On the flip side, having used the beta for a while, I think I’ve fallen in love with it. The UI is absolutely gorgeous and such a delight to use. It’s the closest thing we’ve come to Aqua’s “lickability”. It’s not something that can be judged by product videos and screenshots.

From a purely utilitarian perspective, there are some regressions. The most egregious one being the lack of a properly sized url bar in Safari.. but on the other side of that, content and websites are so much more immersive with this design.

We’re definitely going to see improvements made over the beta period. Notifications are a swing and a miss and impossible to read.

I really thought I’d hate this new design language but I think Apple’s on to something here. I remember the good old days of the first iphone, and how it engaged you in a way that made you want to do stuff with the UI like flick through cover art, scroll up and down my music library just for fun, and pinch to zoom in on random things.

The liquid glass redesign is recapturing my imagination in the same way. I’m fiddling just to fiddle. This is not vista.