Many things happen in iOS 26, thanks to all the changes and features that Apple adds to the software. But as wonderful as additions such as calls for calls and customizable alarm repetition times can be, it is undeniable that Apple tackled the overhaul of liquid glass as its main sale argument.
Unfortunately, it is also the worst upgrade to iOS 26. Or at least, it is my personal opinion. I never liked the appearance of liquid glass, but to return to an iPhone 12 which always performs iOS 18 is a brutal reminder of the quantity of things that have changed – and not for the best.
Call me boring, but liquid glass is far too strong and shiny for my taste. Although Apple has left the possibility of reducing transparency, I don’t think it goes far enough.
The liquid glass is too garish and seeing – and it looks worse for that
The key that I really don’t like about liquid glass is what it has done when coloring iOS software. It is too brilliant, with a strange accent on the brilliant models, and it instantly makes me think of the sticky seaside resorts which are the shadow of their old self.
It is as if iOS had been put through a light neon filter that aggravates everything.
It is as if iOS had been put through a light neon filter that aggravates everything. Not only because the light coloring does not correspond exactly, but also because the shiny effects certain features ended up making colors mix – in particular from half a length of the arm.
Not all applications and icons are like that, but many of them are – in particular those made by Apple itself. I have to wonder what the design team really thought when they proposed this look.
To be fair, the latest major iOS redesign was widely criticized when launched in 2013. People wanted to keep the older skémorphic design, rather than the more rationalized flat look that arrives at its 12th anniversary.
People did not like design, and some said he looked cheap and felt confusing. Joshua Topolsky, former editor -in -chief of The Verge, criticized part of art To look, he came directly from the clip.
People don’t like change. They have never done it, and since the internet has given them a voice, they use it to complain that the old thing is much better than the new thing. I know that I was guilty sometimes, even if I try to pretend not to be.
I have the impression that it would take me a lot to get used to the design of Liquid Glass, however. As flat, boring and relatively simple as we were the old iOS look, it worked well. Low the same time as the Lightning cable, which did not have so much.
At least transparency can be extinguished
The other part of the liquid glass that I really hated was all the translucent of conceptions. When I open a tab or a menu, I really don’t want to have to see the fuzzy remains of the last thing I looked at in the background.
IOS 18 also did it, to a certain extent, and I did not like it there either. A good example of this was the control panel, which was like looking through frosted glass to the silhouettes of the home screen behind. Liquid glass tones down this frosting at the point where you can always recognize what is happening in the background.
Apple uses words like “beautiful” and “delicious” when talking about liquid glass, but the truth is that it is none of this. He is disorderly, clumsy, and although he may seem brushed and optimized in marketing documents, the results of the real world are anything but aesthetic.
Apple has made changes in the past two months, attenuating Some of the transparent effects in places – to the point that some people have joked, it should be called “frosty glass”.
This had to help optimize devices for better conviviality, and this finetuning shows why beta tests like this were carried out. But, personally, from the IOS 26 Public Beta 2, things did not go far enough.
Fortunately, the transparency problem has a solution right now. You can turn it off completely, and the menus and the formerly transparent icons automatically obtain opaque backgrounds. Go towards Settings> Accessibility> Text display and size> Reduce transparency.
The gray and brown used when this feature is used may not be the most flattering colors, but they are infinitely better than transparent menus.
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Talk to me again in a few years, and there is a chance that I can feel differently from liquid glass. But at the moment, everything I can do when I look at my iPhone is to cringe teeth on how things have changed, and how worse everything I think.
Fortunately, you can deactivate the transparency effect in the accessibility settings, I would be impregnated if Apple let us do the same with the shiny effects. Because at the moment, the whole system looks like a TEMU style version of Las Vegas. But as these effects have been designed in icons and works of art, rather than the operating system itself, this perspective is probably only a pipe dream.
Honestly, it makes me happy that I generally use Android phones. If I decide that I don’t like what the manufacturer has done with the software, I can always light one of the The best Android launchers and mix things. It may be time for Apple to do the same.
