This beautifully summed up a lot of what I've been thinking about Liquid Glass since I first saw it. A lot of it doesn't really make sense - in an effort to make usability clearer, they are designing everything to look the same and create more empty space for... vibes?
As the years have gone on, it feels like computers are slowly losing every ounce of personality they once had. Software should be delightful to use! Computers felt fun! I'm hoping we eventually get through this minimal/bland era of UI design and come back around to design with a little creativity.
It feels like Apple is trying to subtly introduce the concept of spatial UI for the future, where the norm will be to have controls and content on separate "layers" - but I don't think it should come at a cost of sacrificing the interfaces we already have.
damiante · 1h ago
I see the same sort of thing happening in housing, and I think it's because the nature of the thing has changed.
Houses used to be for families; they were often quirky or strange or emergent, with weird layouts or materials. They may have garish wallpapers or floor to ceiling wood panelling. But these touches were reflective of the personalities of the owners. They met the needs of the specific people who inhabited them.
Nowadays, as houses are more of a commodity, they must be generic. All flat white interiors, straight corners, no cornicing or archetraves or plasterwork or anything to give the home a unique character. Instead it must be a blank canvas such that any inhabitant can put his own things inside it to make it his.
Computers are the same; what was once a niche product for enthusiasts and businesses has now become an instrumental part of nearly every moment of nearly everyone's lives. Thus they also must be generic and same-y, with limited avenues for superficial customisation, so that they can be interchanged or upgraded without jarring the user against the new version or device.
Personally I prefer radical customisation and quirkiness. I find it charming. But it seems that those who are designing (or perhaps only selling) the things disagree with me.
kulahan · 1h ago
Not that I have much of a bone in this fight - I already own a home and don’t plan to ever move (which makes this especially easy for me to say) but generic, identical housing is probably going to be essential moving forward. One of the reasons we haven’t found a way to make home construction faster is because every single project is about as unique as can be.
Not to mention, there are still billions of people needing housing, and with the climate situation we’re already in, building billions of unique homes will make the problem a LOT worse.
Again, I don’t really care much about the issue, but I just think it’s worthwhile to remind people that the American way of life (which developing nations aspire to) is absolutely untenable as far as all modern as currently-feasible technology is concerned. Maybe we could live with not being expressive just on the outside of our houses specifically?
damiante · 42m ago
The solution here is to build more higher-density housing options. Tokyo has very affordable real estate because dwellings are appropriately-sized for dense urban lifestyles and are nearly uniformly mixed-use buildings with retail space on ground floors and residence/office above. Combine this with lax zoning and you have a recipe for affordable housing.
Comparing this to my own city of Melbourne, Australia: high-density dwellings are generally constrained to innercity suburbs and are still seen as undesirable compared to free-standing homes or semi-detached houses. Councils restrict the development of new high-density or mixed-use buildings for what amounts to NIMBYism. Inadequate public transport in the growth areas of the Northern and Western suburbs increases dependence on roads and freeways.
There are options to support affordable living in cities that don't involve covering our farmland and wildlife reserves with uniform white plaster cubes.
bombcar · 46m ago
Some of the similarities are because of the need to produce at cheapest options.
But much, much more are because people have too much an eye on resale value, and if your house is different from all the rest, you reduce your buyer pool.
It costs nearly nothing to make kitchen cabinet heights comfortable for the main user; almost nobody does this even on full custom builds.
GlacierFox · 1h ago
Yeah we need those identical brutalist and easy to build concrete housing estates like on A Clockwork Orange. Or a cookie cutter surrealist hellscape like in Edward Scissor hands. Sounds lovely.
andyferris · 54m ago
> so that they can be interchanged or upgraded without jarring the user against the new version or device
I suppose this is a big point. I used to spend hours... days really... setting up a new PC. Partly because it would take ages just to get everything off the various floppy disks and CD-ROMs and installed onto the HDD, but also because everything was quirky.
Nowadays I hew to the default install of Ubuntu (or Windows + WSL2) and replacing my device (or SSD) or upgrading the OS is basically a seemless experience. I have some .bashrc/git config/etc stuff I can grab quickly and then I'm basically good to go.
nixpulvis · 1h ago
When we all occupy subcultures the macro culture becomes a shell. The least common denominator wins.
ctkhn · 2h ago
I agree, and I'm frustrated this is the new big update because it seems like liquid glass ate up most of the energy that might have gone to a real major feature. Not only is it just UI changes, it looks worse.
mglikesbikes · 20m ago
How many have used the new iOS daily since it was announced?
Gentle reminder that the average Mac user is nontechnical, especially the younger generation. IMO this is Apple slapping a formalized paint on the simplification of iOS 7, and doubling down on iconography (not app icons).
Now all of that said — there are major usability concerns in iOS 26 and the liquid glass design language. The file picker’s previous “Done” has been replaced with a single checkmark. Significant meaning is lost in a few places, and there are super-odd double-X icons (in mobile safari while entering a URL, for example). Safari’s new tab button is now out of reach, while the previous new tab gesture is now new tab group. Context menus expand now, instead of swipe, meaning what used to feel more natural now takes extra taps/muscle memory updates.
That all said, as iOS 7 improved over time and was nailed down, so will this.
To me it’s given the iPhone - an incredibly boring platform/device 18 years in - new life. The new Lock Screen Photo Shuffle is incredibly personable and downright beautiful. From my understanding, a lot of work went into pre-composing app icons, many of which are objectively beautiful.
I’ve found users can’t find buttons “under the thumb” so I’m curious how the dedicated tab bar search will work in practice.
Overall I think for the goals of liquid glass as a design system, it’s something only Apple could do - in a good way.
hcarvalhoalves · 4h ago
> Why would you want to “focus on the underlying content” here? Tab bars and toolbars still cover the underlying content, and the more transparent/translucent they are, the worse. When something fades to the background, it literally ceases to be in the foreground, so there’s no point in focusing on it. This is like proposing an interface that helps you focus your sight on your peripheral vision.
I believe that's exactly what Apple wants. This new design direction appears to be a strategy to unify all UI for VR as well.
If all controls are designed to be translucent, they (Apple) have freedom to put the control anywhere on the user's field of view on VR and allow "focus on the underlying content" (which in the case of VR, is the real world).
Time will tell if this approach makes sense for 2D screens.
vjvjvjvjghv · 4h ago
UI unification strategies for different platforms seem to be very temping but usually make things worse. MS tried it with Windows 8 but it turns out that it made all platforms worse. Not a good tablet and worse desktop experience.
On the other hand, Apple optimized iOS for a phone without unifying with MacOS and was very successful.
Optimizing phones for VR seems a really bad idea.
munificent · 1h ago
Of course it makes things worse.
The whole point of having different platforms in the first place is to cater to different needs, contexts, and user experiences. If they could be unified, they wouldn't be different platforms in the first place.
thmsths · 3h ago
I am not sure if I agree with the conclusion about the Windows 8 UI unification, I still believe it could have made sense. It's just that as is often the case with MS, they let a good idea go to waste by doing a half assed implementation, then backtracking...
