I was not sure whether to post here or not, but after a full day with the Liquid Glass UI, I had to express myself somewhere.
It is incredible how much worse my experience with the phone has become. I am 34, and I am struggling to read the text in the notifications, my eyes are constantly trying too hard to make out what it says.
The buttons look cheap, not interactive, and just plain strange. I don’t see anything better here than we had before, absolutely nothing is better in terms of UX.
And it’s ugly, I cannot be the only one, but it feels like someone forced me to look at those glass bricks that were popular in the 80s.
The performance feels worse, the battery life is in shambles, no idea why. iPhone 13 Pro user.
Not frustrated enough to switch to Android yet, but seriously considering that as an option. This is not the UI I want to use.
I was bothered by how many taps I had to use to do things in Safari, but then I figured out I can swipe up on the ellipsis to select something from the menu, so it’s one action. Bringing up the tabs is a quick double tap, I don’t actually need to wait. Things like that, which I’m figuring out through use, are helpful. I had issues with not being able to see some widgets with certain wallpapers, so I changed my wallpaper for now until they work that out.
All in all it feels to me like a hacked together Gen Z "Aesthetic" toy interface and not at all like a professional piece of software.
This was already pointed out a month ago but Apple are seemingly completely MIA.
https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/800125?page=2
https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=297779
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/79753701/ios-26-safari-w...
This would be hotfixed in most companies withing hours, it's that grave.
I wonder how many business critical websites are simply not working atm, even more dangerous infrastructure and health related apps.
I guess they wanted to streamline the experience of browsing with using their extremely buggy UI.
1. The hubris of big companies deciding that they know what you want better than you do. I used to chide Microsoft, not that they were listening, that their motto was "We will optimize you (if you change your life to do things our way)", like the ubiquitous "Excel as a database." Only a visionary can anticipate your needs, and Steve Jobs is gone.
2. Change for the sake of change. Compare with the crazy expensive yearly cosmetic (if not comedic) changes in auto styling.
3 (of two). Well, you know that they're greasing the skids for some secret unified watch, computer, phone, AR, OS to run the world. But can't tell you because your future is a secret that we can't share with you, and most assuredly won't ask you about.
4 (of two) The only sane future is Free and Open Source, where people outside the castle have nonzero say.
I'd also suggest that OS UI's are almost (but not quite) universally horrible. In most cases OS is about functionality, not astheics. There are good looking OS projects, but they are rare. And most often just a clone of a good looking commercial system.
I get that lots of people would love to return yo Windows XP styling (or whatever your favorite era was) but interestingly, looking back, I see that software as unbearably ugly.
So yes, moving forward means making mistakes. But not moving at all is, IMO, worse.
I would love software to be ugly again. So that companies can focus on building features instead of animations and other gimmicks. Collect customer feedback and build useful features instead of endlessly twiddling with knobs and adjusting settings everyone was fine with.
Liquid glass UI with transparency may allow user to keep that context without completely putting AI user interface aside.
They did add contrast between interface elements but in some places forgot to change size of buttons to fit with the rest. Interface flashes trying to figure out if text and icons should be black or white. Sometimes it even loads some unstyled gray flat widgets and then "pours" this glass over. Some apps still hasn't changed at all and continuously use one color or mix of both like Home.
The "traffic lights" windows widget on tablet: I just hope nobody will get that brilliant idea to bring it onto desktop because it's just plain horrible. Menu bar you pull down from the edge of the screen is rather useless at the moment; doesn't seem any app already updated to utilize these. Switching from library to main sprinboard screen on tablet causes icons to squeeze together and fly randomly at either right or left corner.
We got a doubtful visual update but rubber-banding call screen, notifications that won't synchronize across devices and won't disappear until you open apps - that's still here year after year.