/10/iOS-Liquid-Glass-Reduce-...