No comments yet
jm4 · 4h ago
I liked Liquid Glass when I first saw it. I don't especially like the whole flat look everyone has had going the past few years so I was really looking forward to a refresh.
I downloaded the beta and the more I use it the less I like it. The icons are blurry, washed out and look terrible overall. I have a difficult time using the buttons on the lock screen to activate the flashlight and camera. Most of the time, I push them and the lock screen customization screen comes up instead of the flashlight turning on. I don't know if they changed the geometry of the buttons or what, but I can't reliably use them anymore. There are other instances of low contrast text, weird blurry artifacts and janky animations.
I hope these are all things that get worked out during the beta period. Overall, the whole thing looks unimpressive so far. I keep telling myself that OSX had the same kind of jank during the first beta and it will all work out. I want to roll back to iOS 18, but I can't do that without using iTunes, which isn't possible because I only have Linux machines.
red369 · 1h ago
This may work for you for restoring using Linux, but you'll want good backups:
I use virtual box to run Windows under, precisely to have iTunes to sync my mp3 library to my phone. No streaming here my dudes, you’ll rip (pun intended) my mp3 collection from my cold dead hands.
MangoToupe · 3h ago
> I want to roll back to iOS 18, but I can't do that without using iTunes, which isn't possible because I only have Linux machines.
I don't know about now, but about 20 years ago iTunes worked under Wine to connect with my iPod and perform backups.
foxglacier · 3h ago
God I gave up trying to use the camera from the lock screen because if you fail, it's slower than just unlocking it and using it from the main screen, which is itself pretty unreliably and slow. I wish there was a way to quickly and reliably take photos without constantly fighting the stupidly fragile UI. Back in the day, you could just press the shutter button on your camera and it would take a photo instantly, but somehow we've regressed and nobody cares. It eliminates a whole range of spontaneous photos.
KerrAvon · 2h ago
Apple cares. The iPhone 16 introduces a hardware camera button. You can use to launch to Camera while the phone is locked. You can use it as a shutter button. And other stuff.
Except that it doesn't actually take a photo - it (slowly) launches the camera app, which you can then use to take a photo. You can long press to begin filming a video, but at least by default it won't actually take a photo to press the shutter. Poster above is correct, it's slow enough that I frequently miss spontaneous pictures on my iPhone 16 Pro - as much because of the terrible recessed design of the shutter button as the software delay.
arthurofbabylon · 2h ago
Excellent summary of critiques.
Not mentioned is the peculiar response by the Apple ecosystem pundits. They were oddly supportive of these maladaptive design system changes on the basis of excitement (they can’t afford to be left out of the media momentum…). I believe their collusive tendencies mask what would otherwise be perceived as a major flop or severe error.
Also not mentioned in the piece, I remain curious as to the internal Apple team/culture changes that resulted in this design system failure. What on earth happened?
cedws · 9h ago
The rounding on the corners bothers me more than anything else. It just doesn't look good on a mobile screen. There's already minimal space to play with, why make the target zone for a button even smaller? It adds to visual noise as well.
rickdeckard · 9h ago
I believe that at this point Apple is less concerned about the mobile screen, with their existing userbase sufficiently locked-in the priority is probably a UI-language that works (and blends) well on large surfaces (AR-glasses)...
Cthulhu_ · 8h ago
Which is strange given that VR and AR are niche at best. The smartphone took off at the time because it was affordable and unobtrusive, Apple's own AR device is just silly to use in public.
(I'm aware this is partly cultural desensitization, I remember the memes back when of people looking like shrimps staring at their phones etc).
rickdeckard · 2h ago
It is less strange when you consider that AR could be the technology to replace the smartphone itself.
So far nothing could replace it (headsets, watches, other wearable) because while different ways of interaction exist, the users always needed a screen for (media) consumption.
An AR device could suddenly tick all boxes, make a user buy such glasses as companion device and slowly transition away from his iPhone. So Apple needs to prepare and expand its ecosystem stickyness to AR.
geysersam · 4h ago
That actually makes a ton of sense and I don't know why you are being downvoted! In AR there's much more space, so padding and rounded corners matter less, and in VR you don't want control surfaces obstructing the view completely. It's useful to be able to see there's "something" behind that navigation icon. Even if you can't distinguish it clearly at least you won't walk into it.
Not saying it's a good bet for Apple or for users, but it seems that's the bet they are making.
owebmaster · 1h ago
> but it seems that's the bet they are making.
That's absolutely obvious. What people are arguing is that this is a terrible move for many reasons. 0.1% of iphone users have a Vision Pro and Apple just degraded the experience for all of us.
eviks · 5h ago
> while you won’t actually be able to see the part of the image under the sidebar, on the other hand the transparency effect applied to the sidebar will make the text on it less legible overall. A great lose-lose situation, visually, don’t you think?
Yes, of course, but it looks bold and innovative and designers can waste years tweaking various details across many apps!
> reduces the amount of information displayed on screen, and you’ll have to scroll more as a consequence. ... You’re just injecting white space everywhere.
Sure, but that's a common scourge in all modern design, why would an innovative design company stay behind?
SirMaster · 2h ago
First option I will be enabling immediately is "Reduce Transparency"
1over137 · 1h ago
It doesn’t help as much as it used to. ;(
erickhill · 1h ago
This is likely going to look really cool and feel even better on iOS and iPadOS. The phones haven't changed visually (hardware or software) a ton in a decade because, frankly, they are a really mature and solid product. There's a reason not many iPhone 15 users upgraded to 16. With Liquid Glass, for once in a long while iPhone users will look down and instantly see drastic change. Remember iOS 7? That took a long time to iron out all the "oof!" as well. But it slowly did improve.
On MacOS, though, I really do worry it's going to take several iterations before things make a lot of sense. God forbid this new UI layer hurts performance, too, on these exceptionally fast machines.
Good news is things are still in beta. Some ideas can always be walked back.
mglikesbikes · 13m ago
Organizationally, Apple have definitely stuffed the Mac. Catalyst was a mistake and with hindsight they should have just made SwiftUI more capable, earlier. But now they’re focusing on building Android apps with it too?! To say nothing of locker service etc.
a3w · 8h ago
About the icons: Original book looked best: we have lots of pixels, why not use them? The icon has a non-standard shape, making it easy to spot.
Or if you actually need to have icon-shaped outlines, top-right one is beautiful, too. Although the shading should perhaps be removed if some OSs have their own shade logic for the whole images.
_benton · 10h ago
I have a feeling this will be yet another case of the nerds thinking something is a huge deal and when people update their phones this fall I bet most people won't care after 10 minutes.
perching_aix · 4h ago
Is that not every major software release? Like what are you gonna do, stop using your phone / laptop and turn hermit? Because I 100% feel people would be more likely to do that than to hop ecosystems, but then this is obviously not happening either. So yes, people will just shake their fist at the sky and then just slowly accept whatever instead. Not because "nurds stoopid", but because life moves on. Life's not anywhere near so narratively satisfying.
carlosjobim · 4h ago
You can easily wait for a few years to update MacOS or iOS, so it's not a huge deal.
