O … K … FINE.
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So I am now living the Liquid Glass Horror, and…it’s not what I expected.
Based on the screenshots and the complaints, I was expecting special effects overkill, a phone trying to look like a PS5 game trying to look like Minority Report.
But…
…it’s not even that. It’s just ugly. Bad layouts. Bad margins. Bad proportions. Awkward animations. Flickers and flashes. Content peeking through all the negative space so that the screen is filled with visual noise. It feels designed by committee. It feels pasted together.
The feel of Apple products has covered a lot of ground over the decades. They’ve felt elegant. They’ve felt basic. They’ve felt bauble-y and cute. They’ve felt futuristic. They’ve felt practical. But this is the first time I can recall an Apple product feeling •cheap•.
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@inthehands Much of the hand-wringing about Liquid Glass makes me roll my eyes. People need better hobbies.
@tantramar
Then you won’t like my reply -
…it’s not even that. It’s just ugly. Bad layouts. Bad margins. Bad proportions. Awkward animations. Flickers and flashes. Content peeking through all the negative space so that the screen is filled with visual noise. It feels designed by committee. It feels pasted together.
The feel of Apple products has covered a lot of ground over the decades. They’ve felt elegant. They’ve felt basic. They’ve felt bauble-y and cute. They’ve felt futuristic. They’ve felt practical. But this is the first time I can recall an Apple product feeling •cheap•.
Please take a moment to study this horrifying screenshot.
Ask:
- What here is negative space?
- What is information-bearing space?
- What space is neither of the above: usefully conveys no information, but adds visual noise?And…wtf is that horizontal gray bar doing there?!
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…it’s not even that. It’s just ugly. Bad layouts. Bad margins. Bad proportions. Awkward animations. Flickers and flashes. Content peeking through all the negative space so that the screen is filled with visual noise. It feels designed by committee. It feels pasted together.
The feel of Apple products has covered a lot of ground over the decades. They’ve felt elegant. They’ve felt basic. They’ve felt bauble-y and cute. They’ve felt futuristic. They’ve felt practical. But this is the first time I can recall an Apple product feeling •cheap•.
@inthehands thats how I describe it exactly. It just feels (and behaves) cheap.
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…it’s not even that. It’s just ugly. Bad layouts. Bad margins. Bad proportions. Awkward animations. Flickers and flashes. Content peeking through all the negative space so that the screen is filled with visual noise. It feels designed by committee. It feels pasted together.
The feel of Apple products has covered a lot of ground over the decades. They’ve felt elegant. They’ve felt basic. They’ve felt bauble-y and cute. They’ve felt futuristic. They’ve felt practical. But this is the first time I can recall an Apple product feeling •cheap•.
@inthehands It reminds me of the Enlightenment linux desktop from the 90s, when everything had to be transparent for the awesome screenshots, before turning everything down again to be able to actually use the computer.
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@tantramar
Then you won’t like my reply@inthehands There are, of course, edge cases and poor decisions. There always are.
But it’s mostly… fine?
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Please take a moment to study this horrifying screenshot.
Ask:
- What here is negative space?
- What is information-bearing space?
- What space is neither of the above: usefully conveys no information, but adds visual noise?And…wtf is that horizontal gray bar doing there?!
@inthehands also square inside squircle inside oval with rectangle selection and...
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Please take a moment to study this horrifying screenshot.
Ask:
- What here is negative space?
- What is information-bearing space?
- What space is neither of the above: usefully conveys no information, but adds visual noise?And…wtf is that horizontal gray bar doing there?!
@inthehands The way you’re asking these hard hitting questions… it’s almost like you are an interface detective. And just like real detectives, you write your notes on clear glass panes in the middle of the office so you can see “through” the notes to the rest of the office or even out the window! That’s what I’ve learned about how real detectives operate from every tv crime drama. I think Apple just finally caught up to best practices (for fictional tv detectives).
🤪🤪🤪
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Please take a moment to study this horrifying screenshot.
Ask:
- What here is negative space?
- What is information-bearing space?
- What space is neither of the above: usefully conveys no information, but adds visual noise?And…wtf is that horizontal gray bar doing there?!
@inthehands it is an embarrassing pile of garbage and I’m kind of surprised they haven’t just rolled it back.
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Please take a moment to study this horrifying screenshot.
Ask:
- What here is negative space?
- What is information-bearing space?
- What space is neither of the above: usefully conveys no information, but adds visual noise?And…wtf is that horizontal gray bar doing there?!
Let’s remove that clearly-a-bug gray bar. Better.
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…it’s not even that. It’s just ugly. Bad layouts. Bad margins. Bad proportions. Awkward animations. Flickers and flashes. Content peeking through all the negative space so that the screen is filled with visual noise. It feels designed by committee. It feels pasted together.
The feel of Apple products has covered a lot of ground over the decades. They’ve felt elegant. They’ve felt basic. They’ve felt bauble-y and cute. They’ve felt futuristic. They’ve felt practical. But this is the first time I can recall an Apple product feeling •cheap•.
