Liquid Glass Is Permanent

> Their reaction? Genuine shock. They were actually concerned that developers were holding onto this position.

Have they been into the marketing team's stash again? This is actually insane and completely disconnected with reality.

Apple is unbelievably arrogant and out-of-touch. Even Microsoft undid the Vista and Windows 8 UI experiments after users rejected it.

I read Danny's article differently:

> those who don’t adopt it now “are gonna find themselves in a tough position later.”

Not Electron guys, not the MS Office team, not game devs. Basically, everyone *not* using AppKit/UIKit/SwiftUI doesn't have to worry much about Liquid Ass. Their stuff isn't going to break much.

Apple's stack should be viewed as a liability and timesink, where you get taken for a ride because Apple can't take criticism so they keep doubling-down on stupid. I see it with UI, Swift, basically everything.

> it’s time to accept and get into the new system.

It's time to de-Apple my dev and stop caring about "fitting in" and being "native" with a platform that's turned into a broken, inconsistent, ugly mess.

What’s completely disconnected from reality is this idea that Apple might completely roll back Liquid Glass. Uh huh, sure. Take a breath, put on your big girl panties, and figure out how to handle it.

In five years, you can go on Marco’s podcast and whine like little boys about it.

Total: I know this is going to blow your mind but maybe just maybe Apple did something poorly.

> “Now, we are living through a reset. We are back at Version 1.0.

The Apple engineers explained that a massive part of the initial Liquid Glass rollout was simply ensuring the foundation was solid. It had to be functional, it had to meet incredibly strict styling guidelines across every single Apple platform, and most importantly, it just had to work.”

Do they **really** think what we got was a solid functional foundation that just works‽

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. The detractors are a VERY LOUD peanut gallery.

If that is so, then the peanut gallery’s taste is better than Apple’s taste, which is almost as embarrassing as shipping MacOS 26 in the state it’s in.

> Their reaction? Genuine shock. They were actually concerned that developers were holding onto this position. They made it emphatically clear that Liquid Glass is absolutely moving forward, evolving, and expanding across the ecosystem.

Interesting article from Danny but it reads like it is written by a naive fanboy who hasn't been around the block enough times to realise that what Apple says is true until it isn't. The session sounded like it was staffed by one actual engineer and a suite of developer evangelists (e.g. Marketing swill).

What would an Apple marketer say about their still-new UI design system, in an Apple session setup to promote that design system, to developers who think it is a valuable use of their time to listen to such drivel?

"Yeah, despite a long history of design leadership, we're actually not that great at UI anymore and we released a half-baked UI which prioritises gimmicks over usability. Sure everyone who is a long time user generally hates it. And general consumers don't seem excited or interested by it. But, we're going to keep at it because, well, we've run out of genuine skill and insight. So our attempt at Aqua 2.0 failed. So what. It doesn't really matter as we make a ton of money as part of a mobile ecosystem duopoly. Enough money that we can pretend that we are still good at UI design, and run our software design legacy into the ground for at least the next two decades. We're happy to coast on prior successes and our predatory business practices. What are you going to do about it?"

Do I think Liquid Glass will be "rolled back"?

No - after the ongoing Apple Intelligence debacle, Apple cannot afford another highly visible public retreat.

Will Liquid Glass evolve? Of course.

And if Apple is still capable of taking on feedback and criticism, it should evolve by honestly re-thinking and changing some of the most egregious issues.

From the very start Apple also hasn't been honest about what I think are two of the true goals of Liquid Glass:
1. Reduce implementation costs for Apple by providing a "write once, run anywhere" UI across all of their operating systems. Having differentiated UIs for their devices must have become too high a time and engineering cost to continue internally.
2. Ensure clear differentiation from cross-platform UI frameworks like Electron etc. So much of Liquid Glass seems to be based upon the premise of how can a UI toolkit be designed so that is difficult to replicate using web technologies. Glass effects, morphing and stretching content, overwrought visuals for simple controls (toggles etc), HDR effects. These are some of the gimmicks that seem to be implemented primarily so that it is simple to tell what is a native 'Liquid Glass' app and what is an app built use other cross-platform UI frameworks.

Keep in mind that we learned Alan Dye isn’t the only one responsible for Liquid Glass.

The Apple team Danny mentioned is actually “Developer Relations and Design Evangelists.”

This means it is the wrong team to ask, and it is the wrong question to begin with.

The question really should be something like: “When are we going to see as much care put into macOS as we see in iOS?”

I would bet the honest answer is that it will happen once the Mac becomes as profitable as the iPhone.

Until then what was once insanely great will turn even more greatly insane.

> I have SO many examples of this. Text fields that are cut off, text color choices that render text completely unreadable. In this regard, Apple design has lost the thread.

I mean System Settings was (and still is) a terrible app with all kinds of bugs and glitches. And that was flagship swiftui and they proudly promote it as the future so I can’t say I’m surprised to read this.

