And if you look at the window title bar, you’ll see how the use of translucent material gives you a sense of place as you scroll your content.
Now, these same carefully crafted translucent materials are used in the sidebars. So now, your windows take on the personality of your desktop. As you change your desktop picture, your window adapts to reflect that personality and that temperature.
And that translucency helps retain a sense of depth and place as you move your windows over one another.
The above is not a quote about Liquid Glass. This is Apple’s VP talking about OS X Yosemite, way back at WWDC 2014.
It’s curious to see the similarities to what Apple unleashed last week. Honestly, though, these were the design aspects of Yosemite that I least liked at the time, and they aren’t things I’ve grown any fonder of over the years – especially on the Mac.
It is notable, however, that Federighi uses the term “carefully crafted”. And the translucency was relatively subtle in Yosemite. For me, much of the problem with Liquid Glass stems from how overbearing it is: as I said in my piece for WIRED, rather than helping you focus your attention on what you’re doing, it demands attention for itself.
The iPhone Air reveal was a load of hot air. That’s the central premise of my column for Stuff, which explores what Apple said and what it delivered. Now, it’s not like Apple isn’t prone to hyperbole. Yet for this phone, the gap between spin and reality was greater than we’ve seen in a long time. And of all the compromises Apple made that I mention in the piece (and there are many), I didn’t even mention that the Air has a single speaker, like a budget Android blower from five years ago. I regret the omission. (Apple probably doesn’t, given that it wasn’t even mentioned during the launch keynote.)
The iPhone 17, however, is boring. Yet in another column, I argue why I reckon it’s the best option for most people this year – and (surprisingly) even closer to the iPhone Pro than ever.
The iPhone 16 cannot be upgraded. Which is quite funny. Last year, Apple provided a couple of storage upgrades for the 15. But if it had done the same today, potential buyers would end up with the option of a 256GB iPhone 16 or a 256GB iPhone 17 for the same price. It’s strange. Last year, the 16 seemed like solid value. Now, 12 months later, it’s not worth considering.
Spotify Lossless hi-fi audio won’t cost extra. Good. That’s the only way I’d ever use it. I outline why over at Stuff, in a column guaranteed to eject me from Spotify’s Christmas card list – and that of those types of audiophiles.
iPadOS 26 and macOS 26 are out on Monday. My sympathies to anyone who has to use them. But if you do, here are some tips to make the best of them.
Love books? Can’t remember what you own or have read? Then you need Book Tracker, a top-notch app for iPhone, iPad and Mac. I dig into its excellent feature set for TapSmart.
The UK government is looking to expand the Online Safety Act. Because of course it is. Again, it’s hard to argue against the premise. Of course no one wants vulnerable people to be able to access content that encourages self-harm. But there is no magic wand that will make all this go away. Although Labour appears to think one exists, by saying it is “compelling platforms to use cutting-edge technology to actively seek out and eliminate this content before it can reach users and cause irreparable harm, rather than simply reacting after someone has already been exposed to it”. So it was never about porn. It was never about children. And I do wonder what will be next on the list.
Apple Music can’t get any worse, right?Wrong. [Edit: I’m told this isn’t new. I hadn’t noticed because I use Reduce Motion. But still… yikes.]
I never liked OutRun much. Sorry. I thought it was a quite clunky racing game, despite the lovely visuals and excellent music. The sequel, however, remains my favourite racing game ever. If anything might change my mind about the original, it’s people doing amazing things with the concept, squeezing it into places it shouldn’t go, such as a C64 PETSCII version and this amazing fan effort for the Game Boy Color. Do-do do-do-do-do do-do-dooooooo!
Subscribe to Design Thinking. It’s an ace comic strip about being in the world of design. But when the creator asked if maybe people might chuck him some cash over Ko-Fi, he lost subscribers. Too many people are entitled. If you’re not one of them, please show this cartoonist some love.
Longplay is great. If you have an iPhone, iPad or Mac and a love of the album as a distinct musical unit (vs having Spotify or Apple Music turn your entire music collection into a massive jukebox), it’s a must. Over at TapSmart, I outline why I think Longplay is the best music app for iPhone.
Mac devs are revolting. In the sense that they’re pissed off at Apple. Marco Arment argues Apple’s attempts to harmonise its operating systems “solve a problem no Mac users had”. Craig Hockenberry fumes that one size does not fit all in a blog post that dismantles Apple’s current Mac approach. They’re not alone, and I wonder if the real fallout of the ‘26’ operating systems won’t be so much Liquid Glass, but Apple finally breaking long-term, vocal, important Mac advocates to the degree they just don’t care anymore.
