Liquid Glass Is Permanent • Hacker News Board

Re: Liquid Glass Is Permanent

#11

Post by datadrivenangel » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 2:10 PM UTC

throwaway173738 wrote: post #5

Traubenfuchs wrote: post #3

> 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. Not a single person at Apple ever tried liquid shit when accomodations for the sight impaired are enabled and even without those it sucks. What a joke!

I remember the first time my phone booted into the new UI. The first thing I had to do was go into Accessibility and turn on the high contrast features. I have 20/20 vision and no impairments. But I couldn’t see any of the lock screen buttons well enough to read them in front of my wallpaper anymore.

Solid color wallpaper helps a lot with this!

Re: Liquid Glass Is Permanent

#12

Post by lproven » Tue, Mar 24, 2026, 3:27 PM UTC

malvim wrote: post #7

joshstrange wrote: post #4

I have yet to see an app get better with Liquid Glass. I’ve seen plenty get worse, like the Kroger app which is now even worse of an app than when I reviewed it a couple years ago. I’m considering doing another review (that no one asked for) just to call out how stupid their Liquid Glass implementation is. In that case, it’s not just Kroger’s incompetence, the design language that Apple has forced on people just suck…

Postponed my ios update as much as I could. Things are now brighter, bigger, full of animations, and somehow worse to read and use. Some buttons are so big and colorful and confusing that I feel like I’m using a child’s toy, or windows xp. This is horrible.

> Postponed my ios update as much as I could.

That's what I did with iOS 6 on my iPhone 4. I never did upgrade -- it was stolen before I was forced to.

Now it sounds like iOS 26 is going the same way. Makes me glad I own no Apple product new enough to run it.

I installed a little hack on my M1 MBA to block Tahoe, and it seems to be working. I wrote a piece on how to do it for others:

https://www.theregister.com/2026/03/02/stop_tahoe_update/

Re: Liquid Glass Is Permanent

#13

Post by forgotmypw17 » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 3:25 AM UTC

Traubenfuchs wrote: post #3

> 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. Not a single person at Apple ever tried liquid shit when accomodations for the sight impaired are enabled and even without those it sucks. What a joke!

I use the "reduce motion / avoid animation" setting from accessibility, and Apple's own apps including Safari completely ignores this setting. The UI does all kinds of distracting and disturbing animations regardless of it. (I've now switched away from it for Firefox.)

It's really frustrating to experience not only non-consensual UI changes that cause cognitive load, for many people unsustainable cognitive load, but also completely steamroll over any accessibility accommodations.

I only upgraded because of the OS incessantly nagging me to do it, even when I asked it to stop checking for updates. I'm honestly not sure what to do with Apple, because Android is not any better. I wish Apple would give accessibility more than lip service.

Re: Liquid Glass Is Permanent

#14

Post by throwaway173738 » Wed, Mar 25, 2026, 9:21 PM UTC

datadrivenangel wrote: post #11

throwaway173738 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember the first time my phone booted into the new UI. The first thing I had to do was go into Accessibility and turn on the high contrast features. I have 20/20 vision and no impairments. But I couldn’t see any of the lock screen buttons well enough to read them in front of my wallpaper anymore.

Solid color wallpaper helps a lot with this!

I love having to depersonalize my phone to make it easier for the product designer.