Shipping Liquid Glass
I’m usually pretty go-with-the-flow as far as OS updates go, but iOS 26 / Liquid Glass is terrible: incoherent, ugly, and difficult to use. Obviously a massive design effort, but they missed the mark IMO.
It’s been two days since iOS 26 was released, and Apple’s new Liquid Glass design is even more divisive than expected.
Any major design change can create controversy as people get used to the new look, but the MacRumors forums, Reddit, Apple Support Communities, and social media sites seem to feature more criticism than praise as people discuss the update.
Here’s my guess what happened in the lead up to WWDC25:
Apple realized it was deep in the weeds with Apple Intelligence (and associated PR) and needed a tentpole feature that wasn’t AI.
Liquid Glass was in development for some upcoming edgeless hardware. It needed another year of work, but management/marketing was fucked.
A thing that wasn’t ready got moved up. Bug fixing took a back seat. Everyone grabbed paint brushes, not screwdrivers.
The next year is going to be rough for EVERYONE.
My review of Liquid Glass: generally, I love it.
It’s gorgeous on the right device in the right circumstances. iPadOS, in particular, on a large screen in windowing mode is, by far, my favorite.
But it also has a ton of problems with real-world content that weren’t fully accounted for in concepts before announcement, which has lead to a pile of fixes and hacks to try to make it work for all the edge cases. It’s this which brings the majority of bugs and major issues into all areas of the UI.
What is the design thinking here for displaying the time over my wallpaper? Letting the wallpaper bleed through in this way makes it hard to see and in no way pleasant.
What is going on here exactly?
Also, what effect is the highlighting/shading meant to be achieving? I don’t see it - if it is a layer of something liquid I don’t feel it works at a basic level. What am I missing?
Liquid Glass now also ruins screenshots under some circumstances. Compare the left margin of these two screenshots, which just include a slightly different portion of the sidebar.
I’ll say this for the macOS Liquid Arse update: the Finder windows are nicer to look at. Somehow they have more contrast rather than less. And coloured folders again; what a time to be alive and trapped in a Kaleidoscope theme.
Liquid Glass is not an aberration. It’s continuation of everything Apple has been getting wrong about UI for more than a decade.
Apple was never perfect, but they used to get things right more often than anyone else, and right or wrong they sweated over the details.
Liquid Glass is perhaps the most getting-in-the-way user interface I’ve experienced in my lifetime. It never shuts up. It’s constantly vying for attention. Because it’s constantly animating, it never lets the content be the focus.
I don’t think I realized until now that UI could be so narcissistic.
Are any of Apple’s larger productivity apps updated for Liquid Glass yet? Pages doesn’t seem to be.
I’ve been wondering when iLife, iWork, and Pro Apps are going to be released with Liquid Glass updates.
Or are they unable to ship something… suitable with the new design language? 🤭
The Pro apps shipped with the new SDK, but they’ve opted out of the design language…
Cultured Code’s Things says “no thank you” to the Liquid Glass’ sidebar and toolbar style.
We’re hearing from folks eager for the Liquid Glass update to NetNewsWire. The bad news is that it’s not coming this week or next (who knows when, really) — but the good news is that it is very much in progress.
[…]
If you’d like a sneak peak of what NetNewsWire 7 will look like, check out these posts [1, 2] by Stuart Breckenridge, who’s done great work on our Liquid Glass adoption[…]
Today, we wanted to share some of our favorite implementations of Liquid Glass and other features debuted this fall by indie developers.
As far as I can tell all major iOS apps such as WhatsApp, Telegram and Spotify just enabled the compatibility Info.plist flag for Xcode 26 and went on with their life.
While indie devs sweated all summer trying to make Liquid Glass UI work in their apps, telling themselves they “need to be ready on day one”. The iOS dev echo chamber repeated this message to death.
I don’t think the general public cares one bit. Nobody gives a 5 star review because an app supports the new iOS UI. Nobody buys an app because of that.
I think it’s sad we can’t make macOS icons like this anymore.
I have seen very little grief for this but the sadness is very real. It’s the end of a really special era.
