Hopefully Apple will change its decision on Liquid Glass not too long like that butterfly keyboard.
Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26
141–150 of 538 posts
Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26
#142The article is pretty accurate. I’ve been using IOS 26 for a couple weeks and there is very little to recommend it. Yea, sometimes it looks cool, but many times it doesn’t, and as the article highlights, the usability seems to have gone backwards.
Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26
#143Literally every change made in iOS 26 feels like a downgrade to me. This is the first time I have ever considered downgrading iOS.
Settings -> Accessibility -> Display & Text Size -> enable Reduce Transparency That made a world of difference for me.
I tried that, but this completely removes the transparency, and some apps look even worse and harder to visualise as it’s not designed to not have the transparency on iOS 26.
This could be significant improvement if Apple let us choose the transparency percentage.
Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26
#144[dead]
Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26
#145All these threads about iOS 26 reminded me about something long forgotten like... the release of iOS I suggest to check the comments in this 12 years old thread [1], replace version number 7 with 26 there and realise that some things never change [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5856398
I'm not surprised since I think most UI overhauls replace one system with another that is roughly equally good, except that nobody is familiar with the new system so everyone burns a bunch of time and attention learning the new one just to get back to par. The new UI often isn't worse in any objective sense, it's just not better and the whole exercise is a giant waste of everyone's time.
Some subset of users like re-learning how to do the same basic things in a new way, such as switching browser tabs, but most people want to spend ~0 time on that stuff and get justified annoyed when it's pushed on them.
Of course over time people will get used to the new design, but even if the new one is materially worse what are people going to do? It's not like Apple cares that much about random user opinion and the joy of a monopoly or duopoly is that the companies controlling one don't have all that much incentive to keep people happy.
Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26
#146One thing I've never understood is why phone companies push these UI updates to existing devices.
It seems like it
a) Annoys users when their devices change out from under them.
b) Reduces the incentive to buy the new thing with the new fashionable update.
Anyone have any idea why the business case works out the way it does?
Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26
#147Unpopular opinion apparently: I love it. I’ve been using it since beta 1 and it’s grown on me enormously. iOS 18 on my work iPhone felt incredibly dated and I was relieved when we could finally upgrade enterprise devices.
Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26
#148Some of it (like hiding the Safari tab button in a menu) feels like Windows-11-stupid. Luckily, Apple is ok at supporting older phones, so I just have to be careful to not accidentally upgrade my SE to iOS 26. Makes me nostalgic for Apple's interface guidelines, which were very well thought through, based on evidence, and with clear principles. https://vintageapple.org/inside_r/pdf/Human_Interface_Guidel...
You can actually swipe up from the search field at the bottom and that will show all tabs. (If anyone is reading this from apple, that animation should be sped up). However, this doesn't work if you've scrolled down already and the bar is minimized. It literally flashes as if to acknowledge your swipe and does nothing. Also if you miss by moving your thumb just slightly lower, you'll close the app haha. They thought…
As a long time Android user, I find these magical gestures frustrating difficult to discover. How on earth is someone supposed to guess such a gesture exists, and how am I supposed to guess the rules for when certain gestures work and certain gestures don’t?
Even long time friends who are iOS fanatics, and who have used iOS since the beginning are often surprised when I show them a new gesture I’ve learnt. Am I missing something? I’m really grateful to learn this now but I can’t imagine the “Apple way” is to stumble upon these by forum comments?
Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26
#149Some of it (like hiding the Safari tab button in a menu) feels like Windows-11-stupid. Luckily, Apple is ok at supporting older phones, so I just have to be careful to not accidentally upgrade my SE to iOS 26. Makes me nostalgic for Apple's interface guidelines, which were very well thought through, based on evidence, and with clear principles. https://vintageapple.org/inside_r/pdf/Human_Interface_Guidel...
Regrettably, humans come along and need to prove themselves, so here we are. Being human: it's a feature, not a bug. (shrugs)
Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26
#150I'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.
I agree. I don't like change and I'm usually the first to criticise, but it's fine. Some of the animations feel nice, but I'm yet to see anything that wows or upsets me.