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Liquid Glass – WWDC25 [video]

developer.apple.com

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Re: Liquid Glass – WWDC25 [video]

#241

Post by jameshart »

whiteboardr wrote: post #239
jameshart wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know the dominant apps used on phones have large full screen user-generated video and imagery, right? These are UI elements designed to work great over scrolling content feeds, full screen product images, album artwork, and thirty second videos of people doing meme dances. There is no room for ‘a gray background’.

This doesn’t justify applying a less than suboptimal design for everything else. UI on content is a special case just like AR and here it might be ok, but why add “glass” as a background on icons or panels for text that are served much better by using a single colored transparent background without the noise that glass is bringing to the table - if there’s a background needed at all. The visual signal to noise ratio…

I think you’re watching a way different video about this than me.

In the design guidance they’re explicitly saying liquid glass is for selective elements in the navigation layer. When those elements pop up modals those use a very subdued and opaque glass that loses the adaptive contrast, but still physically embeds them in that same floating navigation layer.

They’re not saying everything needs to be made of glass. They’re explicitly saying don’t make everything from glass.

Re: Liquid Glass – WWDC25 [video]

#242

Post by DidYaWipe »

rahen wrote: post #205
seydor wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I know most people couldn’t care less about this, but those gimmicky animations probably consume more computing power than the entire Apollo project, which strikes me as unnecessary and wasteful. Given the choice, I’d much rather have a clean, efficient interface. I tend to like Material Design in comparison. It’s clean, efficient, and usable. I just hope Google won’t try to "improve" it with annoying gimmicks and en…

"Flat" design is equally offensive by not demarcating controls as controls, or their state in an intuitive way.

Just as we were finally seeing UI step away from that BS, Apple jumps all the way back into much-scorned, cheesily-excessive skeuomorphism... adding a raft of failed ideas from 20 years ago.

Re: Liquid Glass – WWDC25 [video]

#243

Post by etempleton »

The Tahoe beta implementation is incredibly rough.

Because it is trying to simulate diffused glass layers apps have a kind of low resolution look to them and certain UX elements just do not work at all with odd spacing and gaps because of different sized rounded corners. Where the UX works is where the implementations are the most minimal.

It will get better before launch, but I worry the concept is a bit half baked.

Re: Liquid Glass – WWDC25 [video]

#244

Post by tgv »

swores wrote: post #238
tgv wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's... an odd thing for your brain to believe about glass.

That --in case it wasn't clear, and I can see why it wouldn't be-- refers to the thing you're looking at, through glass.

Re: Liquid Glass – WWDC25 [video]

#245

Post by TheJoeMan »

nkrisc wrote: post #182

Incredible - difficult to see by design. What an age we live in where a design showcase video frame Apple proudly shows off UX worst-practices. I'll have some of whatever they're smoking, must be good shit. This whole thing is almost indistinguishable from satire. 17:03 - what I thought was finally something sensible turned out to be their example of something bad! Hopefully I'll be able to find the settings to turn…

As an app developer, I think the more frosted look without the toy wiggle interactions in the “accessibility” demos were the best. I don’t have KPI’s, but I wonder how a “checkout” button that can be almost half clicked / played with but not triggered will tank flow-thru.

Re: Liquid Glass – WWDC25 [video]

#246

Post by DidYaWipe »

serial_dev wrote: post #38
seydor wrote: post #18

We 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.

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…

Paper sheets do not have controls on them. That's why "Material Design" sucks too, as all does the rest of the "flat" design fad.

Minimal visual cues, analogous (not photo-faithful) to real-world physical objects made GUIs a revolutionary advance in computer use. Both flat design and this new Apple junk (which, let's face it, is a return to hated and nonsensical skeuomorphism) ignore the very concepts that made GUIs so usable.

Re: Liquid Glass – WWDC25 [video]

#247

Post by DidYaWipe »

seydor wrote: post #158
intrasight wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Then it would make no sense to simulate them.

Re: Liquid Glass – WWDC25 [video]

#248

Post by whiteboardr »

jameshart wrote: post #241
whiteboardr wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn’t justify applying a less than suboptimal design for everything else. UI on content is a special case just like AR and here it might be ok, but why add “glass” as a background on icons or panels for text that are served much better by using a single colored transparent background without the noise that glass is bringing to the table - if there’s a background needed at all. The visual signal to noise ratio…

I think you’re watching a way different video about this than me. In the design guidance they’re explicitly saying liquid glass is for selective elements in the navigation layer. When those elements pop up modals those use a very subdued and opaque glass that loses the adaptive contrast, but still physically embeds them in that same floating navigation layer. They’re not saying everything needs to be made of glass. T…

For highlighting text?

Re: Liquid Glass – WWDC25 [video]

#249

Post by DidYaWipe »

spease wrote: post #174
seydor wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

my initial thought is that apple is preparing to launch physically deforming screens which will create bumps similar to this liquid.

Or using cameras to render what’s behind the phone as a background. That would help explain the continued focus on thinness.

The continued focus on thinness betrays a lack of useful ideas... a hallmark of the Jony Ive school of enshittification.

Re: Liquid Glass – WWDC25 [video]

#250

Post by dbg31415 »

I really can’t stand these augmented-voice videos. I get that they’re meant to sound polished or stylized, but to me it just comes off as creepy and distracting. Whatever processing or autotune effect they’re using strips the humanity out of the voice and gives it this artificial vibe — like a personified LinkedIn post. What could be an interesting technical walkthrough ends up feeling more like a spammy marketing pitch than a real person sharing insights.

Maybe there’s an audience for that kind of aesthetic — especially among people who grew up immersed in highly produced digital media — but I’d much rather hear someone’s actual voice, imperfections and all. That rawness is what makes content engaging and authentic. When everything is filtered and synthetic, it’s hard to connect with the speaker or take the message seriously. (Maybe that’s why Apple has had to change spokes models every two minutes since Jobs.)

Honestly, I wish people would stop overproducing everything. I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy was using a green screen too — for no good reason! It just adds to the weird, artificial feeling.

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