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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

#91

Post by frizlab »

windows_hater_7 wrote: post #84

I think there were some nice improvements like changing the cursor in iPadOS to be an arrow instead of a circle. I’m really just shocked at the number of serious bugs in the updates. My Apple Watch is sometimes 7 minutes faster than the actual time. MacOS is the worst though. I don’t remember the last time I experienced a kernel panic, but today my Mac crashed because of a DMA translation fault.

Fun, I actually preferred the circle. I loved the shape changing into the element it was hovering; I miss that a lot.

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

#92

Post by jacobp100 »

binarynate wrote: post #13

I haven't upgraded to iOS 26 because of Liquid Glass, mostly because I've read that it causes performance degradation on older devices (I use an iPhone 13 Mini because I have zero interest in using a larger phone). So, it looks like I'll be using iOS 18 for the foreseeable future.

Upgraded my 12 mini. Performance is fine. Battery life is as it always was

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

#93

Post by WorldPeas »

id00 wrote: post #72

All these threads about iOS 26 reminded me about something long forgotten like... the release of iOS I suggest to check the comments in this 12 years old thread [1], replace version number 7 with 26 there and realise that some things never change [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5856398

Just because something happened once before doesn't mean that it's good.

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

#95

Post by sangeeth96 »

infermore wrote: post #41

whoever made opening a new tab in safari take three taps, the last of which is in the bottom left of the screen instead of the bottom right, has some explaining to do

In the default “compact” layout, I can open a new tab in two taps by tapping the 3 dots, tap “New tab” from the menu.

One tap by holding the 3 dots and dragging finger to the “new tab” item.

But I didn’t like “compact” so switched to “bottom” layout for Tabs from Settings > Apps > Safari.

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

#96

Post by jeroenhd »

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 like it too. However, I have noticed several screens that clearly were never tested by any Apple testers. Not just the liquid glass part, either; I've found entirely borked screens inside of the iOS settings app.

When I tried to get Aero Glass into Linux themes, I found plenty of existing transparency-oriented themes, but all of them made Microsoft's decision to use frosted glass more obvious. There's a balance between the shininess and opacity that needs to be dialed down for the look to both look good and be clear.

I think Apple went too far with making their theme look shiny. I assume (hope) a 26.1 update coming out in a few months to tweak the UI and fix a lot of the usability issues.

As for the weird design choices around Safari: I've always found Safari's UI to be one of the most confusing parts of iOS. It was never quite obvious to me what menu I would need to hit to get to what feature. I think removing the tab button is a step backwards for sure, but with my normal struggle to use it, I've barely noticed it to be honest. I find the button as easy to find as I do most Safari buttons, and that includes previous versions.

macOS seems particularly bad for built-in software, though. It seems like Apple changed the look of standard list boxes/navigation panels/whatever they call the menu on the left, and a lot of built-in macOS applications look terrible when multiple of these panes are placed near each other.

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

#97

Post by nixpulvis »

PaulHoule wrote: post #61

What gets me about it is that it is just a lot of random vandalism of the UI without really looking like anything. The clock on my phone looks like it had anti-anti aliasing applied to it. Most of the contrast got drained out of the settings button but only the settings button. It doesn’t look like they had a vision for what it should look like but instead they just let some random check some random stuff into their…

I imagine it's a lot easier to show you're developing code by redesigning things than it is to do the work to figure out fixes to harder bugs with unclear tradeoffs or work to create new directions for the company. New UI is just exciting enough to fool some people into thinking it's still fresh.

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

#99

Post by nicce »

porcoda wrote: post #31

This update is one of the rare cases where I really dislike the new version. I’m usually happy with Apple updates, even ones the commentators dislike. This time I’m sorta agreeing with them: I don’t like the new iOS. Same with the Mac and iPad: other than being glitchy, I just don’t like the changes. It feels like my screen real estate isn’t as efficiently used, UI elements feel jumbled and the transparency makes thi…

You can finally see senders’ and receivers’ email address properly in the mail app. Something positive!

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

#100

Post by themadturk »

mrkstu wrote: post #50
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…

Turning on reduce transparency makes it perfectly usable, generally. Even with transparency on its gotten much better than the early betas, which is good, since that is the happy code path and gets more testing coverage.

Came her to say this. There are things I still don't like about it, but reducing transparency has helped a lot. The rest I'm willing to live with (as if I had any choice...)
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