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Apple has a private CSS property to add Liquid Glass effects to web content

alastair.is

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Re: Apple has a private CSS property to add Liquid Glass effects to web content

#171

Post by a2128 »

827a wrote: post #153
vlucas wrote: post #34

Nice find! Apple's new glass UI seems to draw a lot of ire, but I... kinda like it? It feels like the OS has some actual personality again instead of just being flat and boring. I can visually tell the size of click targets now and the buttons are finally visually distinct from text again. I view it as a welcome change. It's not just "nostalgia" either. It has actual utility. I installed the iOS 26 Beta to test some…

My suspicion is that genpop is not going to like it, broadly, mostly because the only people who seem to think that operating systems should have "personality" are techies. People just don't think like that; most people view these systems as means to an end, and anything that isn't in service to that is, at best, simply an interesting diversion for the first few days. One thing I dislike the most about liquid glass i…

I don't think so, I think the general population gets happy and excited by new things, because they believe it to be somehow better than the old thing. A new cool visual refresh of the OS is something that people gravitate towards, even when it's mostly a superficial restyling hiding decades of cruft (Windows 11)

Re: Apple has a private CSS property to add Liquid Glass effects to web content

#172

Post by pupatlas »

reaperducer wrote: post #106
kuschku wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you use this CSS liquid glass effect in your app, Apple will reject it from the App Store. If Apple uses this CSS liquid glass effect in their apps, it'll pass App Store review just fine. Do you see the issue now?

If you use this CSS liquid glass effect in your app, Apple will reject it from the App Store. Citation needed. The blog article speculates this, but there is no proof.

Here you go:

> Apple App Review Guidelines: 2.5.1 Apps may only use public APIs and must run on the currently shipping OS.

https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/

And here's the (private) field that needs to be enabled on your webview to enable the CSS property. Otherwise (according to the author) it's just ignored: https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit/blob/613c42873c56e2b2073f91...

Re: Apple has a private CSS property to add Liquid Glass effects to web content

#174

Post by vlucas »

827a wrote: post #153
vlucas wrote: post #34

Nice find! Apple's new glass UI seems to draw a lot of ire, but I... kinda like it? It feels like the OS has some actual personality again instead of just being flat and boring. I can visually tell the size of click targets now and the buttons are finally visually distinct from text again. I view it as a welcome change. It's not just "nostalgia" either. It has actual utility. I installed the iOS 26 Beta to test some…

My suspicion is that genpop is not going to like it, broadly, mostly because the only people who seem to think that operating systems should have "personality" are techies. People just don't think like that; most people view these systems as means to an end, and anything that isn't in service to that is, at best, simply an interesting diversion for the first few days. One thing I dislike the most about liquid glass i…

> the only people who seem to think that operating systems should have "personality" are techies

I am not so sure. It might even be the opposite. Techies and designers gave us the flat UI aesthetic, Material UI, Windows Metro design, etc. Techies also nitpick design and aesthetics far more than average folks do. Techies and designers derided Windows XP, but most average users thought it was "cute" and "fun" compared to the "boring" previous design. It is definitely the most memorable release in the past 30 years as far as UI goes. This iOS version could wind up being similar after so many years of the flat UI.

The bugs/kinks are a good point though, and I have noticed some UX changes too that I am unsure about. This is the first complete UI redo in long time for iOS, so I am sure they will get these things worked out over time.

Re: Apple has a private CSS property to add Liquid Glass effects to web content

#175

Post by snackbroken »

anonymars wrote: post #134
snackbroken wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key distinction is the withholding from your competitors part. WinAPI may have a ton of features labelled "pls no use thx" but MS doesn't block you from distributing a program that uses them anyway.

That's not the key distinction -- of course Windows will likely have internal-only APIs for its own internal use. The problem is when e.g. there are special internal Windows APIs that Office can use but Lotus/etc. can't, or that Edge can use but Firefox/Chrome/etc. can't.

