Apple's Liquid Glass UI marks the end of flat design
5 Penguin_ 6 6/12/2025, 11:06:26 PM
Designer here. I wrote this piece after watching WWDC25 and realizing how drastically Apple just shifted its UI paradigm.
It’s not flat. It’s not skeuomorphic. It’s something new — a tactile, motion-driven, almost emotional interface approach. They’re calling it “Liquid Glass UI,” and it breaks nearly every design convention we’ve followed for the last decade.
Curious to hear what folks here think. Is this Apple getting ahead of the curve… or just overdesigning for the sake of aesthetics?
Article here if you want the full breakdown: https://medium.com/@dahsmartgirl/apple-just-killed-flat-design-at-wwdc25-heres-what-it-means-for-ux-8a84cdf00234
Windows Aero: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Aero
What Apple’s doing here feels deeper. It’s not just a style layer, it’s starting to drive how the UI behaves. Motion, depth, and light are all working together to create more emotion in the interface.
Could be overkill, could be the start of something bigger. Time will tell.
This argument is tired and worn out. Fuck it. Grow up, use a computer as a bicycle, don’t worry about whateverthefuck color it is.
You don’t have to care about glass, but don’t pretend design doesn’t shape how people use software.
Although I didn't think we'd forget Mac Aqua, Windows Aero and Glassmorphism so soon. Three different times in the last 25 years when this trend kept popping up. Except... worse every time.
Aqua was simple and functional. Slightly cheesy maybe, but very usable. At the time, impressive. While Liquid Glass is... a bizarre display of form over function. Its transparent with the aim of blending in, and then performatively distorting the light behind, even diffracting it into a rainbow in some components (?!) which is the opposite of "blending in". It distracts by design.
But Liquid Glass isn’t just aesthetic reuse, it’s a reframe.
This time, the visual noise isn’t a byproduct. It’s the product. It’s meant to provoke, to feel alive, to signal a shift toward interfaces that are less tool, more experience.
Is it distracting? 100%. Is it usable? Not really. But is it worth paying attention to? Definitely.
Because when Apple makes something this bizarre, they’re usually early, not wrong.