1over137 · 1h ago
But if you don’t use the newest macOS, you don’t get all security updates. ;(
loloquwowndueo · 3h ago
iOS starts shoving the update down your throat the moment it’s out. I wonder if there’s a “don’t try to auto update the OS dammit” setting somewhere. I guess I’ll be investigating this fall!
carlosjobim · 2h ago
MacOS has the same annoying behaviour, but you can still close the notice and keep on keeping on.
dr_kiszonka · 8h ago
It is probably largely true, but for people with vision and memory impairments Liquid Glass will be harder to use.
layer8 · 8h ago
It will be harder to use for non-impaired people as well, though they might not consciously notice and/or still like how it looks despite being harder to use.
Spivak · 4h ago
Then you turn on "Reduce Transparency" in the Accessibility options. And then it's all gone. Testing it right now in the beta and everything is opaque. Even the faux-glass elements.
LordDragonfang · 1h ago
You're assuming that more than a fraction of users will know that setting even exists. The majority of people with vision impairments aren't people who are used to thinking of themselves as disabled and know their way around an a11y menu; they're 60-something grandparents trying to navigate their iphone to see photos of the grandkids.
Good defaults are extremely important.
andrewmcwatters · 3h ago
Nerds are the canary, not the mainstream user, in product development.
owebmaster · 1h ago
This reminds me about the time people would protest Facebook changes. What's more interesting is that Facebook is now dead and nobody cares about its UX anymore.
RandomBacon · 1h ago
I hope that one day, Facebook will be used as an example of what not to do.
I'm reminded of a meme, from around when Facebook had its IPO:
"Why is Facebook going public?
They couldn't figure out their privacy settings either!"
djoldman · 10h ago
It's time we acknowledge that the purpose of most UI "progress" or "change" is sales.
An entity like Apple introduces UI "enhancement" to attract prospective users and persuade existing users that the functionality of the product is new, efficient, or otherwise "good."
UI is generally fashion and trend that seeks the "new" at great cost.
This is why there is a lack of internal consistency or rigor with respect to some UI direction: consistency, functionality, etc. are not the point.
wtallis · 9h ago
I think "sales" is just one of the post-hoc rationalizations. The real purpose very often is simply to justify the money you spent on UI designers; there's a kind of sunk cost fallacy where spending resources exploring design changes leaves management feeling like they must ship some kind of design change, and the UI designers are strongly in favor of leaving their mark on the product and securing a big accomplishment on their resume.
The incentives simply aren't aligned to support a long-term strategy of not constantly messing with your UI.
esafak · 9h ago
> The real purpose very often is simply to justify the money you spent on UI designers
It's backwards. It's for the UI designers to justify the money spent on them. They can't just sit there and do nothing. Designing is their job! It's the same with every position.
diegof79 · 8h ago
Do you dress with a hat and shirt like someone in the 50s?
I see many angry comments because it's a change without a practical reason, and it's meant to make things more "new" or "fresh" at the cost of CPU and GPU resources. That's a valid complaint since making old devices obsolete is a design choice.
However, it's good to see it from a humane perspective. Fashion trends change because they are associated with identity, novelty, status, self-expression, etc. Companies make fashion changes to appeal to those things. For example, nobody complains if Nike changes a model just for fashion; however, everybody uses the same phone every day, just as they do with a pair of shoes. For us, working on programming or software design, the phone is just a tool, but for most people, the phone is a form of self-expression (like using single or double quotes in code, or tabs vs spaces). And every few years, tech companies undergo a fashion refresh.
So, even if Apple fires all the visual designers and keeps the same design for many years, people will likely grow bored with their UIs, which will push them toward competitors offering more stylish options.
coldtea · 4h ago
>Do you dress with a hat and shirt like someone in the 50s?
I don't want my OS to have bell-bottoms and afro one year, a mohawk and ripped jeans the next, and a raver neon top with tracksuits and glow sticks the next.
A basic tee and jeans haven't went out of style since Marlon Brando and James Dean. Or a good shirt and a jacket. Or, if that's your thing, a Perfecto/Bomber/Motorcycle leather jacket. Or a sundress for women.
> For example, nobody complains if Nike changes a model just for fashion;
That's because shoes are part of clothes fashion. And even so, if established, long available models are changed or removed altogether (e.g. Doc Martens 1460, Converse Chuck Taylors, Timberland classic boot, Levis 501, etc.), these companies would get an earful from customers too.
Besides my OS is not the place for fashion to begin with. Especially when it messes with utility. It can look stylish or even "lickable".
But it absolutely doesn't need to change for fashion's sake.
mattnewton · 1h ago
> Do you dress with a hat and shirt like someone in the 50s?
I wish it were like that, then I could be merely unfashionable, without someone coming into my house at night and replacing the clothing I bought and am used to with whatever is in style next.
wtallis · 7h ago
The problem is this mindset that constant UI churn chasing "fashion" could ever be purely superficial and harmless. You say people would grow bored with a UI that never changes, but on the other hand, people learn to use a UI that doesn't constantly change.
Changing UI layout obviously breaks muscle memory, but even just reskinning the same layout with a new color scheme that changes the relative visual prominence of different UI elements brings usability penalties. It's rare that any UI change is purely beneficial or has no effect on usability. Unless proven otherwise, any UI change should be assumed to impose some usability harm on existing users, and the potential usability benefits of the change need to be weighed against that harm.
Don't pretend that the downsides of messing with an existing UI aren't real.
RandomBacon · 1h ago
The downsides are enormous for older people.
We are increasingly making everything digital, and it's leaving the older generations that cannot constantly adapt and relearn as their memory gets worse, in trouble.
esafak · 8h ago
I agree! The problem is that in software users don't have to option of retaining the old UI while updating the rest of the product, so there's always a fuss when some people prefer the old UI but are unwillingly forced to use the new one.
wtallis · 9h ago
It's a management failure. Either management is directly approving gratuitous UI redesigns, or they're making the mistake of giving designers unrestrained freedom to decide what UI changes ship.
TheOtherHobbes · 4h ago
Or they needed some kind of glossy faux-development to headline the marketing year when Apple AI tanked, and this was the best they could cobble together at relatively short notice.
Meanwhile I get regular connection issues on Facetime on my iPhone 15 Pro Max, even though bandwidth isn't a problem here.
toss1 · 9h ago
And messing with the UI is the single most salient thing that makes regular people hate using computers, and do so only when it is required.
It doesn't matter what is their justification about making something "better".
The industry has reached saturation; there no longer exists any justification for making a UI somehow "better" to invite in more users. Changes ONLY create frustration and anger among existing users, which is essentially everyone at this point.
Changing the way a UI operates is like in an automobile swapping the position of the accelerator and braking pedals and moving the windshield wiper controls to the center console, heater controls to a steering-wheel stalk, and then claiming it is a "New Fresh User Interface!!". Of course people CAN adapt, but they will not like it. And automakers are already discovering how moving features from tactile knobs & buttons to a center touchscreen is hated and are going back to what people know and like.
It is past time for the software industry to get the message.
whartung · 3h ago
I think this UI update is designed to distinguish native applications on iOS from non-native.
Folks aren't going to be able to simply pound out a bunch of new icons to make their non-apple toolkit apps look "native". There's far too much compositing and such going on here.