So here’s my question: a lot of these things were pointed out for months—and besides how I don’t think Apple should be outsourcing bug reporting to the rest of us—do they just not have a good QA team anymore? Or is it just that they don’t care about the bugs they ship anymore?
Instead of spending the whole summer reworking my apps’ designs, I recently adopted the new design in some of my apps while maintaining the same look on older platforms. I’ve learned a few lessons and pitfalls along the way that might help.
Even a few minutes exposure to a screenful of macOS Tahoe’s windows demonstrates how its new design goes out of its way to ignore those essential insights, and present us with controls that are either bleached- or blacked-out depending on our choice of appearance mode.
In light mode, with default transparency, tool icons and text are clearly distinguished tonally, as are some controls including buttons and checkboxes. However, text entry fields are indistinguishable from the background, and there’s a general lack of demarcation, particularly between the controls and the list view below.
Oddly, dark mode outlines some controls better than light mode, but text entry fields and the list view below still lack demarcation.
The inconsistency of Apple Music’s toolbar in #macOSTahoe is annoying. Sometimes you get the blur, sometimes you get the solid toolbar, and other times you get nothing.
Ȩ̵̣̹̗̥̳̩͇͌̎̀̋̄̈́͌̚͜͠n̵̢̢̧̛̦̫̘̜̞̻͍̫̆̐̀̐̃j̷̢̢̨̦͔̲͓̻̬͕̼̥̲͎̏̒̈́͐̈̓́ȫ̶̦͎y̴͍͐̉̌̒ ̷̢̛̤̖̺͓͉͓͔̜̥̑̅͐̈́͑̒̈́͐̌̚͝ͅḀ̴̡̘̝̊̈́̐̎̈́͒̊̅p̸̬̮͇̘̞̣̣̤̹͚̪͍̤̰͋̽͌̄̆̆̎̈́̑̍̈́́̌͘͜͠p̴͎̼͖̥͈̞̼͊̓̈́̿͗̂̾̌̚l̸̢̨͔͕̦͉͖͓͕̦̰̠̝̾e̴̙̹͛͑̊͌̅̓͒̏͛̀̊̓̕'̴̛͇̫̙͋̓͑͐͌̂͜ͅś̵̡̺̬͇̠̺͎͗ ̵̟̭̠̦̺͎̯̪̪͎͔̩̜̺͛̆͊̈́̓̏́̀͑̏͒͘̚͝N̸̺̟̳̙̝̺̪͉͋̈́͐̃̑͋̓̂̅̾ͅe̷̩͑̑w̶̗̫̱̥͓̳͌̾̿̅̾̌̊̅̕ͅ ̶̢̧̼̘̼͆̏̐̈́͝M̶̢̻̘̻̱͚͙̭̚5̷̡̛͔͇̭͚̯̞̪̍́͋̀̀̈́͋̏͑͛͆͘͝!̷̥̭̠̗͋̂͐̓͑͋͆͑̐̇
The debate over Liquid Glass needs to be put into context. It’s not just an isolated incident. Apple has been systematically wrecking the Mac UI for many years: System Settings, Big Sur, Catalyst, etc. To evaluate Liquid Glass “on its own merits” is to ignore history.
Any theory you formulate that Apple has some unstated “good” reasons for its UI choices now has to account for ALL of the data, i.e., the historical data, the history of obviously bad UI choices.
Statistically, nobody cares about Liquid Glass. There has been no user revolt, no viral TikToks, no nothing. Nobody’s even complaining about the Music app. On the flipside, nobody is proclaiming its virtues, either. It just kinda… is, and everybody is moving on with their lives.
The only thing anybody seems to care about is transparent & tinted icons — which a certain kind of person seems to love
Previously:
- On Liquid Glass
- How to Turn Liquid Glass Into a Solid Interface
- Tahoe Window Corners
- Liquid Glass: Content vs. Controls
- Liquid Glass Is Cracked
- iPadOS 26
- macOS Tahoe 26
- iOS 26
- Assorted Notes on Liquid Glass
Update (2025-10-17): JF Martin:
I started working on this website after Apple’s WWDC conference in early July with the following goals in mind.
Demonstrate that the beta cycle that follows the initial release at the WWDC conference doesn’t bring substantial improvements.
