Liquid Glass Is Cracked
One of the oldest findings in usability is that anything placed on top of something else becomes harder to see. Yet here we are, in 2025, with Apple proudly obscuring text, icons, and controls by making them transparent and placing them on top of busy backgrounds.
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And then comes Apple’s boldest (or dumbest) experiment: text on top of text.
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In iOS 26, controls insist on animating themselves, whether or not the user benefits. Carousel dots quietly morph into the word Search after a few seconds. Camera buttons jerk slightly when tapped. Tab bars bubble and wiggle when switching views, and buttons briefly pulsate before being replaced with something else entirely. It’s like the interface is shouting “look at me” when it should quietly step aside and let the real star — the content — take the spotlight.
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Apple has also decided it’s time to crowd and shrink touch targets. The long‑standing guideline of at least 0.4cm between targets (and 1cm × 1cm tap areas) seems to have been tossed out the window. Either Apple believes our fingers are getting smaller, or it assumes years of practice with smartphones have magically trained us to hit tiny targets with perfect precision.
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This signals another transition (this time for the worse) to Android-style design, where page titles are left-aligned (instead of center-aligned), thus displacing the breadcrumb next to the back button.
However, I found the argument against the more prominent Search button in many apps unconvincing[…]
Me, too. I don’t like that it floats on top of content, but I think people did have trouble discovering it when you had to swipe down. Maybe the placement at the bottom also makes it easier to tap.
What is disappointing is that the hidden search field still exists in a handful of places. Most notably, Music on iOS 26 still has two different kinds of Search: the one you can get to by tapping on the button in the bottom-right, and the locally-scoped one you will find at the top of views like Playlists.
Previously:
- On Liquid Glass
- How to Turn Liquid Glass Into a Solid Interface
- Shipping Liquid Glass
- Assorted Notes on Liquid Glass
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First they came for the top of the display with the notch. Then they came for more of the top of the display with Dynamic Island. Then they came for the bottom of the display pushing the dock up further into the middle. Then they came for the side bars on Finder, pushing them further over.
Now they've come for the middle of the display, pushing search buttons and three dot menus right over the top of everything.
I'm hoping getting a Pro Max solves this on the iPhone at least. They seem to assume everyone has a recent, larger phone.