I doubt Google is going to rush out and try to mimic the L&F either.
This MAY give native iOS apps a leg up over web and other "portable" toolkit apps.
coldtea · 4h ago
>It's time we acknowledge that the purpose of most UI "progress" or "change" is sales.
It's time we separate sales from UI progress.
If they want to "attract prospective users and persuade existing users that the functionality of the product is new, efficient, or otherwise "good." they can make substantial changes, of which there are numerous areas currently lacking.
Which is what they did in the first 10 or so years of OS X.
0x457 · 2h ago
> It's time we acknowledge that the purpose of most UI "progress" or "change" is sales.
It's such a stupid argument. Also wrong, because the purpose for everything that company does is profit.
eviks · 5h ago
This doesn't explain much since there is no sound proof that worse design improves sales but real progress /change/enhancements wouldn't
reedlaw · 9h ago
Does it drive sales though? Windows XP remained popular long after Vista was introduced. It was seen as stable and familiar. I guess the difference is that in the Apple ecosystem, you don't have much choice over which OS version you use. Apple tends to keep users on the latest version that the hardware supports.
eigen · 9h ago
Looks like the currently 3 versions of mac OS are supported. current is macos 15, macos 13-14 are supported.
looks like only 2 versions of Windows is supported. current is windows 11 and windows 10 support ends in October. of course, windows 10 was released in 2015 so comparing version support isnt a fair comparison.
duped · 9h ago
People stuck with XP because Vista was slow and buggy.
tempodox · 9h ago
> … the purpose of most UI "progress" or "change" is sales.
If only! I wouldn't install macOS or iOS with that GUI if they payed me for it.
hermitcrab · 9h ago
Pity those of us with commercial Mac apps.
tempodox · 7h ago
I do. My condolences.
_benton · 9h ago
UI change is similar to fashion. Things can't remain stagnant, they must change.
ch4s3 · 9h ago
I don't see that as a bad thing. Nominally superficial change can a nice way to have a fresh look at something you've stopped noticing. I can be enjoyable simply because its new.
_benton · 8h ago
Yeah I agree. I think it's the same way as fashion - it's often not new styles, just new takes on the past. But it keeps things fresh and interesting.
nerdjon · 10h ago
I have only been able to play with iOS 26 so far a little bit in the simulator, and so far it seems fine. To me it feels like after a couple months I will likely forget that a change was made (which TBH I think is a good thing, unlike when Windows has tried to make a change and never completes...).
However there is one thing that I wanted to comment on here:
> I’ve said this before, but Apple is forcing third party devs to be in service of Apple. The guidelines and rules are meant to sublimate the brands of the third party, and replace it with Apple.
Personally one of the things that drives me insane is when an app tries to be special and have its own design language (looking at you Google) on my iOS device. The OS has an established design language and really should be used for most applications.
I understand wanting to have a brand identity but too many apps take this too far that just lead to a clunky experience.
WorldMaker · 6h ago
Another data point here is how many people have Android setups or very complex iOS shortcuts that already do what Apple is trying to do with the tinting of third-party icons.
"Everything meshes with my chosen wallpaper" is a common aesthetic interest, that the article author dismisses because they don't care about it and mostly don't notice their own wallpaper, but if you look at certain subreddits and "Life Hacks" forums you'll find lots of people with heavily customized Android icon themes or deeply complex configuration of iOS shortcuts to aesthetically align everything they want on their home screen.
Sure, it's not earth shattering and the very definition of a nice-to-have that isn't hurting anyone in its absence, but it's also the sort of thing that enough people want to do the hard way that it seems nice to add an easy way to do it, too (and maybe more people will appreciate it than will take the hard way to it).
rickdeckard · 9h ago
> The OS has an established design language and really should be used for most applications.
This is a valid point.
The other side of the story is that the iOS ecosystem is a marketplace where merchants offer goods and services, including Apple themselves.
Apple increasingly wants to decide how you present your brand, to the point that the only brand-language Apple allows on its devices is its own.
I think it's reasonable that merchants in this marketplace feel the increased pressure to work less on creating and refining their own identity and more on normalizing their offer like it could come directly from Apple, at their own expense and financial risk.
wtallis · 7h ago
On a phone, it can be tempting for an app developer to approach design as if their app is temporarily taking over the phone and transforming the entire device into the custom gadget your app embodies, since the app's UI will be filling almost the entire screen. On a desktop, it's more obvious that an app should instead strive to coexist alongside (literally) other apps and the rest of the OS.
But in either case, ignoring the platform's established design language and UI conventions is still wrong, and not taking advantage of the user's preexisting knowledge about how to use their device is a wasted opportunity at best, insulting at worst. If the only reason for doing so is that you are placing your "brand identity" over actual usability and insist that your app look and feel the same on any device regardless of context, that's at the insulting hubris end of the spectrum. Given how widespread that problem is, it seems entirely appropriate and deserved for app developers to feel pressure from Apple (or any other OS vendor) to put more effort into conforming. We as users shouldn't want any app ecosystem to fragment into the mid-2000s WWW full of Flash UIs with zero accessibility.
eviks · 5h ago
> ignoring the platform's established design language and UI conventions is still wrong, and not taking advantage of the user's preexisting knowledge about how to use their device is a wasted opportunity at best, insulting at worst.
What valuable preexisting knowledge is ignored if you make your button text readable instead of being blurred with the glassy background?
wtallis · 4h ago
Consider the simple case on a desktop OS of how to arrange the "OK" and "Cancel" buttons on a dialog box. For an experienced user of the platform, it doesn't actually matter at all how legible your button labels are, you're going to cause problems if they're in the wrong place. The platform conventions when used properly allow the user to entirely skip reading those button labels.
Obviously, if Apple's committed to taking their UI in the direction of illegibility again, then deviating from their new recommendations may be worthwhile. But the UI design should start by complying with platform conventions, and only break those to the smallest extent necessary, with good reason (which doesn't usually include anything about your app's brand identity). And hopefully, Apple can speed-run the kind of changes they did over the first several years of OS X as they toned down the initial excesses of the Aqua design.
dwaite · 2h ago
Or that on Apple platforms, you are not supposed to use "OK" as a button, but rather the action it is going to perform (e.g. "Delete").
Using non-standard labelling _and_ putting buttons in their non-standard order is a real issue.
Not to mention that on some platforms the position of the buttons may be specific to localization, e.g. they may switch order if the user's language is set to Hebrew.
On Mac, the coloring indicates which action is triggered by default with the keyboard - one of the first things to go if you stylize the UI yourself.
These and all the other inconsistencies add up until you have something like the iOS Youtube app, where IMHO the UI is just complete nonsense. Just because you are full screen doesn't mean you can redefine fundamentals about how information is laid out or what taps are supposed to do.
creata · 3h ago
If I'm using Excel or Spotify or just about any application, I would much rather it look the same across operating systems, than try to match each operating system.
wtallis · 1h ago
I'm going to assume you don't want Excel to look the same on your desktop as on your phone. But even between Windows and macOS, I find it hard to believe you don't want at least a reasonable baseline of appropriate native behavior.
