Through the Liquid Glass
Posted4 months agoActive4 months ago
flarup.emailTechstory
skepticalnegative
Debate
80/100
UI DesignAppleSkeuomorphism
Key topics
UI Design
Apple
Skeuomorphism
The article discusses Apple's new UI design featuring 'liquid glass' effects, sparking criticism and skepticism from commenters about the practicality and aesthetic value of such design choices.
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Day 9
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- 01Story posted
Aug 24, 2025 at 6:23 PM EDT
4 months ago
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Sep 1, 2025 at 6:05 PM EDT
8d after posting
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19 comments in Day 9
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Sep 2, 2025 at 7:06 PM EDT
4 months ago
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ID: 45008337Type: storyLast synced: 11/20/2025, 5:45:28 PM
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Give me the vintage MacOS and Vista designs from the article over whatever the new fad of UI they keep trying to shove down our throats. It was flat UI before, now glass again but this time with raytraced refractions, so we waste compute power to get the glass buttons to look more realistic if you pixel peep.
I could swear we're living in a parody when I hear this being said with a straight face.
I have a longing for 10.4 on my old plastic Intel iMac at this point.
Sure but it's never gonna be faster or lower-energy than not doing it
https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-s...
Besides that, I'm wary of the saturated fats claim being true given that most of the studies were done on middle aged white men on a standard american diet. it didn't account for excessive calories and high levels of sugar in the diet. We've been eating animal products for thousands of years (inuits eating it exclusively) with little to no issues. Why would these suddenly now be a problem?
No they’re not.
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Goomba_fallacy
What fascinates me the most is not how bad the most recent one is, but how it now relies on you knowing the prior forms of that icon to know what the current one is conveying. Apple fans actually point this out as an artful homage, but to anyone not already steeped in Apple products, it's just a shitty icon made of basic shapes. I wonder if Apple has reached the point where they don't need the affordances of the past since people are familiar enough with their past, good designs. People point out that liquid glass will be amazing in Vision OS, and that's probably the thinking from Apple. It's just a shame that we have to unify a design language to the worst possible case: a transparent screen taped to your face. In my mind, that's an objectively stupid design decision, but the Apple fanboys will say, "Look at those little colored squares on the address book icon, what a brilliant reference!" And will be able to recognize from memory how the thing should work, all while the entire UI gets more and more melted.
I agree the latest rev does require familiarity with the old one more than it should, but a weeble, to me, is a better universal iconographic symbol to denote a contact than an @ (just in general)
Just how is this NOT just a fresh coat of paint? It is precisely the same controls, providing precisely the same effects, but looking different.
And probably requiring just a little more attention and thought to actually use - so the device becomes slightly more of an attention trap/sink :(
I am not sure how someone would come to this conclusion if they are actually using it. This comment feels more like “I’ve seen screenshots and this is the conclusion I have drawn from what I have seen. The elements of this UI change go far beyond icons.
I’ve been using it daily since the dev release. It’s most definitely not the same controls at least within the apps that use some standard control and navigation elements. It feels new, but still familiar enough that I don’t think beyond the first few uses will require any additional thought.
Personally I was surprised at how much it conveyed the concept in my mind just through its visuals of the touch experience that I was interacting with a “thing” more than just a UI element. I fully expected to hate it, but don’t.