Demonstrate that Liquid Glass is a serious regression and that it will not age well over time.
Apple painted itself in the corner with Liquid Glass and the desire for UI-unification across its platforms.
Lots of screenshots and videos.
Update (2025-10-20): Pierre Igot:
How these sliders are supposed to be perceived as not disabled and actually clickable, I simply do not know. It goes against all my intuitions and decades of experience using a Mac.
Update (2025-11-07): Juli Clover:
Apple is promoting the new Liquid Glass design in iOS 26, showing off the ways that third-party developers are embracing the aesthetic in their apps. On its developer website, Apple is featuring a visual gallery that demonstrates how “teams of all sizes” are creating Liquid Glass experiences.
Update (2025-11-14): Mario Guzmán:
I do not like the standard controls in #macOSTahoe. Why are they gray now instead of a brighter color? They look f’n disabled.
There is no consistency because some things are so pronounced (like the selected iCloud toolbar button) white other actual, enabled buttons are so de-emphasized they look disabled.
Update (2025-11-18): Louie Mantia:
I’ve been designing for iOS since it was called iPhoneOS, and just one screenshot of a German localization all those years ago made me aware of the impact of my decisions.
As I look at this 2025 screenshot from the Apple Store app, I am befuddled. This is not an “edge case.”
Every Fricking time I see the top of my ical window I’m scared my graphics card or monitor is fried. (the way appointments look when they blurred behind the class looks just like a bug or device breakage.)
If you haven’t been able to ship your iOS/macOS 26 update yet and have been feeling bad about it, just remember:
Apple still hasn’t shipped iWork with Liquid Glass, and Apple also opted all its pro apps out of Liquid Glass.
Final Cut Pro on iPad still doesn’t support the background video exporting feature that was added to iPadOS 26 specifically to enable it.
Swift Playground doesn’t even support the iOS 26 SDK, so you can’t build Liquid Glass apps with it even if you wanted to
Update (2025-11-26): MacStories:
Last month, we featured 15 great examples of apps that have adopted Apple’s Liquid Glass design language and latest APIs. Today, the MacStories team is sharing nine more of our favorite updates that take advantage of Apple’s latest technologies.
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I haven't touched or wanted to see Liquid Glass since my criticisms a few months ago when this… thing was still in Beta.
But it's funny to see that nothing has really changed in the current debate on Liquid Glass. It means that nothing has really changed in Liquid Glass either. Maybe a sprinkle of little improvements to make it a bit more digestible.
If you're a developer who hates Liquid Glass, I'll say don't scramble to glassify your app. Don't let Apple dictate your design. Even if the alternative seems counterintuitive at a practical (= business) level.
Pasi Salenius said, "I don’t think the general public cares one bit. Nobody gives a 5 star review because an app supports the new iOS UI. Nobody buys an app because of that." And I strongly agree with them. I'm gathering the results of a poll I sent to my sample of 200 regular users, and while it's not a big sample, these people hail from all over the world, have very different jobs, are in a 20-60 age range. From what I've seen so far, very few of them give a damn about Liquid Glass.
Liquid Glass is as if a Desktop Linux sleeper agent succeeded in his mission.
I agree with Jeff but go further. It's more than a decade+ of bad UI; it's a decade+ of bad software.
A decade+ of LeetCode hires and know-nothing Careerists running amok have beat the institutional software knowledge out of the company. Steve Jobs's Apple University project has been supplanted by Tim Cook's Shareholder University.
Now now Hammer, don’t you know that Apple engineers visit social media and might get offended? We mustn’t offend them by mentioning how terrible their software, design and dev tooling is, it’s not politically correct. Instead, let’s blame it ALL on management. Perhaps just on Tim Cook. Because that’s how huge corporations function.
"Liquid Glass is not an aberration. It’s continuation of everything Apple has been getting wrong about UI for more than a decade."
I feel like Jeff is the only one calling this out for what it is. At the risk of sounding like a douchebag, I was hating Apple's UI changes before it was cool! (And I've got the proof: I wrote a hack to reverse Apple's stupid change to Mission Control that ruins multiple desktops back in macOS 10.11! https://github.com/briankendall/forceFullDesktopBar Little did I realize it was a portent of things to come. )
It's nice that everyone else is generally on board with disliking the changes to Apple's UI, especially the macOS UI, but where were they when Big Sur came out? Where were they when the Catalyst apps were hot garbage?