Are you primarily a Windows user and just want the app on macOS to look and feel like the Windows environment you're used to—essentially wishing there weren't different platforms to begin with, but otherwise dodging the issue? How would you feel if you encountered a macOS-style open/save dialog while working on Windows? Or if an application tried to attach its menus to the top of the screen instead of the top of each of its windows? Or if it responded to Ctrl-C by cancelling an operation instead of copying what you had selected? Or if the window close button was in the wrong corner?
rickdeckard · 5h ago
I understand the rant, but disagree on the black/white framing of the topic.
A company like Netflix may have its own experience and expectation on UX for the service it offers, and it might be equally valid for them to want a consistent UX across all its devices carrying Netflix as it is for Apple to want it across all of Apples devices.
But here Apple attempts to define the UX for its devices AND the services offered there. This might be useful and even helpful for the ecosystem when the guidelines are reasonable and supportive of the ecosystem.
But when Apple suddenly defines "everything should be frosted glass!" and their design language no longer intends to "get out of the way" but "emphasize Apple above all", it becomes branding, creating a collision of interests...
eviks · 5h ago
> The OS has an established design language and really should be used for most applications.
Not if it's a bad design language.
> just lead to a clunky experience.
So no different than following the bad defaults
rickdeckard · 10h ago
Almost hilarous:
> Apple Design-Guide: "Ensure that you clearly separate your content from navigation elements [..]"
Honest auto-complete:
"[..] the OS will then use the GPU to draw all attention away from the content to the navigation elements"
rickdeckard · 10h ago
> I’ve said this before, but Apple is forcing third party devs to be in service of Apple. The guidelines and rules are meant to sublimate the brands of the third party, and replace it with Apple.
I have the same impression. Frankly I believe the whole purpose of "Liquid Glass" is to create an exaggerated version of the GUI Apple intends to use later-on in AR glasses, which is then toned back again in later releases to match the feasible implementation on the glasses.
The expected migration curve seems to be to force all applications now to become more bland and less distinguishable from the OS (and Apple services), so that at the end of the journey (in a future AR-product) Apple can #1 render those apps consistently without disrupting their UX and #2 present itself as the user-facing service provider for all the value created by those apps (with the app-developer being responsible for the integration and UX-compliance).
It's a dream-scenario. Need a ride-hailing service? Let "the Apple glasses" do it for you. Under the hood the apps are then hopefully so streamlined already that service-providers will compete to be the fulfilment entity for this task.
dwaite · 1h ago
It is a direct response to developer feedback - that they only are going to make iPhone apps because redoing design to support even just iPad, let alone a watch, TV, Mac, and AR variant is work. Even Facebook hasn't found the resources to port the Instagram app to have a proper UX on iPad.
This started with the separation of iPad OS (and release of Catalyst, and SwiftUI 1.0) in 2019. iPad OS is effectively the mother platform - an iPad app can be adapted down to target iPhone, or to target macOS and visionOS (with both those platforms also supporting running iPadOS apps natively without modification). The L&F changes in 2020 to macOS (with release 11) were heavily about making iPadOS and macOS more visually similar.
It doesn't surprise me at all that a team at apple tasked to make a consistent HIG and L&F across all products is borrowing heavily from the most recent HIG/L&F they worked on (Vision OS).
mschuster91 · 9h ago
> Under the hood the apps are then hopefully so streamlined already that service-providers will compete to be the fulfilment entity for this task.
Probably going to be against the hivemind on this one, but I for one welcome this. Public transport, taxis, flights, hotels, to a degree even restaurants are fungible. I want to get from A to B, I want to have a bed for a few nights in some other city, I want to get some specific food.
That's what I need. What I do not want is to waste time to get what I need with bullshit.
That's why I love the "evil B" of hospitality - I see all available hotels for my travel, the associated price and pictures. I select an offer (usually the cheapest one that still has decent reviews), I click on "book", I confirm my data, that's it. I don't need to wade through dozens of websites, enter my data a dozen times, and then finally enter payment data on yet another shady website that's probably gonna get hacked sooner or later.
I don't want to waste my time researching the phone number of the local taxi company, so taxi.de it is, I only select where I need to go and a few minutes later a taxi shows up, no need to call someone, spell out the street name I live in to someone barely understanding me on the phone because Germany's phone service is dogshit.
I don't care about which specific Chinese restaurant I want, so I go on Lieferando, and half an hour later a nice load of fried rice with greens shows up at my door. And every time I have to go to a specific place (say for an anniversary) I know exactly why I despise the old way - everyone does seat reservations differently, no integration with anything.
What still irks me is flight booking, because while Google and a fair few other resellers/brokers do at least compare available options of different fulfilment providers, the actual booking I have to do is still on each airline's different web page. And rail travel is similarly annoying once you try to leave Germany.
rickdeckard · 9h ago
This is very valid, I also don't like to install an app for every service. And I don't think there's a "hivemind" on this at all.
But it's reasonable that the merchants offering in the marketplace of that ecosystem start to observe how their opportunity to become the next "evil B of X" are increasingly diminished, in favor of being the fulfilment entity for the "benevolent A".
I neither need an "evil B" nor a "benevolent A", and substituting one for the other is not a solution either...
renecito · 8h ago
Same sht over and over again.
Apple keeps good or great things as their are: Apple is loosing its edge look how other are so innovative.
Apple takes some risk and go bold on things: Why changing things?
At the end everyone else complaining would just follow and copy.
Rinse and repeat, bring the eyeballs and the money to my btching site or profile.
kakuri · 9h ago
> I’ve said this before, but Apple is forcing third party devs to be in service of Apple
I got my first taste of computers on early 90's Macs and was enchanted. Within a year I discovered DOS, Windows - and freedom. I did tech support for both Mac and Windows computers for several years. It's always been abundantly clear that the Empire of Mac exists for its own glorification (and obscene profits) - customers, developers, partners - they are all in service of Apple. It's unfortunate that Apple does some things with unparalleled quality and maintains a loyal following, because the apple has always been rotten at its core.
PapaPalpatine · 10h ago
I’m not a professional designer, but I like Liquid Glass. If you don’t like it, stay on iOS 18 or switch to Android.
Aside from the criticism of icons, every complaint in the article just came across as nit-picks.
rickdeckard · 9h ago
Beside of the fact that App-Developers don't have the option to "stay on iOS18 or switch to Android", that statement is equivalent to "Stop criticizing my country. If you don't like what it is doing, find yourself another country".
Developers (and users) are citizens of that ecosystem, serving other citizens and contributing to its economy. It is their right to judge and criticize directions being taken.
The owner of that ecosystem must endure and acknowledge this (especially when he continuously makes efforts to increase the difficulty to LEAVE that ecosystem), and other citizens should not take any offense from this at all.
nozzlegear · 8h ago
> The owner of that ecosystem must endure and acknowledge this
Do they need to acknowledge it? Ecosystems aren't countries, they're markets, and citizenship doesn't exist here in the same sense – only participation in the ecosystem. Maybe there's some EU chicanery that makes it illegal for American companies to ship a UI that's displeasing to European tastes, but if we pretend that Apple is strictly an American company, would they need to acknowledge this at all if it didn't affect sales?
rickdeckard · 5h ago
I'm not sure we have the same understanding of "acknowledge". Apple can acknowledge criticism and still decide not to act on it.
