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Apple announces iOS 26 with Liquid Glass redesign
(www.theverge.com)
Liquid Ass
I'm sorry if it's a dumb question, but didn't Microsoft already do this with Vista and Win 7? And I'm pretty sure transparency has been a thing on Android for a good while now:-?
Frutiger Aero.
I honestly don't even know why I'm paying attention to Apple at this point, I think it's like digging my nail into a freshly scarred-over cut, just to tease that sting out a bit. It's the only way in which they have ever contributed to my feeling alive.
I only "follow" because whatever Apple does gets broadcast by every media outlet in existence. Also Google started blindly following Apple design since they killed my beloved blob emojis.
The blob emojis were one of their best features, that's so true! I kid you not, every single time I've used Slack for work, for every single company which used it, someone had already uploaded the blobs! I really didn't understand that move, the current Smile emoji looks psychotic.
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i mean yes, but this is a more dynamic transperency that reacts more to backgrounds, merging/separating with other elements, etc.
I mean... look, I'm genuinely not trying to be a sour asshole, but why did we need this? How is this furthering the development of smartphone tech? It's, like... sure, pretty graphics are nice, but do we really need ray-tracing on our phones? (I know it's not ray-tracing, but you get my point)
It's what happens when they run out of useful things to improve but still need to announce something to make people think they're getting an upgrade.
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This is such a step back to 2005 and those glassy Winamp skins. It looks absolutely terrible. I wonder how Apple users put up with that
I beg to differ. It’s not a „putting up with“. I don’t hate modern flat designs but if I was putting up with anything it’s that.
Loved the translucent look back then, still love it now. Am very looking forward to the design update. Especially since the new design is not just some standard windows aero like transparency but actually has glass like refractions.
I’m very glad we’re getting something with a little more depth again, without going full 180 to the clutter of peak skeumorphic iOS <7.
I’m a little bit concerned about readability of text on the translucent backgrounds but on the other hand, it feels unlikely that Apple didn’t think of that…
Edit: typo
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Hey, it's aqua! We've come full circle!
Gives me iOS 7 vibes.
I like it in theory, but in some of the examples they provided on https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/06/apple-introduces-a-delightful-and-elegant-new-software-design/, reading text isn't the easiest with all the colors and blurs everywhere.
reading text isn’t the easiest with all the colors and blurs everywhere
Agreed - I like the look of these things in an abstract sense, but it makes the text really hard to read. I ~~assume~~ hope there's a way to disable it in accessibility settings.
Also not a fan of the critical UI elements being popped out into floating islands, very easy to accidentally hit underlying page content when there's effectively zero padding around controls (on touch devices, as the ad companies have discovered by making the × icons smaller and smaller).
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Honestly, it looks kind of terrible to me. Not to mention how unreadable text is since there's apparently no guaranteed contrast with black text due to the transparent backgrounds. I feel like I'm going crazy with all the random articles praising it.
Guess this means Apple has run out of ideas on how to make iPhone better.
What can we do to distract attention away from the fact that we don't have any decent new features?
- "Rename the business unit so we can print new letterheads and business cards?" Our customer don't work here, sir. "Dammit!"
- "Release a new color that nobody wants? How about a light blue that is so close to the regular silver no one can tell?" We did that last year, sir. "Dammit!"
- "Oh, I know: Repeat the year 2000 mistake by naming our OS versions after the current year using only 2 digits. That will never bite us in the ass in the future." Brilliant, sir.
Almost everything in that list of new features sounds negative to me. A few are neutral, and one might be positive depending on how it’s implemented (having the phone monitor a phone call while sitting on hold). Pretty disappointing, Tim Apple.
hey I had that winterboard theme like 15 years ago
Android and ios are basically indistinguishable to me at this point
Lol
I use both every day. Pixel 9 Pro XL (personal) and an iPhone 12 (work). Plus my own M1 iPad Pro.
They're not even fucking close.
Seriously?
Look, the one is taking and exploiting nearly all of your data, while giving you 10.000 different well hidden opt out options, the other is taking all of your data for granted while telling you it is for your best and nobody else should have it, and promising they are never ever gonna exploit it, swear with fingers crossed... hm... OK you are right.
This makes me want to get rid of my iPhone even more
I never understood products that use the next year as their version nr. Why isn't this iOS25?
I presume because due to it releasing in September, it’s lifetime will mostly lie in 2026. But honestly Idk, I am godawful at naming things.
I thought I was going crazy as my phone stopped updating after iOS 18. Then I learned that they are changing the version # to match the years. 😏
The announcement also marks a change in how Apple signifies its major updates to iOS. Under the previous marketing scheme, this year’s major release would have been iOS 19 — the direct follow-up to iOS 18. But now, Apple’s big iOS updates will be numbered based on the year following their introduction
Well that's interesting. I was certain The Verge was trying to be funny. But this tracks, now Apple has Biggest Number™.
Edit: This has to be a joke. Who the fuck thought this up? I can't take this seriously...
It's not a matter of biggest number, it's a matter of consistency.
They have five operating systems, macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, visionOS.
So currently we have macOS 15, iOS 18, iPadOS 18, watchOS 11 & visionOS 2. That's absolute confusion. Do I have the latest version? Dropping support for an older version, how many years ago was that?
A version number should convey useful information, and the year it was released is useful information. Especially when major updates come every year.
Edit: I forgot tvOS, also version 18. So six operating systems.
I was just discussing this with a friend, I have no clue these days what iOS or macOS version is the latest. I guess this does help but it feels like a Windows 8 to 10 jump in steroids
what would you have them do? anything else would be just as arbitrary.
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It’s not a matter of biggest number, it’s a matter of consistency.
They have five operating systems, macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, visionOS.
So currently we have macOS 15, iOS 18, iPadOS 18, watchOS 11 & visionOS 2. That’s absolute confusion. Do I have the latest version? Dropping support for an older version, how many years ago was that?
I don't disagree with you on principle, but I still think the implementation is fucking bonkers.
A version number should convey useful information, and the year it was released is useful information. Especially when major updates come every year.
Major updates should come when they're needed, not on a set schedule. CVEs don't wait. Yes, I know patches and security updates are a thing. I still think it's ridiculous. And I absolutely blame Apple for setting the "new thing every year" trend in motion.
How would you prefer they handle it?
Just to look at macOS version history,
The first public release was "Mac OS X 10.0", this continued until "Mac OS X 10.7 Lion". The "big cat" became part of the marketing name because the OS & version were a mouthful and throwing numbers around wasn't helpful.
We drop the "Mac" next year, then switch to mountains, but it's not long before we reach, "OS X 10.10" aka "OS ten ten ten".
Well it wasn't long before we simplified further and just said "macOS", but then took a while before we dropped the "10". Now we just get "macOS 15 Sequoia".
For nearly 18 years the Mac operating system had an unnecessary "10" that conveyed zero information.
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it's not that unusual, lots of software is named by the date. i think it makes a lot of sense especailly for apple, now they don't have a different release number for all their different platforms.
Though naming it by the following year instead of the release year is clearly a marketing move.
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I need to buy three immediately!
What’s the liquid glass exactly?
It means making it look like Windows Vista. Because that's what we all wanted, the perpetuation of a crappy design.
A kind of enshittification, out of boredom I guess...
What a readability nightmare.
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this post was submitted on 09 Jun 2025
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