“Today’s apps’ problem is every app has its own UI language, and users have to first learn that before being able to use an app.”
Liquid Glass is far from the first attempt at this. See “material design”. Apple has had UI guidelines for years now, and all of their apps were more or less as consistent as they are now after the transition. My complaint is that shiny effects aren’t necessary for UI consistency, and it slows older devices and consumes their already degraded battery capacity even faster. At least you can “reduce transparency”, but it actually makes the UI looks less transparent than it was before.
However, my biggest complaint is how half-baked it is. iOS 26 is riddled with bugs. As an example that is ridiculously easy to reproduce:
1) Enable “reduce transparency” in accessibility.
2) Open the Files app to any directory.
3) Enable dark mode. Congratulations, the directory name at the top of the screen is now illegible due to black text on a black background. The same bug is also present in Freeform, except it also makes the status bar illegible. They removed the backing UI element without refactoring the text, and nobody noticed. And unless they didn’t mention it in the release notes, it looks like they still haven’t fixed this in the 26.1 beta.
Liquid Glass is far from the first attempt at this. See “material design”. Apple has had UI guidelines for years now, and all of their apps were more or less as consistent as they are now after the transition. My complaint is that shiny effects aren’t necessary for UI consistency, and it slows older devices and consumes their already degraded battery capacity even faster. At least you can “reduce transparency”, but it actually makes the UI looks less transparent than it was before.
However, my biggest complaint is how half-baked it is. iOS 26 is riddled with bugs. As an example that is ridiculously easy to reproduce: 1) Enable “reduce transparency” in accessibility. 2) Open the Files app to any directory. 3) Enable dark mode. Congratulations, the directory name at the top of the screen is now illegible due to black text on a black background. The same bug is also present in Freeform, except it also makes the status bar illegible. They removed the backing UI element without refactoring the text, and nobody noticed. And unless they didn’t mention it in the release notes, it looks like they still haven’t fixed this in the 26.1 beta.