The rest of your comment I don't understand, sorry.
nozzlegear · 1h ago
> I'm not sure we have the same understanding of "acknowledge". Apple can acknowledge criticism and still decide not to act on it.
We do, but what I'm suggesting is that Apple might exercise a third choice, which would be ignoring the criticism and pretending it doesn't exist if they don't think it will affect their sales.
nancyminusone · 5h ago
But for some reason, discussions of parts pairing, side loading, and app store fees tends to steer towards the "use a different phone, bro" argument.
As the years have gone on, it feels like computers are slowly losing every ounce of personality they once had. Software should be delightful to use! Computers felt fun! I'm hoping we eventually get through this minimal/bland era of UI design and come back around to design with a little creativity.
It feels like Apple is trying to subtly introduce the concept of spatial UI for the future, where the norm will be to have controls and content on separate "layers" - but I don't think it should come at a cost of sacrificing the interfaces we already have.
Houses used to be for families; they were often quirky or strange or emergent, with weird layouts or materials. They may have garish wallpapers or floor to ceiling wood panelling. But these touches were reflective of the personalities of the owners. They met the needs of the specific people who inhabited them.
Nowadays, as houses are more of a commodity, they must be generic. All flat white interiors, straight corners, no cornicing or archetraves or plasterwork or anything to give the home a unique character. Instead it must be a blank canvas such that any inhabitant can put his own things inside it to make it his.
Computers are the same; what was once a niche product for enthusiasts and businesses has now become an instrumental part of nearly every moment of nearly everyone's lives. Thus they also must be generic and same-y, with limited avenues for superficial customisation, so that they can be interchanged or upgraded without jarring the user against the new version or device.
Personally I prefer radical customisation and quirkiness. I find it charming. But it seems that those who are designing (or perhaps only selling) the things disagree with me.
Not to mention, there are still billions of people needing housing, and with the climate situation we’re already in, building billions of unique homes will make the problem a LOT worse.
Again, I don’t really care much about the issue, but I just think it’s worthwhile to remind people that the American way of life (which developing nations aspire to) is absolutely untenable as far as all modern as currently-feasible technology is concerned. Maybe we could live with not being expressive just on the outside of our houses specifically?
Comparing this to my own city of Melbourne, Australia: high-density dwellings are generally constrained to innercity suburbs and are still seen as undesirable compared to free-standing homes or semi-detached houses. Councils restrict the development of new high-density or mixed-use buildings for what amounts to NIMBYism. Inadequate public transport in the growth areas of the Northern and Western suburbs increases dependence on roads and freeways.
There are options to support affordable living in cities that don't involve covering our farmland and wildlife reserves with uniform white plaster cubes.
But much, much more are because people have too much an eye on resale value, and if your house is different from all the rest, you reduce your buyer pool.
It costs nearly nothing to make kitchen cabinet heights comfortable for the main user; almost nobody does this even on full custom builds.
I suppose this is a big point. I used to spend hours... days really... setting up a new PC. Partly because it would take ages just to get everything off the various floppy disks and CD-ROMs and installed onto the HDD, but also because everything was quirky.
Nowadays I hew to the default install of Ubuntu (or Windows + WSL2) and replacing my device (or SSD) or upgrading the OS is basically a seemless experience. I have some .bashrc/git config/etc stuff I can grab quickly and then I'm basically good to go.
Gentle reminder that the average Mac user is nontechnical, especially the younger generation. IMO this is Apple slapping a formalized paint on the simplification of iOS 7, and doubling down on iconography (not app icons).
Now all of that said — there are major usability concerns in iOS 26 and the liquid glass design language. The file picker’s previous “Done” has been replaced with a single checkmark. Significant meaning is lost in a few places, and there are super-odd double-X icons (in mobile safari while entering a URL, for example). Safari’s new tab button is now out of reach, while the previous new tab gesture is now new tab group. Context menus expand now, instead of swipe, meaning what used to feel more natural now takes extra taps/muscle memory updates.
That all said, as iOS 7 improved over time and was nailed down, so will this.
To me it’s given the iPhone - an incredibly boring platform/device 18 years in - new life. The new Lock Screen Photo Shuffle is incredibly personable and downright beautiful. From my understanding, a lot of work went into pre-composing app icons, many of which are objectively beautiful.
I’ve found users can’t find buttons “under the thumb” so I’m curious how the dedicated tab bar search will work in practice.
Overall I think for the goals of liquid glass as a design system, it’s something only Apple could do - in a good way.
I believe that's exactly what Apple wants. This new design direction appears to be a strategy to unify all UI for VR as well.
If all controls are designed to be translucent, they (Apple) have freedom to put the control anywhere on the user's field of view on VR and allow "focus on the underlying content" (which in the case of VR, is the real world).
Time will tell if this approach makes sense for 2D screens.
On the other hand, Apple optimized iOS for a phone without unifying with MacOS and was very successful.
Optimizing phones for VR seems a really bad idea.
The whole point of having different platforms in the first place is to cater to different needs, contexts, and user experiences. If they could be unified, they wouldn't be different platforms in the first place.
No comments yet
I downloaded the beta and the more I use it the less I like it. The icons are blurry, washed out and look terrible overall. I have a difficult time using the buttons on the lock screen to activate the flashlight and camera. Most of the time, I push them and the lock screen customization screen comes up instead of the flashlight turning on. I don't know if they changed the geometry of the buttons or what, but I can't reliably use them anymore. There are other instances of low contrast text, weird blurry artifacts and janky animations.
I hope these are all things that get worked out during the beta period. Overall, the whole thing looks unimpressive so far. I keep telling myself that OSX had the same kind of jank during the first beta and it will all work out. I want to roll back to iOS 18, but I can't do that without using iTunes, which isn't possible because I only have Linux machines.
https://github.com/libimobiledevice/idevicerestore
I don't know about now, but about 20 years ago iTunes worked under Wine to connect with my iPod and perform backups.
https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/use-the-camera-contro...
Not mentioned is the peculiar response by the Apple ecosystem pundits. They were oddly supportive of these maladaptive design system changes on the basis of excitement (they can’t afford to be left out of the media momentum…). I believe their collusive tendencies mask what would otherwise be perceived as a major flop or severe error.
Also not mentioned in the piece, I remain curious as to the internal Apple team/culture changes that resulted in this design system failure. What on earth happened?
(I'm aware this is partly cultural desensitization, I remember the memes back when of people looking like shrimps staring at their phones etc).
So far nothing could replace it (headsets, watches, other wearable) because while different ways of interaction exist, the users always needed a screen for (media) consumption.
An AR device could suddenly tick all boxes, make a user buy such glasses as companion device and slowly transition away from his iPhone. So Apple needs to prepare and expand its ecosystem stickyness to AR.
Not saying it's a good bet for Apple or for users, but it seems that's the bet they are making.
That's absolutely obvious. What people are arguing is that this is a terrible move for many reasons. 0.1% of iphone users have a Vision Pro and Apple just degraded the experience for all of us.
