I think it’s fine. It definitely needs some polish and there are other, unrelated changes like the big round corners that I dislike, but Liquid Glass itself is just… different. And appearance aside, I genuinely like some of the updated UI patterns, such as making buttons look like things you can interact with instead of undifferentiated text.
It’s OK to dislike glass, of course. I’m not saying doubters are wrong. A lot of it, though, feels like piling on to sound like one of the cool kid skeptics.
At this point I am pretty sure it's the loud vocal minority that hates it. Vast majority is either indifferent or actually likes it (but liking something doesn't sell).
I've seen far more non-design-obsessed people (normals) complaining about it, but in the end i think the better question is why? What possible purpose does this serve other than key-jangling? It is a distraction for most people and a waste of screen space and probably gpu cycles, why are we shading and filtering on every frame on every window and modal? Just render the pane and put the fries in the bag.
The waste of screen space is the big one for me. It feels like every company is racing to dumb down their products and fill their UI with whitespace instead of using that space for controls or content. My bank just redesigned their website and now even checking the balance of a few accounts + credit cards requires scrolling on a 1080p display. Ridiculous.
I think the vast majority's friction points with liquid glass come from the other changes, like the redesign of Messages and the calling functionality.
its not super bad, but it needs a lot of refinement (especially on iPad and mac), and also its a performance hog (or at least iOS26 is a performance hog) so they have a lot of work to do imo
I loved Liquid Glass too. It gave a refreshing look from the UI that I was seeing for quite some years. It drew the line that separated itself from rest of the competitors UI wise. It felt good, I don't much remember the older UI of iOS now, every now and then when checking for compatibility with older versions, I test through older UI and it feels very awkward.
It’s OK to dislike glass, of course. I’m not saying doubters are wrong. A lot of it, though, feels like piling on to sound like one of the cool kid skeptics.