Liquid Glass

What do y’all think of the new macOS 26 UI “Liquid Glass”?

I’m not happy that the icons for my two paid apps now have ugly borders around them. I’ll need to redesign 'em.

To get the Liquid Glass UI, you need to use Xcode 26 on macOS 26 (I’m going to try it with Xcode 26 on macOS 15).

I suspect for Xojo apps, we’ll have to modify the SDK again (like Big Sur), thankfully App Wrapper can do this for you.

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I have to look what this joke wilkl mean for deployment with jDeploy at the end. And beside that: I don’t like this OS.

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Using App Wrapper I was able to make a Xojo based application adopt Liquid Glass, but the results are not pretty.


That weird blob next to the traffic lights is how I was able to simulate a full size sidebar, speaking of which, the sidebar doesn’t use the new style because Xojo has no sidebar control.

Also note that the SegmentedControl styles is now down to two, which makes it more inline with SwiftUI.

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So the API3 for macOS is on it’s way. :slight_smile:

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Here’s my SwiftUI Cheat Sheet.

I like it esp. the unicolor icons, though I do not use a Mac anymore and moved to Gnome :stuck_out_tongue:

Pffft…Gnome. KDE is best (ooops that’s a flamewar :slight_smile: )

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On macOS it seems tolerable, though I have some complaints around unused whitespace, and content mixing that seems odd. Folder labels changing folder colors is nice (25 years late), but the colors do not necessarily match the choices you make.

It may be a bug, but right clicking the desktop or adding icons to it seems to be missing now. And extreme translucency of widgets makes them hard to read. It looks pretty, and thats it.

On iOS it looks like slime… or uncooked egg yolk. It’s quite off putting and I’ve had to turn off all visual effects, because you can’t turn off only the sticky, gooey bits. It’s very uncanny valley at the moment, and I hope that goes away.

Using specific wallpapers makes it look nice on the springboard, but others make it look silly. A dark wallpaper I use now makes everything look flat-outlined white. The new blue iOS wallpaper looks fantastic with refractions on folders, etc.

The frequency of light text on a light background is something I hope they get a hold of (something Windows never really did), and the scrolling shadows are 1) fucking awesome 2) almost 20 years late 3) the shadows change color as you scroll, offsetting their usefulness with the aggravation of distraction and visual noise.

In some apps that visual noise is intolerable, as the wrapping refraction causes flashes and demands attention from something that should be out of the way.

macOS makes use of blurred backgrounds far more than iOS which makes it easier to use on desktop. Control center may be glass widgets now, but it’s readable against the blurred backdrop. Some color mixing of overlapping windows is nauseating but it largely works well.

The icon changes are bullshit, and feels very much like forcing everyone into a box. Even my apps that used the correct icon dimensions previously are now stuck in a grey box. And I don’t feel like fixing it because apple wants to sell more hardware.

I know people are comparing this to aero, but aside from the jarring glossiness of some controls that aero had, it was much more consistent, and evenly applied than lq, and much more reserved and out of the way.

It also looks like they’re removing some of the parallax effects, etc. from the older phones that had them previously, which is… quintessentially apple of the past decade, but no less irritating.

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I’ll turn that off. Provides no value to me and will be worse on battery.

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Seems you CANNOT turn “Liquid Glass” off 100%, all you can do is reduce the transparency..

Not impressed with all the videos I’ve seen so far

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It’s less of an API thing and more of a visual thing, it does require you to recompile your apps in a newer Xcode and maybe make some visual adjustments before.

It also looks like Window Tinting is a thing of the past, but only for updated apps, older apps and Xojo made apps still get Window Tinting.

ymmd

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Comments are interesting…

So far I’m not thinking I’m gonna be a fan of this LG look… I actually liked what was it iOS7?

I’m not gonna worry too much about it until actual release. Apple will tweak things, sometimes a lot, before then based on feedback.

I try not to fall in the trap of, “It’s different therefore I hate it.”

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I don’t hate it because “its differnet”, I hate it based on the visuals I’ve seen

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Well, sure, but my point is that given the negative feedback already changes will most likely occur. Talk to me in September when it gets released. I’ll bet the worst criticisms are mitigated by then.

maybe they can make the animation not mucus looking at least? :smiley:

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