Mac apps no longer feel native. That’s the startling conclusion from Steve Troughton-Smith. And it’s hard to disagree. Things were already quite bad. But macOS 26 makes everything significantly worse with interface design forced on it from mobile platforms. By contrast, although the UI design for iPadOS 26 is poor as well, the functionality improvements from the new windowing system – which I wrote about forWIRED – tip things to positive on Apple tablets.
macOS 26 creates a squircle jail. I remember when Android started experimenting with round icons and shoved existing ones inside of a circle. It looked crap. But, hey, Android! Today, though, Android looks (and often works) better than the upcoming iOS 26, and macOS is now busy forcing distinct icon shapes into identical squircles. The arrogance is breathtaking, as is the total lack of respect for app creators. Bizarrely, some of Apple’s own apps are caught in the mess, although I assume that will be fixed next week. Unlike, you know, the rest of the utter disaster that is Liquid Glass and Apple’s botched UI and UX ‘harmonisation’ of its operating systems.
Liquid Glass is locked. We’re at dev beta 8 now with this year’s Apple operating systems, which means any changes from this point will be minimal. The visual design and UX still sucks, so much so that a print mag I occasionally write for has provided new guidelines for screenshots. Contributors must turn Reduce Transparency ON. Why? Because otherwise grabs wouldn’t be legible enough.
I’ve never seen this kind of direction before. Until now, every tech/Mac magazine I’ve written for demanded you shoot grabs with default settings. But we’re now at the point with Apple design where the default UI isn’t suitable for a long-running print publication unless a buried accessibility setting is activated. Good work, everyone! Everything is fine dot gif.
In the future, everyone in a photo will smile, because that’s friendly, whether they were actually smiling or not. Litter will be eradicated and every street will be clean, unless you’re looking at the real street. You won’t be able to believe anything you see in any picture, but that’s OK, because by then the screens will be on your face. You’ll swim around in an unreality uncanny valley AR metaverse forever, while the real world is on fire. But at least the moon will look perfect.
Llamasoft is coming to Evercade.27(!) games on a single cart. Really happy to see Jeff Minter getting some love, what with this and the Digital Eclipse effort. Great also that both of these products enable you to explore multiple versions of key Llamasoft games. What Jeff managed to get out of the humble VIC-20 is astonishing, and VIC Gridrunner is possibly still my favourite version (perhaps tied with the sadly long-gone iPad release).
Soundwave superior! For once, my Stuff column is a properly light-hearted one, rather than me griping about something. Well, apart from chastising teenage me for selling his toys, the massive idiot. Still, I get to revel in a chonky Transformers Soundwave that’s also a Lego set. YASSSSS.
Speaking of Lego, I updated Stuff’s guide to the best upcoming Lego sets and OH MY at that WALL-E and EVE kit.
The ZX Spectrum Next is a hit. There’s lots of bullshit rattling around in retro-gaming circles right now, with a certain ‘new’ company supposedly against toxic social media deciding to be toxic on social media about its rivals. Hmmm. By contrast, the ZX Spectrum Next mob all seem rather lovely about everything. And so it pleases me greatly that the third ‘issue’ of the new ZX Spectrum managed over 1,000% of its funding target, pulling in a whopping £2.6m. If this really is going to be the last ever official Next, that’s a pretty spectacular finale.
iOS 26. Bleh. I still can’t stand Liquid Glass (or, as of dev beta 6, Liquid Frosted Glass). I don’t understand what it’s for, in terms of user benefit. It just seems to be for Apple to say “hey, look at our flashy light refraction tech!” Fortunately, there are good bits in iOS 26, as outlined in my latest tips piece for Stuff.
Apps! I don’t write about apps as much as I used to (mostly because hardly any publications now want app coverage, alas), but the odd piece still rocks up. In fact, this past week, I wrote three. For Stuff, I added AudioKit Synth One J6 to the best free iPad/iPhone apps round-up, wrote a Photomator deep dive, and updated TapSmart’s best task manager apps for iPhone feature.
VPNs are bad! Apparently. In the non-shock of the week, the UK government is now mulling age-gating VPNs and arguing (wrongly) that individuals verifying keeps children safe and so people should stop using VPNs.
Ultimately, Labour’s implementation of the Online Safety Act is starting the process of normalising mandated accounts tied to unthinking verification for any site that might have content that isn’t all suitable for children. Additionally, MPs are bigging up big UK drops in traffic to Pornhub as a victory, but with no context whatsoever. It may be people have moved to other sites, or users are now ‘invisible’. Vilifying a ‘good actor’ porn site also feels very right-wing USA…
I hate school uniforms. Mini-G is heading to secondary in September and we’re now immersed in buying her extensive garb. It’s expensive. The number of mandated items is ludicrous. Most of them are single supplier, from a supplier that is woefully inconsistent in sizes – and that has stock issues with whatever mini-G needs. Helpfully, the school has noted it will be zero-tolerance on uniform infractions.
I’m so sick of this bullshit. There is no real evidence that uniforms are beneficial. Plenty of other European countries merely have school clobber guidance, and their kids do a lot better than Brits in school, in terms of academia and socialisation. Ultimately, our obsession with uniforms goes back to class and conformity, and it’s absurdly outdated. I’ve heard arguments it’s about ‘preparing’ children for work. But not that many companies mandate people wearing a suit these days. And I don’t see any benefit in an 11-year-old child wearing a fucking tie to school every day. Fume.
