Disclaimer: I don’t hate Liquid Glass. It’s just so weird that Apple of all companies believes those are best examples to prove how amazing it is:
Some examples from this gallery:
Conclusion: Looks cool when it’s moving. When it doesn’t, you better don’t want to read anything or you have to turn it off as much as possible (e.g. the new tinting option).
I have to agree, although I’ve only viewed it in the local Apple store. What on earth the designers were thinking of is beyond me. In order to make it usable you have to turn it off or at least so much as you can. Even then to my aging eyes it is nowhere near as clear as previous UI designs.
I will avoid MacOS Tahoe for as long as possible and if Apple decides to force it on us, some flavour of Linux would look a very attractive option.
I’m not a fan of Liquid Glass, but with iOS 26.1, they added a “Tint” option which isn’t bad. A halfway point for transparency. For me, it’s “on” as an experiment and we’ll see how it goes. Not a deal breaker for me, but like others, I do wonder why Apple bothered and promotes Liquid Glass as they do. All will be revealed someday, I guess. Oh well.
All will be changed some day, I’d say. None of this is revolutionary or objectively an improvement; it’s only been a mere five years since their last big UI revelation. It is nothing but a cheap way to beat drums and make noise, and sell stuff, which is all they really care about. None of any of this is for your benefit.
I think it all looks like overly cluttered garbage, but again, what does it matter. In a few years it will be Frozen Rock, or some other nonsensical phrase to describe an equally pointless disruption, because we wouldn’t want people to stop talking about Apple. 
I don’t dislike it, but it’s all very “Ho hum!” I don’t think it’ll get in the way, but it doesn’t seem to offer any benefits.
Yes, it’s a “Keep Apple in the news” change… very on-point in an era when one of the President’s aims is to make sure he’s on the front page all the time!
Mark
Eh, for me it’s a cognitive thing I really do think. There is just way too much of the wrong kind of clutter everywhere. If those spidery, monochrome style icons mess with your brain, then you can imagine what the menus look like. I plod though menus in 26, squinting and cursing, whereas in every version of the Mac prior I could effortlessly fly through them. It’s been getting worse every cycle, for me. macOS 11 made it real bad by starting the trend of putting these kinds of icons into the title bar, of all places, so you can’t even get rid of them by hiding toolbars in many cases. It also started the rounding fetish, with also messes with my brain, and is way worse now.
And there are things like that everywhere, if you are allergic to design clutter.
Yes, it’s a “Keep Apple in the news” change…
The even more cynical part of me notices how nobody is talking about the objectively embarrassing and expensive failure that was “Apple Intelligence” last year. Oh, look, over here! A circus!
The more I think about it: As a competitor, with the intention of mocking Apple, highlighting the shortcomings of the new UI – I would have created the exact same page!
And the crazy thing is: We all know what happens next. First they laugh, then they copy. A year or two from now, everything will look like this. Likely worse.
I really like translucency, playful elements, unnecessary gimmicks just for the fun of it. Unfortunately I also like being able recognize at first glance what I’m looking at.
Not all PR is good PR. Why would one voluntarily choose to bury a shortcoming [1] under a disaster? How does it help in any way that a lot of people talk about usability issues now?
I’d call the absence of “AI” a feature, but that’s just me. ↩︎
Well, I wasn’t going to get into it, but Linux had much of this look in the early '00s (yes, even the animation effects!), which Microsoft badly copied first in Windows XP (desktop widgets), then in Vista with the airy translucency effects from some of its more ostentatious window managers. And now here we are with Apple copying that, so I don’t know who’s copying who at this point if it circulates further.
Maybe that is in part why, to me, a lot of this stuff looks very dated, like it came from a designer still stuck in 2001 and thinking emboss effects are totally awesome, man.
We played with these ideas before, and they all died out because most people just want a title bar or a sidebar to get out of the way and perform a function, not provide an Experience.
That’s true; and while I don’t suffer from the cognitive dissonance that you have, I do realise that more and more I prefer simple UI, so I am much more productive in apps with a minimal interface. As an example, I’ve been doing a lot in the Typst web app to really get to grips with Typst, but I use iCab for the purpose rather than Arc/Brave/Opera/etc. (I’ve never got on with FireFox and I don’t like Safari). I find the iCab UI just disappears and I can concentrate better on what I’m doing.
Yes, but that seems to be a trend… get yourself in the news for doing something trivial/nonsensical so people pick up on that rather than serious underlying issues.
Mark
Would have been cheaper to just frame the “issues” as a feature, deliver a “Snow Sequoia” (basically fixing all the bugs that accumulated over the years), and call it a day.
But what do I know. I’m not responsible for 166,000 employees and all those shareholders don’t hold my feet to the fire.
Bingo. Designers want things to look unique. They want something they can put in their portfolios. They want to not be bored to tears drawing square boxes all day.
Designers are not users. Users are just trying to get stuff done.
Good industrial design is not supposed to prioritize form over function or the other way around. Everything else is just design for the sake of it.
This still looks like it’s coming from the future [1], including a rather playful interface. Ergonomic out of the box. Not everyone’s taste, but also nothing to be ashamed of in a portfolio:
re-imagine it with a bigger, modern screen, slimmer bezels and a bit less cable clutter ↩︎
Right, but now that’s already been done. Apple has always been about New! Shiny!
Yeah, and they used to deliver. Now I’m thankful when they don’t cut weird shapes out of my screen or make me squint my way through the interface. Pretty modest expectations.
I still want someone to explain that freakin’ notch.
My top questions are:
That last one is the sort of question I ask myself whenever someone waxes rhapsodic about the 1960s. So glad I’m GenX…
I wouldn’t say I’m over the moon about Liquid Glass, but I’m not having any issues with it.
The '60’s and early '70s were an ‘interesting’ time for me.
More important things to worry about right now, including if my cardiologist is about to pull approval for me to fly to NZ for a family reunion after a week of chest discomfort.
I hope your travel plans aren’t affected, RuffPub. And hope you’re feeling better soon.
You know, sometimes you feel something’s off, but you can’t put your finger on it. And all of a sudden it clicks! That’s not an interface, it’s camouflage!
I’m not bothered. I read everything just as well. The transparency does obscure things from time to time and I find the cure is to scroll. Yes, I’d prefer ios18, but 26 just ain’t that much of a thing
