iOS 26 Liquid Glass is awful in many ways

44 points by apavlinovic 263 days ago | 28 comments

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.

al_borland 263 days ago |

This sentiment is common with every major UI change. Give yourself some time to adjust, and Apple time to work out some of the bugs, before doing anything drastic. iOS 7 was very rough around the edges and got a lot of hate (rightfully so), but it evolved and got better.

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.

kapellmeister 263 days ago |

I've gotten used to it mostly, i still think it's a significant downgrade from the almost perfect Interface they had in iOS 18. But what i just can't get used to and what i hate with a passion is the HDR effects on touch down. Who in their right mind thought that it was a good idea to increase the brightness of the screen beyond what it is set to in partial areas of it?? It's incredibly distracting and serves in my opinion no purpose.

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.

abujazar 255 days ago |

It's not even just the ugly glass effects. Even with reduced transparency turned on in Accessibility, which makes the UI more tolerable, there are still weird animations and effects everywhere. They just seem completely out of place and serve no purpose. Safari feels like an early beta ridden with UI bugs, but apparently this is how they intended it to be.

kossTKR 263 days ago |

One of the wildest things i haven't seen mentioned here is that IOS26's new Safari has also broken millions of huge websites among them Apple.com, Google Maps and even their own UI in some places that uses the browser.

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.

k310 263 days ago |

Two factors in play, IMO.

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.

bruce511 263 days ago | |

I'd suggest that Open Source just defines the castle differently. People outside the castle have no 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.

skydhash 261 days ago | | |

> but interestingly, looking back, I see that software as unbearably ugly.

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.

rtcoms 261 days ago | |

I have different take on this, with AI coming into mobile interface, the context about what is present on the screen becomes important, user will like to know what is present on the screen and verify answers from AI frequently.

Liquid glass UI with transparency may allow user to keep that context without completely putting AI user interface aside.

JustExAWS 263 days ago | |

Yes because open source software has always been a paragon of not only great user experience, but has always focused on what the end user wants instead of making tradeoffs in the name of some geek purity test - see PinePhone, Framework laptops, etc. - yes I know they aren’t open source software. But they do have the same ethos.

runjake 263 days ago |

I feel like this release is a work-in-progress waypoint to another paradigm for the Mac, and this is Apple's way of steering (stalling?) users and developers without giving too much away.

pndy 263 days ago |

It's like this Liquid Glass was "splashed" over still-current flat style - it feels like there's no visual consistency and this is some internal transitional beta software.

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.

seemaze 249 days ago | |

It's like corn syrup was drizzled all over a perfectly snappy and mature interface which now requires the user to wade through a superficial layer of viscous muck to accomplish what used to be a straight forward task.

richardatlarge 263 days ago |

I updated on an iphone 13 pro and had to go back to my old iphone with an older OS. I write on my phone (substack), and it cannot be done with this OS. Together the two have become inoperable. And to think I updated because of how bad the experience was on the old OS. Buying a new "nothing phone" later today

moomoo11 262 days ago |

While some UX improvements are nice, there are way more UX regressions that affect my day to day.

FaceTime zoom via drag gesture used to be so nice. Now I can only pinch (requires both hands) or tap the preset zooms.

Safari tabs and other interactions are ass now.

Selecting text and dragging selection is impossible if I’m dragging down. Half the time it doesn’t do shit because it opens a pane right below which registers my tap instead.

So many other interactions that required single tap or drag now require 2 or more and invoke opening a menu. Wtf.

Honest feels like an intern project, and not something I’d expect from Apple design team. Did any important/good people leave recently?

And yeah it looks cheap. I used to hate this similar look a decade ago when it was on iOS. I liked the last few UIs. This is just awful.

torunar 263 days ago |

I didn’t update to iOS 26 yet specifically because of the horrendous glass UI with its zero contrast everywhere. Just wondering if enabling high contrast and disabling gradients in the accessibility settings help.

leakycap 263 days ago |

Apple silicon has never once felt slow to me until I installed iOS 26 on devices with 3 and 4 GB RAM... Tahoe even makes my 32GB RAM M-series Macs feel slow like a computer used to feel back before the M1

deanmoriarty 263 days ago |

It’s going to take me a lot more to switch to Android, but yeah iOS 26 is not good. Some new UX paradigms are actually useful, like the ability to swipe over controls instead of having to press buttons, or the control bars shrinking during scrolling, but all could have been achieved without the major styling change.