Sorry, yes. To clarify, it's about withholding features of a product in one market from your competitors in the other market.

Re: Apple has a private CSS property to add Liquid Glass effects to web content

#177

Post by oneplane »

kelnos wrote: post #152
oneplane wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not withholding, it's just not part of the AppStore if you do it. There are plenty of other ways to distribute your software, and yes, Apple will also still co-sign it or provide entitlements if you need those. Just not in the AppStore.

That seems like an unnecessary and unreasonable trade barrier. There isn't a technical or user-experience reason to exclude these sorts of apps.

That's not the argument; the argument is that this would be some form of "there is only one method and it is being withheld", which simply isn't the case.

Re: Apple has a private CSS property to add Liquid Glass effects to web content

#178

Post by leptons »

nwienert wrote: post #154
leptons wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> The better thing to get annoyed at Apple for is being slow to implement web standards. > Now that Safari supports the HTML5 date picker (since iOS 14.1 - five years ago), this is more of a meme than fact-based reasoning Apple forces all browsers on iOS to use the Safari browser engine, which they intentionally hobble by not implementing APIs that other browser engines have had forever so that Apple can force devel…

Maybe 5 years ago this was a true, they accelerated development and their standards support is pretty good now, better than FF. Again, not counting Chrome's "EEE" non-standard API's, they largely move fast and implement most modern ones. Some PWA stuff is missing which is valid, while Chrome is behind on a few nice design-focused standards Safari has. Go here: https://caniuse.com/?compare=chrome+143,safari+26.0&compa…

Maybe you should read the DOJ suit against Apple. It's pretty clear that one reason (among many) that Apple is getting sued is because of abusive business practices exactly as I described.

Apple forcing Safari on iOS is present day, today, not 5 years ago (but it was also 5 years ago too, ever since there was an iOS webview). If Apple doesn't want to implement it, then they shouldn't force other browser makers to use their hobbled browser engine.

Re: Apple has a private CSS property to add Liquid Glass effects to web content

#179

Post by smileybarry »

slashink wrote: post #103
snackbroken wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key distinction is the withholding from your competitors part. WinAPI may have a ton of features labelled "pls no use thx" but MS doesn't block you from distributing a program that uses them anyway.

That used to be true but they absolutely do this today :( Spent so much time trying to repro some functionality only to realize that Windows has an allow list for what apps it listens to for certain APIs.

The only APIs that are locked this way AFAIK are PPL, Defender-disabling, and AV registration, all not exclusive to Microsoft, you just have to sign up to an antimalware developer program and sign an NDA.

Re: Apple has a private CSS property to add Liquid Glass effects to web content

#180

Post by saghm »

tgv wrote: post #74
snackbroken wrote: post #3

Providing an OS feature only to first-party programs is a plainly anticompetitive practice. Using your privileged position in one market (cell phones/cell phone operating systems) to gain an advantage in another market (smart phone applications) that you withhold from your competitors is a textbook case.

With whom is Apple competing on their own web pages and apps? And how much advantage does some shiny reflection (which, btw, could also be attained by writing the effect yourself) offer them over that competition? It must be something big and obvious, otherwise there's no way it's illegal, but I can't think of it. If you mean "anti-competitive" without referring to monopolies, then, well, every company does that.

Well for starters, no one else is allowed to publish a browser with their own engine on the AppStore, and they've hampered sideloading for years. In a vacuum, it might be reasonable to block any third-party browser engines, or to put something special in their own that no one else can use on the phone, but combining those is just intentional sabotage. And yes, I know that this specific CSS property isn't all that important, but having an argument about how much they're allowed to intentionally sabotage other browsers on their phones is at best a misguided distraction from the point that they shouldn't be doing it in the first place (and not a particularly good defense either; try arguing with a cop who pulls you over for speeding that the law you broke wasn't really that important and see if it gets you out of the ticket).
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