Frankly Big Sur to me is a worse than Liquid Glass, because that's when everything *really* started going wrong. Apple double-downed on all of the worst trends of modern UI with that change, and Liquid Glass is basically the *same* design just with, you know, translucent glass effects that make it even worse. But the original sin was in Big Sur.
I'm not too pleased with the change in 10.10 either. Really the best Apple UI was in the 10.5-10.9 era.
Yeah, @Bri, I'd agree the rot started with 10.10. The blinding, hyperactive white and "dark mode" that only made the menubar and context menus dark. The yucky Helvetica Nueue typeface. The bugs and quirks, probably mostly from auto-layout.
10.7 felt very transitional and awkward. 10.8 fixed a lot. 10.9 was as close to perfection as we ever got. Too bad the perfection was so shortly-lived, got clobbered only a year later. I agree that 10.5 and 10.6 were very well polished, too.
26 is the first Apple OS I am intentionally not ever updating my personal devices to. I went so far as to upgrade my older phone to a 16 Pro just before 26 was released so that I wouldn’t be stuck with it. I have to use 26 on my work devices. I can’t wrap my head around the vocal users who clamor for MORE liquid glass, more transparency, more legibility issues.
@Bri I remember there being a pretty big outcry over Big Sur’s reveal and eventual release. But I think there was much more of a sense back then that Apple would pull back on its worst tendencies, and that blunted some of that outcry. This time, after five years of Big Sur’s worst tendencies, that faith is mostly evaporated and the outcry is mostly unchallenged. Still see articles by people high on hopium that Apple will pull back on this, but mostly it’s just despair.
@Billyok I do remember the commentariat here having some harsh words to say about Big Sur's redesign, as well as some prominent writers and other power users. But past that there wasn't much. Liquid Glass on the other hand is bringing out criticism from pretty much everyone, including casual users. Maybe that means it'll finally be an inflection point for Apple, but I'm not betting on it.
It was disheartening with Big Sur, because the people pointing out its obvious flaws were the proverbial canary in the coalmine, and the response at large was either not listening or actively being in denial. And now we have Liquid Glass, which is the proverbial "we're being suffocated by toxic gasses in the coalmine, why didn't we pay attention to the canary" moment.
That belabored metaphor doesn't really work, though, because there isn't anything anyone could've done, outside of whoever it is at Apple that keeps making all of these terrible decisions. And they've been on this trajectory for over ten years, and keep doubling down as everything falls apart around them. And they still are -- there's no sign of reversing, only everything getting worse, and faster.
Can you imagine what macOS is going to be like in another five years?
I don’t even want to think about MacOS 31. But my one naive hope is that if these touchscreen Mac rumors are true, it will at least compel them to bring back at least *some* of the interface controls that have gradually gone hidden over the past 5 years. Can’t mouse hover with a finger (though I’m sure they’re trying to find a way to make it so we can).
If Apple pulls a Windows 8 and tries to combine touch and desktop UI paradigms then the disaster that is fill far outweigh it forcing them to get rid of some of their hover zones.
Also, that's the sort of horrible decision that they *would* make, in spite of saying they wouldn't do it years ago and in spite of Microsoft having tried that and demonstrating what a failure it is.
"I was hating Apple's UI changes before it was cool!"
Brushed Metal was Apple's original sin. That's when they went from "these are the rules, these are the widgets" to "eh, this is kinda cool, let's just do it."
The brushed metal QuickTime Player came out in the late 90s, pinstripes in the early 00s, so chronologically, pinstripes couldn't have been the original sin.
> On its developer website, Apple is featuring a visual gallery that demonstrates how “teams of all sizes” are creating Liquid Glass experiences.
Apart from making it more difficult to see the buttons and read their titles, I'm not sure I see a positive difference.
I also love how these new animations for these buttons are supposed to have a point when your fingers are covering them.
But according to the Quiche Developer, this is probably because I was a developer before Apple introduced the iPhone... with a skeuomorphism UI.
