Apple introduces a universal design across platforms • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#771

Post by keepamovin » Tue, Jun 10, 2025, 7:23 AM UTC

dimal wrote: post #148

Oh no. It looks like every button and menu is now a translucent layer, so that any noise from the background shows through and muddles the text. This seems like an accessibility nightmare. Translucent layers generally make software unusable for me. In the video, I saw several instances that would be really really bad for me, where I’d be straining to understand the text. Looks really cool and futuristic though. Just…

The future is translucent tablets ( smart glass pads ). It's not about what this UI is - it's about where it's going. This is the UI to bridge to the next hardware modality and begin to train people to prepare for (at first) HUDs everywhere, then smartglass and holoprojective displays.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#772

Post by replete » Tue, Jun 10, 2025, 7:31 AM UTC

There are some horrific looking UI on the screenshots, e.g. Acorns floating toolbar with integrated traffic lights - it looks awful and with a bevel emboss - remember that? Yes, the ugly Photoshop effect option that only looked cool in the early 2000s. Some of this looks very cheap and amateur Photoshop like.

It''s not terrible, but I will avoid it for a while. My biggest issue is the system resources this will require. I just don't care for the pretty, as much as I care for fast UI. Thinks Windows 11 delayed right click context menu.

Unifying their operating system design language makes sense, but ugh do we really need yearly operating system revisions like this. It is obvious that the engineers struggle with the marketing led pace judging by how many issues there are every major release of macOS. I don't upgrade to a new major until a .3 usually because of this.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#773

Post by designerarvid » Tue, Jun 10, 2025, 7:35 AM UTC

As a user centered designer I naturally agree with most criticism shared here. Not the direction I would have wished for.

Trying to understand where this is coming from, I guess two sources:

1. It's a fashion update to give GenZ and younger something they haven't seen before. They are too young to remember Windows Vista, and are the most important future target group that spends 12+ hrs / day on their iPhone. Also it is an audience that heavily customizes their UI, and care more for visually communicating cool-ness, than to get work done with efficient UX. Similar to using rainmeter on a desktop PC. Unsurprising, this look a lot like a rainmeter skin.

2. This is a way to communicate unmatched quality. Similar to what AirBnB are doing. When everyone can use icon- and component libraries like material and shadcn to build UI:s, this is a visual language that communicates premium quality is through an interface and iconography that is different and too expensive for others to recreate. Many companies don't have the skill nor the time and money to do custom icons in 3D software, or create elaborate translucent effects. Let's see what multi-plattform apps will look like with this new UI, perhaps the goal is to make them stand out as "outdated"

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#774

Post by dodo_is_dodo » Tue, Jun 10, 2025, 7:45 AM UTC

I'm curious about the 'new hardware has enabled us to' part. I know they have full control over software, hardware stacks(A,M chip, Metal, OS), so I can easily imagine they do their best to optimization.

Is it possible to do the same job with same performance on Android? or Windows or any general target OS and software stack?

Seems that shader itself does not costs too much(normal map? lookup table?). What really matters is their UI/Shader job scheduling in realtime constraints on any CPU/GPU load state.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#775

Post by scdnc » Tue, Jun 10, 2025, 7:45 AM UTC

I like the idea of using a more glass-like UI, but the implementation is horrible. It looks like a school project rather than work from the biggest company in the world. I generally don't understand the idea of making every UI look more like a children's toy.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#776

Post by runlevel1 » Tue, Jun 10, 2025, 7:47 AM UTC

xmddmx wrote: post #644

plainOldText wrote: post #200

This looks horrible to be honest. This new liquid glass will lead to liquid brain, because my brain will be melting trying to process all that visual mess daily. Now of course, I'll have to experience this new design in practice to be sure, but judging from the screenshots it looks really hard on the eyes. Hopefully they'll allow the translucency to be customized. Apple had a good run, I've genuinely enjoyed using th…

Even the non transparent stuff looks bad - a plain Finder window: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-tahoe-26-0-beta-1...

Oh dear...

That's worse than I expected.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#777

Post by minhoryang » Tue, Jun 10, 2025, 7:50 AM UTC

Curious how much the work environment would deteriorate if an expert program with a large amount of information were redesigned with Liquid Glass. It's a bit perplexing that I have to look for a way to turn off this type of UI change under the accessibility menu.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#778

Post by gherkinnn » Tue, Jun 10, 2025, 7:52 AM UTC

2d8a875f-39a2-4 wrote: post #758

gherkinnn wrote: post #48

https://www.lux.camera/physicality-the-new-age-of-ui/ This blog's prediction got remarkably close. I've been a sucker for glass UI since the first Longhorn (later Vista) screenshots.

I mean, that just blog sums up the whole attitude issue here. "It’s an exciting time to be a designer on iOS. My professional universe is trembling and rumbling with a deep sense of mystery." This person is excited that their job designing iOS apps will be more interesting (and the prospect of plenty of work in the pipeline doesn't hurt either). Fuck the end users who need to adapt to this needless change, suffer new…

Indeed. This attitude is found throughout the tech industry. It stinks from a product manager's spreadsheets down to the infrastructure that runs it all. The design is just what is immediately obvious.

In this case I am lucky, as I find glassy UIs visually appealing.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#779

Post by pndy » Tue, Jun 10, 2025, 8:01 AM UTC

dluan wrote: post #557

everything is mid 2000s again. this really feels anti-apple even though the design polish is top notch, but to just abandon accessibility for shinyness feels like something steve would have obviously been against. but it definitely takes me back to endlessly tweaking with linux mint skins in my college dorm.

Can't wait for another turn to flat when '50 will be around the corner /s

The overall bulky style reminds me of the least appealing cosmic-techno-chrome Windows themes that were spawning like rabbits ~20 years ago: https://www.thepcmanwebsite.com/themes/images/themes/bounce_...

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#780

Post by markpapadakis » Tue, Jun 10, 2025, 8:15 AM UTC

This looks like a disaster. It is like it was fast-tracked based on the oomph factor because seriously, how come you didn't notice how hard it is to read text or even notice overlapping objects/controls? Maybe once we use it for some time, we will all get it - it is possible - but as it now stands, I hope there will be an option to turn all that off, _especially_ on MacOS which is what I use to get work done.