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by barrell 85 days ago
My non techie friends all hate it. I don’t think there is a single Apple user I talk to regularly that hasn’t complained about it, or ask me why it is that way (being the resident tech person for some).

And besides a few odd posts on x, I haven’t heard anyone techy speak positively about it.

Maybe I’m the one in a bubble, but I’m seriously considering switching from Apple as a lifelong Apple user, largely because of the UI changes (Liquid Glass et al), so I don’t think the complaints about it are overblown.

3 comments

I do think the glass effects do look great in certain areas, like pulling down Notification Center. But I find LG for the most part to be change for the sake of it. Small things like replacing the Cancel & Confirm/Done prompts with larger X or checkmark icons bother me. They take up more space on screen, and honestly they don't always translate well. There are some cases where a checkmark has taken the place of "Done" and I have felt genuine confusion on how to get out of the editing mode or options screen.
> I do think the glass effects do look great in certain areas, like pulling down Notification Center

This is one of many things that really bother me in iOS 26, after just having updated from iOS 18. It just looks wrong that it's fully transparent until you fully pulled it down, and then suddenly everything flies away. Very strange effect.

Another thing is the border effect on the icons and widgets. I wish there was a way to turn those off completely, but either you get the motion effect or you have permanent borders.

So many strange decisions.

Personally I’m not a fan of the glass effect, but yeah what bothers me more are all the changes around it. The terrible jelly nav bars, the text distortion, the massive buttons with overly rounded corners, the awful switches and sliders, not to mention the design inconsistency through any given OS, let alone across them.

Personally I bundle it all up into “Liquid Glass et al”, but the glass effects are the least of the issues for me. I could maybe get over an ugly design; design is subjective after all. But iOS 26 is just disfunctionally bad design (imho)

Like I'm not a fan but the ecosystem is convenient if you can afford it and liquid glass is fine? I haven't heard a single person complain about it IRL It's not a big design that I got hyped for like iOS 6 but it's fine

I have the vision pro, mbp m4, ip15 pro max, apple watch ultra 2, studio display (2026), 2 official keyboards, 2 magic trackpads, ipad (4th gen), 3 homepod 2, 5 homepod mini, airpod pro 3 (I keep buying new airpod pros every time they come out because the improvements are really good).

I'm fine liquid glass and I use their products like.. 20 hours a day?

My kid just updated their phone recently and came in to show me. They thought it looked pretty cool.

Which is to say, we all have our own bubbles.