Everything is the future for like 5 years until they it’s not. Then there is something NEW and the cycle repeats all over again

Anonymous: you can keep saying that, but it doesn’t make it true. It also doesn’t make Liquid Glass good.

Macs used to be far better than Linux or Windows machines in terms of design and lack of paper cuts, but it is increasingly not the case.

The fact that Apple’s team is *this* out of touch that they don’t even know developers were hoping they’d correct course on Liquid Glass does *not* bode well

Are they also unaware that the public also vocally dislikes liquid glass in a way no Apple UI has ever been vocally disliked by the public?

This is a disaster

"The Apple engineers explained that a massive part of the initial Liquid Glass rollout was simply ensuring the foundation was solid. It had to be functional, it had to meet incredibly strict styling guidelines across every single Apple platform, and most importantly, it just had to work."

To quote Steve Jobs...

"Then why the fuck doesn't it do that?"

Also, what a disrespectful "screw you" to Intel Mac owners, to strand them on the janktastic beta quality first version of a UI design, that you shipped, planning for it to be "fixed" in subsequent versions that would be AS only.

"Also, what a disrespectful "screw you" to Intel Mac owners, to strand them on the janktastic beta quality first version of a UI design, that you shipped, planning for it to be "fixed" in subsequent versions that would be AS only."

Intel Mac owners are not stranded:

They can install an older version of macOS (two of which are still receiving updates).
They can install a Linux distro.
They can install Windows.

> What’s completely disconnected from reality is this idea that Apple might completely roll back Liquid Glass. Uh huh, sure. Take a breath, put on your big girl panties, and figure out how to handle it.
> In five years, you can go on Marco’s podcast and whine like little boys about it.

More likely: native dev is going down as not worth it anymore and most will use cross platform tech.
In five years, you will cry like little girls that there is no more "native" apps for the Mac.

I've had the feeling for some time that Liquid Glass was developed as a foundational piece of Apple's vision for visionOS, expanded as part of their ever-progressing and oft misguided push to unify the UIs across their various OS instead of playing to the strengths of each, and now this transparent usability nightmare is an Apple Metaverse-like AR pipe dream gone wrong and they're being as stubborn about it as they were about butterfly keyboard mechanisms.

Meanwhile, Siri is as dumb as a rock and they're incredibly far behind on all things AI, even basic analytical and assistive tool integrations. They are working in this direction but in the meantime I can't get driving directions or simple information via voice interface without a fight.

Well designed, fast hardware wasn't balancing any of this out for me, at least on the Mac. I've been slowly moving away for a while (ranted a bit here in the past) and finally fully ejected not long ago. Everything seems stable and predictable again on other platforms, with much customization to decrapify, but at least that is achievable. For how long, who knows, but I have stuff to do and I don't have years to wait for Apple to fix what has become a very long list of concerns.

To be clear, Liquid Glass was the icing on the cake for me. Reproducible data loss and related issues pre-Tahoe really made me think twice about macOS as a daily driver for sensitive work. cp doesn't work with symbolic links like the manpage indicates it should. Dragging many files in Finder results in individual files flying around the screen like Space Invaders, and dropping them on the target window copies to a completely different physical disk. Don't get me started on failed copies due to extended attributes that verifiably do not exist on the affected files. Remember the blank PDFs thing? I could rail on Sequioa, Ventura, and Monterey. Instead, I moved all of my data to other systems. Enough is enough. By choice I am not entrenched in Apple's apps or services offerings so it was easier for me to switch away than for others, no doubt.

Come to the other side, we have cookies.

@Michael I still love DropDMG and wish a cross-platform DropVeraCrypt app existed.

Anyone starting a new project now and using Apple's stack is not acting rationally. You can either deal with their shit and be limited to Apple's platforms, or use a much more developer- and user-friendly option and target other platforms as well. You have to be delusional to pick the former.

Not sure this article from Danny Bollela is interesting at all. It’s basically an advertisement: we have on one side the culprits responsible for Liquid Argh! and SwiftUI and on the other side, a consultant who wants to sell his services to “help” companies adopt these 2 terrible solutions. I wonder what the conclusion of the article will be…

For me the irony is that the Apple hardware is so good now (especially since Ive left), that they could've just maintained, say Big Sur, for five years with only bug fixes, and I would be a very happy camper. For AI, just provide extension points that third-party providers can hook into.

Apple is destroying its platform with weird obsessions (first the iPad obsession and now the effects of the Vision Pro obsession) and the need of Cook to squeeze out profits of everything (Maps ads, putting ads inside iWork apps). In the end, the platform becomes more like everyone else - inconsistent, ads, drab. What's the point of buying a premium device if it does not feel premium anymore?

This is very very worrying. Apple seems to have forgotten the most basic lesson: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. There is no force of nature requiring redesigning the operating system every couple of years and it serves nobody but the desiners looking to make their mark. The developers want to make thier apps better, and deliver more features and fix bugs, not rewritting their apps to confrom with the latest design craze in Cupertino and the users want to be able to continue using a familiar, pleasent UI.