Yes, of course, but it looks bold and innovative and designers can waste years tweaking various details across many apps!
> reduces the amount of information displayed on screen, and you’ll have to scroll more as a consequence. ... You’re just injecting white space everywhere.
Sure, but that's a common scourge in all modern design, why would an innovative design company stay behind?
On MacOS, though, I really do worry it's going to take several iterations before things make a lot of sense. God forbid this new UI layer hurts performance, too, on these exceptionally fast machines.
Good news is things are still in beta. Some ideas can always be walked back.
Good defaults are extremely important.
I'm reminded of a meme, from around when Facebook had its IPO:
"Why is Facebook going public?
They couldn't figure out their privacy settings either!"
An entity like Apple introduces UI "enhancement" to attract prospective users and persuade existing users that the functionality of the product is new, efficient, or otherwise "good."
UI is generally fashion and trend that seeks the "new" at great cost.
This is why there is a lack of internal consistency or rigor with respect to some UI direction: consistency, functionality, etc. are not the point.
The incentives simply aren't aligned to support a long-term strategy of not constantly messing with your UI.
It's backwards. It's for the UI designers to justify the money spent on them. They can't just sit there and do nothing. Designing is their job! It's the same with every position.
I see many angry comments because it's a change without a practical reason, and it's meant to make things more "new" or "fresh" at the cost of CPU and GPU resources. That's a valid complaint since making old devices obsolete is a design choice.
However, it's good to see it from a humane perspective. Fashion trends change because they are associated with identity, novelty, status, self-expression, etc. Companies make fashion changes to appeal to those things. For example, nobody complains if Nike changes a model just for fashion; however, everybody uses the same phone every day, just as they do with a pair of shoes. For us, working on programming or software design, the phone is just a tool, but for most people, the phone is a form of self-expression (like using single or double quotes in code, or tabs vs spaces). And every few years, tech companies undergo a fashion refresh.
So, even if Apple fires all the visual designers and keeps the same design for many years, people will likely grow bored with their UIs, which will push them toward competitors offering more stylish options.
I don't want my OS to have bell-bottoms and afro one year, a mohawk and ripped jeans the next, and a raver neon top with tracksuits and glow sticks the next.
A basic tee and jeans haven't went out of style since Marlon Brando and James Dean. Or a good shirt and a jacket. Or, if that's your thing, a Perfecto/Bomber/Motorcycle leather jacket. Or a sundress for women.
> For example, nobody complains if Nike changes a model just for fashion;
That's because shoes are part of clothes fashion. And even so, if established, long available models are changed or removed altogether (e.g. Doc Martens 1460, Converse Chuck Taylors, Timberland classic boot, Levis 501, etc.), these companies would get an earful from customers too.
Besides my OS is not the place for fashion to begin with. Especially when it messes with utility. It can look stylish or even "lickable".
But it absolutely doesn't need to change for fashion's sake.
I wish it were like that, then I could be merely unfashionable, without someone coming into my house at night and replacing the clothing I bought and am used to with whatever is in style next.
Changing UI layout obviously breaks muscle memory, but even just reskinning the same layout with a new color scheme that changes the relative visual prominence of different UI elements brings usability penalties. It's rare that any UI change is purely beneficial or has no effect on usability. Unless proven otherwise, any UI change should be assumed to impose some usability harm on existing users, and the potential usability benefits of the change need to be weighed against that harm.
Don't pretend that the downsides of messing with an existing UI aren't real.
We are increasingly making everything digital, and it's leaving the older generations that cannot constantly adapt and relearn as their memory gets worse, in trouble.
Meanwhile I get regular connection issues on Facetime on my iPhone 15 Pro Max, even though bandwidth isn't a problem here.
It doesn't matter what is their justification about making something "better".
The industry has reached saturation; there no longer exists any justification for making a UI somehow "better" to invite in more users. Changes ONLY create frustration and anger among existing users, which is essentially everyone at this point.
Changing the way a UI operates is like in an automobile swapping the position of the accelerator and braking pedals and moving the windshield wiper controls to the center console, heater controls to a steering-wheel stalk, and then claiming it is a "New Fresh User Interface!!". Of course people CAN adapt, but they will not like it. And automakers are already discovering how moving features from tactile knobs & buttons to a center touchscreen is hated and are going back to what people know and like.
It is past time for the software industry to get the message.
Folks aren't going to be able to simply pound out a bunch of new icons to make their non-apple toolkit apps look "native". There's far too much compositing and such going on here.
I doubt Google is going to rush out and try to mimic the L&F either.
This MAY give native iOS apps a leg up over web and other "portable" toolkit apps.
It's time we separate sales from UI progress.
If they want to "attract prospective users and persuade existing users that the functionality of the product is new, efficient, or otherwise "good." they can make substantial changes, of which there are numerous areas currently lacking.
Which is what they did in the first 10 or so years of OS X.
It's such a stupid argument. Also wrong, because the purpose for everything that company does is profit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_os#Timeline_of_releases
macos 13 supports hardware back to 2017.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS_Ventura#Supported_hardwa...
looks like only 2 versions of Windows is supported. current is windows 11 and windows 10 support ends in October. of course, windows 10 was released in 2015 so comparing version support isnt a fair comparison.
If only! I wouldn't install macOS or iOS with that GUI if they payed me for it.
However there is one thing that I wanted to comment on here:
> I’ve said this before, but Apple is forcing third party devs to be in service of Apple. The guidelines and rules are meant to sublimate the brands of the third party, and replace it with Apple.
Personally one of the things that drives me insane is when an app tries to be special and have its own design language (looking at you Google) on my iOS device. The OS has an established design language and really should be used for most applications.
I understand wanting to have a brand identity but too many apps take this too far that just lead to a clunky experience.
"Everything meshes with my chosen wallpaper" is a common aesthetic interest, that the article author dismisses because they don't care about it and mostly don't notice their own wallpaper, but if you look at certain subreddits and "Life Hacks" forums you'll find lots of people with heavily customized Android icon themes or deeply complex configuration of iOS shortcuts to aesthetically align everything they want on their home screen.
Sure, it's not earth shattering and the very definition of a nice-to-have that isn't hurting anyone in its absence, but it's also the sort of thing that enough people want to do the hard way that it seems nice to add an easy way to do it, too (and maybe more people will appreciate it than will take the hard way to it).
This is a valid point.
The other side of the story is that the iOS ecosystem is a marketplace where merchants offer goods and services, including Apple themselves.
Apple increasingly wants to decide how you present your brand, to the point that the only brand-language Apple allows on its devices is its own.
I think it's reasonable that merchants in this marketplace feel the increased pressure to work less on creating and refining their own identity and more on normalizing their offer like it could come directly from Apple, at their own expense and financial risk.
But in either case, ignoring the platform's established design language and UI conventions is still wrong, and not taking advantage of the user's preexisting knowledge about how to use their device is a wasted opportunity at best, insulting at worst. If the only reason for doing so is that you are placing your "brand identity" over actual usability and insist that your app look and feel the same on any device regardless of context, that's at the insulting hubris end of the spectrum. Given how widespread that problem is, it seems entirely appropriate and deserved for app developers to feel pressure from Apple (or any other OS vendor) to put more effort into conforming. We as users shouldn't want any app ecosystem to fragment into the mid-2000s WWW full of Flash UIs with zero accessibility.
