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Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

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Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

#451

Post by nedt »

The article might have some points, but there is also a lot of complaining just for the sake of it.

- One the homescreen seeing the search as a clear button is useful for most users. The swipe down is just not easy to find and remember. The dots shown when swiping through homescreens is actually much clearer if you don't have so many pages.

- Same goes for the pull down search bar. It took me a long time to remember that. And then in the system settings it always took me some time to find it again. That it's the same gesture as reload in other apps made it even more confusing. Now it's right where you thumb is.

- The pulsating buttons - I haven't even seen them. And I switch during the public beta phase. Normally buttons get hidden by your thumb when you press them.

- And then yeah a lot of things look different now. We had that before when we switch to the previous design language and people were just complaining as much.

Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

#452

Post by deaux »

andix wrote: post #427
deaux wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OpenAI can't, they're completely dependent on Apple and Google permitting such a thing. Unless you have a particular way in mind they could currently achieve this?

They can integrate into third party apps, if the publishers want to. A lot of them are going to do it. It's already possible to connect Gmail, and many other services, this can extend even more. The connection of those services could be done by the iOS/Android apps.

I doubt this will be super successful because so many of the apps that people would want to integrate it are those made by Apple, Google, Meta and others whose goal is to be a direct competitor. I might be wrong though, we'll see.

Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

#454

Post by foldr »

andix wrote: post #280
tsunamifury wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Liquid Glass was clearly rushed to cover for the total failure of Apple Intelligence. Even the design being criticized distracts from fraudulently selling phones based on features never shipped.

The recently presented ChatGPT apps are what Apple Intelligence (and Siri) should've been. Some chat/voice interface, that can access data from installed apps and trigger actions. It should've been a home run for Apple. ChatGPT starts with zero existing apps, Apple has one of the biggest app ecosystem, and with (Siri) Shortcuts they already have most of the necessary interfaces available for years.

I think this will be an Apple Maps situation. Embarrassing initially, but a few years later, there’ll be a perfectly usable product.

Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

#455

Post by BeFlatXIII »

miffy900 wrote: post #329
eschaton wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You were wrong to even attempt to share design language across platforms. You should make your applications good native citizens if you have any respect for your users, because yours isn’t the only software they use.

I think this idealism reveals a naive viewpoint about what users really care about. They care that apps work - that they do what they're supposed to and do it fast or efficiently. Not even Microsoft makes apps for their own platform that are native apps (example Teams, the new Outlook), and they service millions of users. Indeed, if you look at Microsoft's UI over the years, they are inconsistent as hell (all of the…

> They ditched their own design language in iOS7, and now with iOS26 they've done it again.

They ditched their 30-pin dock with the iPhone 5, and then chucked Lightning in favor of USB-C with the iPhone 15.

Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

#456

Post by shinycode »

MBCook wrote: post #335
shinycode wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it grew on me over the beta phase, now when I hold an iPhone not updated it feels old and I really don’t like previous versions. Regardless of places where it’s not ideal implementations yet, I can’t see myself coming back to the previous style. Liquid Glass will get better and I really like it. I got wow moments sometimes when it shines on some occasions

I think the idea of a new design of some sort was a good one. We’ve been in the same world since iOS 7, 12 years ago. The glass effects are fancy, but in a HUGE percentage of places the transparency makes things worse. A lot of the animation/liviness, the “liquid” part of “Liquid Glass”, is very nice and welcome. My problems are almost all from: 1. difficulty reading/using things since the background shows through un…

I completely agree with you. And sometimes depending on the content it’s unreadable that’s for sure. But they must have an endgame. Maybe they get us used to the UI, users will complain and in 6 months will get used to it and in a year it’s forgotten & updated. Because if they have a new paradigm then it’s easier for them if people are already used to the UX I guess ?

Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

#457

Post by nrvn »

Design system as any other human-built system requires to be documented and described in order to maintain integrity where the integrity will be described in clear terms via foundational principles that the rest of the system is built upon. I am surprised to see how some things in today's world fall apart despite in mere seconds despite enormous amount of prior art and experience and lessons learnt.

Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

#458

Post by zimmund »

randyrand wrote: post #420
Gigachad wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d rather an app look consistent with iOS than look consistent with an android version I don’t use.

And what about online tutorials, marketing, user manuals, customer support? You probably want your app to look consistent with that too, right? Do you really expect or even want to sift through multiple different versions of tutorials and guides? As long as an app is easy to use, people prefer a single look. No one cares about "looking like the OS", except maybe 0.1% of users.

> As long as an app is easy to use, people prefer a single look

No, people are used to an UI language, which in the case of iOS is quite consistent across applications. You expect certain things to work (e.g. flicking in from the left edge means "go back"). There are platform-specific patterns and I'd rather have the app behave accordingly rather than being consistent with other OS' version. The real 0.1% here are probably the users of your app with active devices in both Android and iOS!

Re: Liquid Glass Is Cracked, and Usability Suffers in iOS 26

#460

Post by game_the0ry »

anshumankmr wrote: post #328
game_the0ry wrote: post #112

I am so glad I am not the only one. I see like 3-5 UI bugs a day in iOS 26. Liquid ass, indeed. Some apple product VP really wanted to be the next Steve Jobs, took 4 steps backwards instead. I'll probably end up switching to android eventually, and I am bummed about it bc I am an apple fan boy and I like the ecosystem.

I have an Android phone from samsung.. they send ads on the default Google Messages app, and due to some rich text formatting unlike a regular SMS it takes space in my notifications menu.

Apple will probably end up doing the same eventually.
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