Didn't Apple do a big purge where they booted any app not adhering to their visual guidelines? I think that's what's in store for devs trying to circumvent Glass.

Honestly, the piece reads like an advertisement more than anything else.

Corporations often feel the need to continuously define and redefine the future of whatever they touch, lest they end up subservient to others' direction. It makes sense but also requires humility, not stubbornness, to shed the mistakes that prevent alternative positive directions.

@Kristoffer, honestly, who would want to be on the macOS App Store anyway these days?

Liquid Glass is bad on iOS, but completely terrible on macOS.

> what i’d love, love to see is them - or anyone - come up with is a system vision that bakes in accessibility and pro / studio app design first.

So basically what we had in Mac OS X 10.5 and 10.6.

On the one hand, it shouldn't be surprising that when Apple takes a big step, they don't want to step back, even when developers hate it. Think of Carbon not making the transition to 64-bit, for example.

On the other hand, this new UI seems to be near-universally hated by *users*. Aqua was initially somewhat controversial, but I haven't read a single positive review of Liquid Glass. You'd have to have intentionally avoided the entire internet developer community for the past year to be surprised. This is somewhat worrying.

I suspect that if Liquid Glass doesn't get a serious usability upgrade soon, Mac developers are going to start trying alternative GUI toolkits and/or leaving the App Store. Brent Simmons once said "One of the reasons I develop for OS X is that, when it comes to user interface, this is the big leagues, this is the show." If Apple can no longer provide a platform for the best possible user interfaces, developers will find someone who can.

Part of me hopes that this is Apple's attempt at a Golden Path, and that The Scattering will reinvent desktop user interfaces. But I'm not sure the Apple of today is that clever, or that brave.

Can we have Scott Forstall back now.

@Tim I very much appreciate the Dune reference, but I don't think Apple are nearly clever or forward thinking enough for that. I think this is exactly what it appears to be: internal dysfunction and incompetence.

At this point there's not much that will make me feel optimistic about the direction Apple is going. Replacing Tim Cook with a prescient human-worm hybrid however is one of the things that would.

Strict internal styling guides? The corner radii on windows are a huge mess, and they didn't even bother to put glass effects on the traffic lights. We still have all these elements of flat design from 2013 hanging around, too. This is far from an "Aqua 2.0," and I think most of the attitude problems from users/customers is that they're defending this shoddy idea and implementation. Mac OS X went through... 4 developer previews... to get Aqua right. Apple took feedback and made earnest efforts to improve and refine. This is not even comparable.

With that said, I do have to agree that these kinds of consistency issues make it make a lot less sense to target native Apple platforms. I've said it here before, but I have had a much better experience with Flutter vs SwiftUI, and Flutter: is cross platform, not web tech (electron or react native), and can completely side-step these UI messes Apple has been making. Avalonia is another option for desktop applications, and again, doesn't rely on system UI frameworks.

@Ben

> I do have to agree that these kinds of consistency issues make it make a lot less sense to target native Apple platforms.

I would argue the entire design style of Apple's OS' Big Sur forward has been about normalising webtech / cross platform UI conventions (eg fade-in centring dialogs within windows, rather than animating them out as sheets from the top of the window - conveniently all stuff CSS / JS does out of the box), so that the shocking scale of developers abandoning native development was less apparent.

@Tim

> Brent Simmons once said "One of the reasons I develop for OS X is that, when it comes to user interface, this is the big leagues, this is the show." If Apple can no longer provide a platform for the best possible user interfaces, developers will find someone who can.

The thing is, find an Apple developer willing to move to a non-Apple technology. They'll complain till they're blue in the face, but where's the Android version of Overcast. Show me someone complaining about SwiftUI who'll actually move their app to (for example) Qt.

@THURSTYJERK All of those options are unsatisfactory. Only the current release of macOS has the furthest EOL and actually *gets* all the available security updates, not to speak of interoperability with iCloud and their hardware. Windows 10 is EOL and once MS pulls driver cross-signing Windows 11 will probably be completely unviable. And Linux? Well, yes, if you don't mind using unstable prebuilt kernels or dkms …

@Bri Yeah, I got started with 10.5, and 10.6 was terrific. Not perfect, of course, and there were nice changes in subsequent releases, but really, all is forgiven. Apple do not approach problems from the general perspective and design a multimodal approach to solving them anymore; they simply implement whatever visual design "language" they want, without regard to correctness, and a11y is the casualty. Very sad.

My Linux phone arrives today. It’ll be a while before I get everything transferred, but I now have Linux equivalents to my MacBook Air M2 (which is now running OpenBSD), my iPad, and my iPhone. I’m still using the Apple hardware as I migrate 40 years worth of data out of Apple systems, but that will not last forever.

Liquid Glass was the straw that broke the camel’s back, but dropping support for HFS CDs was also a huge deal. It’s sad that I now fire up a Linux laptop in order to read my old Macintosh backup CDs, but that’s the position Apple put me into. And there has been over a decade of paper cuts from Apple changes.

Good riddance.