Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26 • Hacker News Board

Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

#21

Post by andrewmcwatters » Fri, Oct 10, 2025, 9:51 PM UTC

As someone who pretty strictly adheres to Apple Human Interface Guidelines, it's really off-putting to see them slip so badly backwards on their own published work.

There are now portions of iOS that use either iOS 18's UIKit, or iOS 26's Liquid Glass UI in apps.

It feels like Apple is having a Windows moment with their operating systems for the jarring combination of old and new UI designs sitting next to each other and it's gross. I hate it.

Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

#22

Post by medhir » Fri, Oct 10, 2025, 9:51 PM UTC

Avoiding iOS 26 like the plague for exactly this reason. It feels like Apple decided they need to leverage their GPU silicon for a fancy GUI update without any concern for usability downgrades.

Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

#23

Post by AstroBen » Fri, Oct 10, 2025, 9:52 PM UTC

I might be the only one who actually really likes the Liquid Glass?

Its made my 12 pro max noticeably laggier though, which I'm definitely not a fan of..

Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

#24

Post by hsbauauvhabzb » Fri, Oct 10, 2025, 9:52 PM UTC

Am I the only one who feels like this doesn’t even look good, even if it was a better user experience?

Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

#25

Post by ge96 » Fri, Oct 10, 2025, 9:52 PM UTC

Cracked as in good or bad

Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

#26

Post by rfmc » Fri, Oct 10, 2025, 9:53 PM UTC

symlinkk wrote: post #14

Made my phone immediately much laggier (iPhone 13 Pro) which is probably the intention

13 Mini here, and yesterday for the first time since I bought, the battery died on me in the middle of the day, in the office, with my regular usage (which is very low).

Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

#27

Post by donmcronald » Fri, Oct 10, 2025, 9:53 PM UTC

noname120 wrote: post #6

Let’s not forget how Liquid Glass made my Apple Watch Series 10 laggy and battery-hungry due to the expensive fluid simulations. Reducing transparency in accessibility settings didn’t help unfortunately.

I don't like how everything seems to require extra clicks or has extra animation now. For example, the workout selection has a weird feeling like it's fluid and everything just kind of scrolls along. Then when you stop on something long enough, the rest of the UI elements like the start / play button show up.

Why do I need to watch a mini video to have UI controls appear? It's incredibly annoying.

My Linux install feels so much faster than Windows or OSX and the main reason is that it's not filled with a bunch of useless, slow animation.

Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

#28

Post by roncesvalles » Fri, Oct 10, 2025, 9:53 PM UTC

I already switched it off a few days ago.

Turning on "Reduce Transparency" and "Increase Contrast" under Accessibility > Display makes the phone a pleasure to use.

Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

#29

Post by dewey » Fri, Oct 10, 2025, 9:53 PM UTC

I've read so much criticism and listened to so many Apple podcast that I expected the worst. Then updated on day one and...it's fine? I know that people just hate any change but this was massively blown out of proportion.

Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

#30

Post by noname120 » Fri, Oct 10, 2025, 9:54 PM UTC

symlinkk wrote: post #14

Made my phone immediately much laggier (iPhone 13 Pro) which is probably the intention

It also made my iPhone 16 Pro Max a bit laggier, but the worst offender is my Apple Watch Series 10 which has a big frame rate drop every time there is a Liquid Glass animation. It feels very sluggish now and the battery seems worse than before. Everyone is impacted to different extents, I don’t think it’s deliberately made to cripple older iPhones.