I’m old enough to remember the Windows 98 -> XP -> Vista regressions and inconsistencies in UX, and I expect Apple to be headed that way.

bigyabai 263 days ago |

Unfortunately, these days an iOS issue has to make it into a point release before people are convinced it's a serious problem. Going to be interesting watching the Liquid Glass product cycle.

bobdaicon979 263 days ago |

I can't stand the toggle buttons. Why are they so wide? It's unsightly. I wish we could just customize it ourselves as the end customer. After all, we are paying for it.

leakycap 263 days ago |

Beyond the eye-watering UI, all the 3GB RAM devices on the supported list are slow to the point I don't think they're usable

EpsilonHN 263 days ago |

Yeah i agree, everything is worse and on iPhone 13 it's laggy sometimes.

The whole glass ui feels cheap

allears 263 days ago |

I have the same model, and similar complaints. I reduced the transparency (Settings-Accessibility) and that helped, but the needless animations and other cutesy touches are annoying and distracting. I turned off the call screening, because it was condescending. Maybe if I was a busy CEO it would be useful, but I'd rather see who's calling myself without another layer in between.

All of this BS about "fresh" and "exciting" is just BS. Apple is trying hard to create a trend, but I think it's overreaching.

mensdev 263 days ago |

I totally agree. I'm 39, and it looks like a poor version of Windows Vista.

burnt-resistor 263 days ago |

I refuse to install *OS 26. I don't need these headaches or wastes of time.

deanmoriarty 263 days ago | |

Does that mean that you hope the next generation of iOS will do away with liquid glass so that you can update, or that you’ll never update again (also implying you’ll never buy an Apple device again)?

I always understood the sentiment of waiting until the first dot release for bug fixes, but refusing to update while still being in the ecosystem seems clearly a losing battle not even worth fighting for.

danielrico 263 days ago |

Same in the MacBook pro.

keyshapegeo99 263 days ago |

With no exaggeration, iPadOS 26 is the worst piece of software I've had the displeasure of using in a very long time (and I work day-to-day with 'Enterprise' GIS software).

It has me seriously considering selling my 11" M4 iPad Pro and eyeing up a Samsung Tab S11. This is despite the fact that the latter will lack the "magic" interplay with my Mac, which I use frequently. But I'm beginning to think slowly transitioning out of "the ecosystem" might be what's best for me.

When you pay the eye-watering premium for an Apple product you do not expect to be subject to workflow-obliterating bugs and UX degradations. But here we are.

The removal of Spilt View and Slide Over from the non-windowed mode in iPadOS was completely unnecessary and represents a massive middle finger to touch-based users.[1] To achieve the former's functionality now requires a bunch of fiddly and undiscoverable swipes, taps, and flicks to emulate what was previously a simple hold-and-drag procedure. It's also completely unpredictable - every time a guess as to whether a 'flicked' window will fill up the whole left/right side of my iPad's display, or whether it will just fill the space above the dock (why would I want that on an 11" display?), in the latter case requiring further attempts to actually get it to fill up the entire space. I'm aware there is the alternate route of holding the traffic lights and waiting for the pop-up menu, but this touch target is so small that I frequently miss it, and waiting for what was previously instantly accessible functionality to present itself is frustrating. Plus, switching back to full-screen mode by double-tapping the top of a window is completely broken - half of the time this gets interpreted as the old functionality of scrolling to the top of scrollable content within the referent app, meaning you risk completely losing your place in a PDF / on website whenever you attempt this.

Slide Over is completely missing, and was the iPad's killer feature for students and artists (or I considered it to be at least, until a Samsung rep at their store yesterday demonstrated that you can flick an app in pop-up view 'off the side' of their tablets' displays and then bring it back with a tap, in what is a very close analogue of Slide Over). Now if I wish to be working on a full-screen note / PDF annotation and I want to quickly bring up my calculator app, it is a much more fiddly and cumbersome process to do this. And best hope that I remembered every digit of that large number I'm copying down! Because the moment you touch away from a floating window to write something down, the window will vanish to the back of the stacking order, unlike Slide Over's persistent (until dismissed) window. This is infuriating.

And the bugs! Oh my goodness, the bugs. The fact that the dancing keyboard issue[2] wasn't resolved during the beta period is completely unforgivable. The fact that Stage Manager is riddled with bugs (persistent app previews poking out of the side of the display, even when the switcher has been dismissed; the swipe up behaviour taking you to the tail end of your app previews instead of your most recently used apps, etc.). Plus the constant flickering and glitching of the tacky 'Liquid Glass' effects is headache-inducing.

You know what? I've convinced myself to get that S11.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/iPadOS/comments/1mq8sgd/old_split_v... [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/iPadOS/comments/1njyg2y/hows_your_i...