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Liquid Glass – WWDC25 [video]
151–160 of 306 posts
Re: Liquid Glass – WWDC25 [video]
#152We have 'instinctive visual cues' for depth and light coming from above, hence why button gradients are so immediately effective,because our visual system recognizes it in milliseconds. we don't have "instictive visual cues" for refraction and lensing , that's why we are confused about underwater distances . That's why magnifying glasses make us dizzy. I just can't believe this is coming from apple.
How is this wrong? Our visual system is optimized, rather extremely, for understanding 3d scenes under the simple perspective model that our eyes are based on: x' = (x * f) / z Outside of that 99.999% experience norm, that are brains are so used to, is disconnect and discomfort. If you've ever put on a new pair of glasses, with a different prescription, you'll understand exactly what he's talking about: depth offset…
If our brain understands one thing, it's that glass is a wall between our body and what we see. You can't touch that, or you'll hurt yourself.
Re: Liquid Glass – WWDC25 [video]
#153We have 'instinctive visual cues' for depth and light coming from above, hence why button gradients are so immediately effective,because our visual system recognizes it in milliseconds. we don't have "instictive visual cues" for refraction and lensing , that's why we are confused about underwater distances . That's why magnifying glasses make us dizzy. I just can't believe this is coming from apple.
Plus, to be truly realistic it also would need to take into account ambient lighting scenarios surrounding the device displaying it. Like this it’s really just another try in recreating glass which never made sense to be used in UI. It is beyond me, how this got chosen as a way forward - taking visual design which makes sense in a VR/AR environment, to ruin their rectangular display UI. It will make implementation wa…
It's not actually glass, instead the apple engineers and designers are basically simulating effect of surface tension of drops of liquid. Unfortunately the refraction at the edges of a droplet is not informative about whether the droplet is inward or outward facing (i.e. if it it toggled on or off). Hence why they use additional highlights and shadow to indicate the 3D structure. The liquid effect is a total gimmick . And they added insult to injury by adding color-changes and movement which is totally distracting when you re scrolling that diffucult paper.
Re: Liquid Glass – WWDC25 [video]
#154Since they are using Metal and not OpenGl they should take Gl out of the name.
Re: Liquid Glass – WWDC25 [video]
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
How is this wrong? Our visual system is optimized, rather extremely, for understanding 3d scenes under the simple perspective model that our eyes are based on: x' = (x * f) / z Outside of that 99.999% experience norm, that are brains are so used to, is disconnect and discomfort. If you've ever put on a new pair of glasses, with a different prescription, you'll understand exactly what he's talking about: depth offset…
the fact that it's surprising does not make it a visual cue. A cue to what? I am not aware of any psychophysics study that says we have perception of droplets or lens transformations (in contrast to shadows , gradients etc that are well studied). There also doesn't seem to be an evolutionary reason for it because the natural world does not have lenses and glass. And UIs are usually based on intuitive features.
Is there any study saying that user interfaces should use visual effects for which our brains have hardware acceleration? It seems a reasonable premise, but is there data?
Re: Liquid Glass – WWDC25 [video]
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
the fact that it's surprising does not make it a visual cue. A cue to what? I am not aware of any psychophysics study that says we have perception of droplets or lens transformations (in contrast to shadows , gradients etc that are well studied). There also doesn't seem to be an evolutionary reason for it because the natural world does not have lenses and glass. And UIs are usually based on intuitive features.
Not saying this makes the ui good but it should go without saying that the natural world has water which acts as a lens. Also, of course we have perception of droplets. What we don’t have is an intuitive understanding of how light interacts with droplets. I suspect that Apple are trying to leverage this lack of intuition to make their ui interesting to look at in an evergreen way. New backgrounds mean new interesting…
droplets of water are not lenses without a glass behind it, and we couldn't see substantial effects behind them before we had glass windows. There was little evolutionary reason to develop any perception of refraction in droplets of water. in contrast, shadows are instant indicators of distance and gradients instantly distinguish concave from convex surfaces for light coming from above.
(water doesnt do lensing unless it s a droplet)
Re: Liquid Glass – WWDC25 [video]
#157We have 'instinctive visual cues' for depth and light coming from above, hence why button gradients are so immediately effective,because our visual system recognizes it in milliseconds. we don't have "instictive visual cues" for refraction and lensing , that's why we are confused about underwater distances . That's why magnifying glasses make us dizzy. I just can't believe this is coming from apple.
Plus, to be truly realistic it also would need to take into account ambient lighting scenarios surrounding the device displaying it. Like this it’s really just another try in recreating glass which never made sense to be used in UI. It is beyond me, how this got chosen as a way forward - taking visual design which makes sense in a VR/AR environment, to ruin their rectangular display UI. It will make implementation wa…
I think they refuse to pick a shade of grey for their UI's background, so we're stuck with transparent elements.
Re: Liquid Glass – WWDC25 [video]
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
That’s an interesting point, never thought about it. These complicated lenses distorting light from all directions look fancy in a designer portfolio, having them almost everywhere… I’m not sure how it will work out. In contrast, the original material design was quite intuitive, iirc they based their design on paper sheets, much simpler, and much more common in our day to day life. I still have some hope it will work…
I see no way around all that optics physics not sucking up computation and battery. Perhaps Apple will add liquid glass silicon to the mix to do that physics in hardware. Using glass to compute glass, LOL
my initial thought is that apple is preparing to launch physically deforming screens which will create bumps similar to this liquid.
Re: Liquid Glass – WWDC25 [video]
#159Earlier quoted context omitted.
the fact that it's surprising does not make it a visual cue. A cue to what? I am not aware of any psychophysics study that says we have perception of droplets or lens transformations (in contrast to shadows , gradients etc that are well studied). There also doesn't seem to be an evolutionary reason for it because the natural world does not have lenses and glass. And UIs are usually based on intuitive features.
Is there any study saying that user interfaces should use visual effects for which our brains have hardware acceleration? It seems a reasonable premise, but is there data?
Taking advantage of innate perceptual cues is smart and our interfaces have always taken advantages of them https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depth_perception
we shouldn't need a manual to interpret a UI
Re: Liquid Glass – WWDC25 [video]
#160One thing I haven’t heard yet about Liquid Glass: Glass is good for looking through it. So an OS based on this could be ideal for Extended Reality. Having iOS resemble visionOS more might be a step towards using iPhones as XR devices. Could we then potentially see a fancy Apple version of Google cardboard in the future, where you use your iPhone as an AR device as well…?