@inthehands assuming you've tried setting "reduce transparency" and "increase contrast"? I'm pretty severely visually impaired, and was scared of the new interface, but those two settings seemed to obviate almost all of the liquid glass crap. That said, I completely agree with you that it was a stupid Apple move, and Apple's been de-prioritizing usability for quite a while I think
Edit: also, dark mode may help. Not sure because I can't see the screen enough to tell what's going on unless it's in dark mode, but you might wanna give that a try. I could see enough of your screenshot to tell your screen was in light mode. But again, I completely agree with you: you shouldn't have to screw around with a bunch of settings to avoid all the liquid glass horrors, especially since liquid glass serves no obvious purpose other than to, well I can't figure out what purpose it might serve actually
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@inthehands it is an embarrassing pile of garbage and I’m kind of surprised they haven’t just rolled it back.
@inthehands the Home Screen of the Preview app is a particular mess. Weird background things stacked on top of each other that you can’t even tap. Just clutter.
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Let’s remove that clearly-a-bug gray bar. Better.
Now look at what •should• be negative space around the address bar and X button (highlighted in the second image). Does it add any useful information? No. Does it make the screen visually harder to parse? Yes.
My dudes, what are you even.
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Now look at what •should• be negative space around the address bar and X button (highlighted in the second image). Does it add any useful information? No. Does it make the screen visually harder to parse? Yes.
My dudes, what are you even.
Let’s turn those gaps into actual negative space. Better.
The margins are all screwy here still. The layout manages to be waste space •and• still somehow be too tight. And don’t even get me started on having •two• “X” buttons right next to each other that do completely different things! But hey…I’m just some rando with an image editor and 10 minutes, and I’ve managed to bring it halfway back to looking as good as the previous iOS version.
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…it’s not even that. It’s just ugly. Bad layouts. Bad margins. Bad proportions. Awkward animations. Flickers and flashes. Content peeking through all the negative space so that the screen is filled with visual noise. It feels designed by committee. It feels pasted together.
The feel of Apple products has covered a lot of ground over the decades. They’ve felt elegant. They’ve felt basic. They’ve felt bauble-y and cute. They’ve felt futuristic. They’ve felt practical. But this is the first time I can recall an Apple product feeling •cheap•.
@inthehands My biggest objection to things like this is less about how things look and more about how unnecessary User Interface changes affect my flow state. For me for iOS 26, this was 95% about Safari.
For anyone else affected this way, the good news is you can quickly make Safari mostly like iOS 18 by switching to "Bottom" layout.
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…it’s not even that. It’s just ugly. Bad layouts. Bad margins. Bad proportions. Awkward animations. Flickers and flashes. Content peeking through all the negative space so that the screen is filled with visual noise. It feels designed by committee. It feels pasted together.
The feel of Apple products has covered a lot of ground over the decades. They’ve felt elegant. They’ve felt basic. They’ve felt bauble-y and cute. They’ve felt futuristic. They’ve felt practical. But this is the first time I can recall an Apple product feeling •cheap•.
@inthehands macOS since Big Sur has felt cheap. That was where it was obvious that Apple was going full onto form over function.
A visual comparison of macOS Catalina and Big Sur
This post is an attempt to provide a visual comparison of pretty dramatic UI changes between macOS Catalina and Big Sur.
Andrew Denty (www.andrewdenty.com)
Seems like Liquid Glass is more of the same.
Apple is no different from any other player in the industry when it comes to software now, and possibly even worse because people somehow think that what they do is GOOD, so they copy it and foist it onto the rest of the industry.
Unfortunately, they are just coasting on past glories.
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Let’s turn those gaps into actual negative space. Better.
The margins are all screwy here still. The layout manages to be waste space •and• still somehow be too tight. And don’t even get me started on having •two• “X” buttons right next to each other that do completely different things! But hey…I’m just some rando with an image editor and 10 minutes, and I’ve managed to bring it halfway back to looking as good as the previous iOS version.
Note that none of the complaints above are about the much-maligned transparency effects (which I have turned off). This is just basic, ground-level 2D design stuff that even this not-a-real-designer rando can pick apart.
The flagship product of one of the wealthiest companies on earth. Seriously.
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Now look at what •should• be negative space around the address bar and X button (highlighted in the second image). Does it add any useful information? No. Does it make the screen visually harder to parse? Yes.
My dudes, what are you even.
@inthehands also violating the cardinal rule of browsers: never mix chrome and site UI because then you can't tell if it's being spoofed
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Note that none of the complaints above are about the much-maligned transparency effects (which I have turned off). This is just basic, ground-level 2D design stuff that even this not-a-real-designer rando can pick apart.
The flagship product of one of the wealthiest companies on earth. Seriously.
@inthehands From looking at some screenshots it seems the UI is a bit less dense, but in a way that is not controllable and will hurt usability at least for me. This is not new, iOS 7 was also a disaster for usability that got slowly unwound over the years, but I'm out of patience for living in someone else's bad UI idea showcase.
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Note that none of the complaints above are about the much-maligned transparency effects (which I have turned off). This is just basic, ground-level 2D design stuff that even this not-a-real-designer rando can pick apart.
The flagship product of one of the wealthiest companies on earth. Seriously.
@inthehands Yup, it’s just good old fashioned buggy, both in behavior and design. Apple’s quality has been sliding for a while, so I assume it’s a cultural shift within the organization. Sad
