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.

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.