What valuable preexisting knowledge is ignored if you make your button text readable instead of being blurred with the glassy background?
Obviously, if Apple's committed to taking their UI in the direction of illegibility again, then deviating from their new recommendations may be worthwhile. But the UI design should start by complying with platform conventions, and only break those to the smallest extent necessary, with good reason (which doesn't usually include anything about your app's brand identity). And hopefully, Apple can speed-run the kind of changes they did over the first several years of OS X as they toned down the initial excesses of the Aqua design.
Using non-standard labelling _and_ putting buttons in their non-standard order is a real issue.
Not to mention that on some platforms the position of the buttons may be specific to localization, e.g. they may switch order if the user's language is set to Hebrew.
On Mac, the coloring indicates which action is triggered by default with the keyboard - one of the first things to go if you stylize the UI yourself.
These and all the other inconsistencies add up until you have something like the iOS Youtube app, where IMHO the UI is just complete nonsense. Just because you are full screen doesn't mean you can redefine fundamentals about how information is laid out or what taps are supposed to do.
Are you primarily a Windows user and just want the app on macOS to look and feel like the Windows environment you're used to—essentially wishing there weren't different platforms to begin with, but otherwise dodging the issue? How would you feel if you encountered a macOS-style open/save dialog while working on Windows? Or if an application tried to attach its menus to the top of the screen instead of the top of each of its windows? Or if it responded to Ctrl-C by cancelling an operation instead of copying what you had selected? Or if the window close button was in the wrong corner?
A company like Netflix may have its own experience and expectation on UX for the service it offers, and it might be equally valid for them to want a consistent UX across all its devices carrying Netflix as it is for Apple to want it across all of Apples devices.
But here Apple attempts to define the UX for its devices AND the services offered there. This might be useful and even helpful for the ecosystem when the guidelines are reasonable and supportive of the ecosystem.
But when Apple suddenly defines "everything should be frosted glass!" and their design language no longer intends to "get out of the way" but "emphasize Apple above all", it becomes branding, creating a collision of interests...
Not if it's a bad design language.
> just lead to a clunky experience.
So no different than following the bad defaults
> Apple Design-Guide: "Ensure that you clearly separate your content from navigation elements [..]"
Honest auto-complete:
"[..] the OS will then use the GPU to draw all attention away from the content to the navigation elements"
I have the same impression. Frankly I believe the whole purpose of "Liquid Glass" is to create an exaggerated version of the GUI Apple intends to use later-on in AR glasses, which is then toned back again in later releases to match the feasible implementation on the glasses.
The expected migration curve seems to be to force all applications now to become more bland and less distinguishable from the OS (and Apple services), so that at the end of the journey (in a future AR-product) Apple can #1 render those apps consistently without disrupting their UX and #2 present itself as the user-facing service provider for all the value created by those apps (with the app-developer being responsible for the integration and UX-compliance).
It's a dream-scenario. Need a ride-hailing service? Let "the Apple glasses" do it for you. Under the hood the apps are then hopefully so streamlined already that service-providers will compete to be the fulfilment entity for this task.
This started with the separation of iPad OS (and release of Catalyst, and SwiftUI 1.0) in 2019. iPad OS is effectively the mother platform - an iPad app can be adapted down to target iPhone, or to target macOS and visionOS (with both those platforms also supporting running iPadOS apps natively without modification). The L&F changes in 2020 to macOS (with release 11) were heavily about making iPadOS and macOS more visually similar.
It doesn't surprise me at all that a team at apple tasked to make a consistent HIG and L&F across all products is borrowing heavily from the most recent HIG/L&F they worked on (Vision OS).
Probably going to be against the hivemind on this one, but I for one welcome this. Public transport, taxis, flights, hotels, to a degree even restaurants are fungible. I want to get from A to B, I want to have a bed for a few nights in some other city, I want to get some specific food.
That's what I need. What I do not want is to waste time to get what I need with bullshit.
That's why I love the "evil B" of hospitality - I see all available hotels for my travel, the associated price and pictures. I select an offer (usually the cheapest one that still has decent reviews), I click on "book", I confirm my data, that's it. I don't need to wade through dozens of websites, enter my data a dozen times, and then finally enter payment data on yet another shady website that's probably gonna get hacked sooner or later.
I don't want to waste my time researching the phone number of the local taxi company, so taxi.de it is, I only select where I need to go and a few minutes later a taxi shows up, no need to call someone, spell out the street name I live in to someone barely understanding me on the phone because Germany's phone service is dogshit.
I don't care about which specific Chinese restaurant I want, so I go on Lieferando, and half an hour later a nice load of fried rice with greens shows up at my door. And every time I have to go to a specific place (say for an anniversary) I know exactly why I despise the old way - everyone does seat reservations differently, no integration with anything.
What still irks me is flight booking, because while Google and a fair few other resellers/brokers do at least compare available options of different fulfilment providers, the actual booking I have to do is still on each airline's different web page. And rail travel is similarly annoying once you try to leave Germany.
But it's reasonable that the merchants offering in the marketplace of that ecosystem start to observe how their opportunity to become the next "evil B of X" are increasingly diminished, in favor of being the fulfilment entity for the "benevolent A".
I neither need an "evil B" nor a "benevolent A", and substituting one for the other is not a solution either...
Apple keeps good or great things as their are: Apple is loosing its edge look how other are so innovative.
Apple takes some risk and go bold on things: Why changing things?
At the end everyone else complaining would just follow and copy.
Rinse and repeat, bring the eyeballs and the money to my btching site or profile.
I got my first taste of computers on early 90's Macs and was enchanted. Within a year I discovered DOS, Windows - and freedom. I did tech support for both Mac and Windows computers for several years. It's always been abundantly clear that the Empire of Mac exists for its own glorification (and obscene profits) - customers, developers, partners - they are all in service of Apple. It's unfortunate that Apple does some things with unparalleled quality and maintains a loyal following, because the apple has always been rotten at its core.
Aside from the criticism of icons, every complaint in the article just came across as nit-picks.
Developers (and users) are citizens of that ecosystem, serving other citizens and contributing to its economy. It is their right to judge and criticize directions being taken.
The owner of that ecosystem must endure and acknowledge this (especially when he continuously makes efforts to increase the difficulty to LEAVE that ecosystem), and other citizens should not take any offense from this at all.
Do they need to acknowledge it? Ecosystems aren't countries, they're markets, and citizenship doesn't exist here in the same sense – only participation in the ecosystem. Maybe there's some EU chicanery that makes it illegal for American companies to ship a UI that's displeasing to European tastes, but if we pretend that Apple is strictly an American company, would they need to acknowledge this at all if it didn't affect sales?
The rest of your comment I don't understand, sorry.
We do, but what I'm suggesting is that Apple might exercise a third choice, which would be ignoring the criticism and pretending it doesn't exist if they don't think it will affect their sales.