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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

#471

Post by bitpush »

ninetyninenine wrote: post #369
bitpush wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your eye can handle flat design or Liquid Glass without any extra stress. It’s not really a big difference. Your eye can handle it and if you can’t you probably shouldn’t be driving and you should see an eye doctor. You could have used the time to type up that comment on the basics of visual design, and saved us all some sanity. For hundreds of years, humans have been studying light, color, and shadows. All the way…

>You could have used the time to type up that comment on the basics of visual design, and saved us all some sanity. For hundreds of years humans have got it wrong. The basics of visual design are made up qualitative guidelines with no solid metrics to back it up. Just a bunch of arbitrary rules with legit sounding words and rules to dress it up as a science. Take for example the primary colors. RYB. Completely ass wr…

> The basics of visual design are made up qualitative guidelines with no solid metrics to back it up.

> So you're saying Apple really fucked their entire company over with liquid glass

I dont know what you're trying to say. Are you saying Apple alone is enlightened enough to know what's good and what's not? And every body else is winging it?

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

#472

Post by msephton »

Other than the large rounded corners and general increase in button size, and of course reduction in legibility, the main issue for me is the huge change performance and thus battery life issue. There is no excuse for Apple to ship such bad code, other than bad management and misguided priorities.

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

#473

Post by elestor »

I honestly disagree with the general opinion on the liquid glass, I really like it. It looks pretty, I like the refraction effect and text hasn't really been unreadable for me at all. Yes, there is 'text behind text' but foreground text is clear and readable, whilst the background text would've been invisible if the background were solid or blurred rather than glassy, so it doesn't matter if the background text is readable.

I was against it to begin with, but after using it for a while I think it looks much better than before.

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

#474

Post by kimos »

98codes wrote: post #109
mfro wrote: post #5

Literally 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.

It makes some things better. But it also replaces transparency in some apps with just a solid block of colour. Photos you lose like 10-20% of the screen. The UI used to fit and work well and they just broke it. Maddening.

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

#475

Post by Eldandan »

gcr wrote: post #185
nielsbot wrote: post #33

Seems like I'm against the trend here in HN, but I personally like it more the more I use it. (Admittedly I don't have any accessibility issues which may come up for others) Also, I appreciate the UX improvements (as opposed to the pretty glass effect), such as the much improved menu system and the generally (IMO) improved changes in layout in Calendar, Mail, Safari, etc. That said I do find it a bit more annoying to…

I must be in the minority because I actually kinda like liquid glass. I find the effect tasteful.

I'm newer to iOS (first iPhone was 15 pro) and macOS (M2 Air) so have tried to keep an open mind - only excessively irritating bugs will get me back to android and windows, as the back and forth transition is a soft barrier.

So far, accessing Safari tabs to close takes an extra tap, but that's counteracted somewhat by the New tab / private tab options. And keyboard doesn't pop up consistently when replying to emails in Outlook. Might be related to SwiftKey or just a bug in that app. Aside from that I'm pretty happy with the ux.

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

#476

Post by bavent »

pcdoodle wrote: post #432
amluto wrote: post #358

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple’s Mail app has been intensely buggy for years, and the bugs rarely get fixed. (Search is comically bad.)

Search is so so bad. I just want to find an email with a word in it. All my Apple Devices fail at this.

Search is bad everywhere. If I open Settings, and then search for application $X, no results. If I search for $Y, $Y shows up. They are alphabetically next to each other, and I can see them both if I open the Applications submenu and scroll down to access individual app settings.

Why does one show up and one doesn’t? The one that doesn’t is a built-in Apple app, too. They both have identical settings for “show app in search”. This worked fine before iOS 26.

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

#477

Post by pjmlp »

Liquid Glass is a perfect example when designers take over and there is no one left to stop them.

Just like those glass flowers on one of Lisbon train stations, Oriente, that might look beautiful, yet are perfectly useless on heavy rainy days forcing everyone to only go up to the platform shortly before the train arrives.

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

#478

Post by Izkata »

tavavex wrote: post #375
CjHuber wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow, a statement like this coming from a blog entry about creating windows 8?? Maybe it has to do with that I‘m Gen Z but I absolutely love Frutiger Aero. It never looked cheesy, first it was modern then it was nostalgic. All meanwhile I still have trauma from the hideous Metro tiles.

I'm also gen Z. For me the reaction to Windows Aero was similar, but I guess that's just how it is because it's what we grew up with. The blog post is talking about imitating materials in general though, and I can totally see how it can be taken too far. Think putting wood PNGs as backgrounds for app elements or adding brushed aluminium textures on sliders, things like those look pretty dated to me now. I'm guessing…

> Think putting wood PNGs as backgrounds for app elements or adding brushed aluminium textures on sliders, things like those look pretty dated to me now.

This was a late 90s/early 2000s thing. I remember it on some Win98 and XP applications.

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

#479

Post by orloffm »

shantara wrote: post #208
scelerat wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suppose an upvote should be sufficient, but I am so unhappy with the new UI I am actually holding off switching to a new M4 MBP and sticking to my old M1 still on Sequoia 15.7.1. I also try to give these things time and I am usually ok with the changes eventually, but the new UI elements are so incredibly distracting it's actually affecting my ability to focus on what I'm actually doing.

I decided to postpone an iPhone upgrade for another year rather than be forced to use iOS 26 without a downgrade option. This is the only way to send a signal.

No, the way to send a signal is to buy it and return.

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

#480

Post by Gigachad »

mdnahas wrote: post #417
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.

Until you want to explain to your friend or elderly parent with a different phone how to use the app.

If the app is Blender, or some other extremely complex software then sure. If it’s the bank app or social media, it would take me no time to understand the difference between the iOS and Android native UI.
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