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Apple’s unveiling of the “Liquid Glass” design language at WWDC 2025 marks the company’s most dramatic visual overhaul in over a decade. The new interface, which brings pervasive translucency, real-time light-bending effects, and a unified look across iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, is heavily inspired by both visionOS and the infamous Windows Aero Glass theme from Windows Vista. While Apple promises a more immersive, harmonious, and “alive” software experience, early reactions from users, designers, and industry experts reveal deep concerns. Drawing on the lessons of past design revolutions, technical analysis, and live social media sentiment, this article explores why Liquid Glass could become Apple’s most controversial redesign yet and why, unless Apple makes substantial changes, it risks failing before launch.
The Dazzle and the Doubt
Apple’s new “Liquid Glass” is more than a new coat of paint. It’s a sweeping redesign that touches every corner of the company’s software ecosystem, from the iPhone lock screen to the Mac desktop, from app icons to tab bars. The company describes it as “the broadest design update ever”. It aims to blur the lines between hardware and software, and to make digital interfaces feel more natural, fluid, and alive. Real-time rendering, dynamic adaptation to light and context, and a new “lensing” effect promise to make every interaction feel fresh and responsive.
The problem isn’t the redesign itself. Beneath the surface, the echoes of Windows Vista’s Aero Glass that everybody celebrated at launch, but hated immediately afterwards, reviled for its performance and usability issues. Those are impossible to ignore. Apple’s hardware is far more capable than the average Vista era PC, yet the fundamental challenges of balancing visual delight with legibility, efficiency, and accessibility remain as relevant as ever. As the first developer betas roll out, the tech world is watching closely, and not everyone is impressed.
The Science and Art of Liquid Glass
The Rendering Pipeline: From Vision to Reality
The Liquid Glass interface is not merely a visual metaphor; it is a technical feat that leverages the full power of Apple’s silicon and graphics stack. At its core, the rendering pipeline for Liquid Glass involves multiple frameworks and hardware accelerators. When an app requests a visual update, the process begins with Core Animation, which orchestrates the layering and movement of UI elements. Core Graphics then handles the actual drawing, applying complex effects like translucency, blur, and dynamic shadows. The results are composited and sent to the GPU, which renders the final image on the display.
Apple’s use of Metal 4, its latest low-level graphics API, is central to achieving the real-time, high-fidelity effects that define Liquid Glass. Metal 4 introduces explicit memory management, faster shader compilation, and seamless integration of machine learning, allowing for richer visuals and more adaptive interfaces. The Apple Neural Engine (ANE) is also tapped for on-device machine learning tasks, such as context aware color adaptation and accessibility enhancements. This hardware and software synergy is what enables features like “lensing,” where UI elements bend and refract light based on their surroundings and user input.
The Visual Language: Lensing, Fluidity, and Depth
Liquid Glass is designed to evoke the qualities of real-world glass: translucency, reflection, refraction, and a sense of depth. The interface uses multiple layers of glass-like material, each dynamically adapting to content, lighting, and movement. Buttons, sliders, tab bars, and even app icons are crafted from this material, which morphs and animates in response to user actions.
A key innovation is the “lensing” effect, where UI elements not only blur but also bend and concentrate light, creating a sense of dimensionality and separation from background content. Shadows are context aware, increasing in opacity when hovering over text to ensure legibility, and fading when over solid backgrounds. The motion of Liquid Glass elements is designed to mimic the smooth, organic behavior of liquids, with transitions that feel both responsive and natural.
Unifying the Ecosystem: Consistency Across Platforms
One of Apple’s stated goals is to unify the look and feel of its entire ecosystem, from iOS and iPadOS to macOS, watchOS, and tvOS. Liquid Glass achieves this by applying the same design principles and materials across all platforms, with adaptations for different device form factors. Rounded corners, floating controls, and adaptive navigation bars create a sense of harmony, making it easier for users to switch between devices without cognitive friction.
For developers, Apple has released updated APIs for SwiftUI, UIKit, and AppKit, enabling them to integrate Liquid Glass materials and controls into their apps. This is intended to accelerate adoption and reduce the risk of ecosystem fragmentation, though the transition is likely to be uneven in the early months.
The Ghost of Aero Glass: Lessons from the Past
Aero Glass: Promise and Peril
When Microsoft introduced Aero Glass with Windows Vista in 2007, it promised a revolution in user interface design. Translucent windows, dynamic animations, and a sense of depth were intended to make the desktop more engaging and intuitive. Instead, Aero became a cautionary tale.
Performance Headaches: Aero’s reliance on GPU acceleration exposed the limitations of the average PC. Many “Vista Capable” machines could not run Aero smoothly, leading to widespread lag, crashes, and user frustration.
Battery Drain: Laptops running Aero experienced up to 20% shorter battery life compared to the basic theme, a problem that lingered even as hardware improved.
Readability and Distraction: The glassy effects, while beautiful, often made text hard to read and distracted users from their tasks. Accessibility advocates criticized the design for failing to accommodate users with visual impairments.
Rapid Retreat: Microsoft scaled back Aero in Windows 7 and abandoned it entirely in Windows 8, pivoting to a flatter, more efficient design.
Apple’s Borrowed Playbook
Apple’s marketing language for Liquid Glass: “translucent new material that reflects and refracts its surroundings”, could have been lifted directly from a 2006 Microsoft blog. The cyclical nature of tech design is well established. Apple has borrowed, refined, and pushed graphical user interface concepts from Xerox PARC to skeuomorphism to flat design, and now back to glass.
Yet, as with Aero, the fundamental challenges remain. The tension between visual delight and practical usability is at the heart of every major UI overhaul. If Apple fails to learn from Microsoft’s mistakes, Liquid Glass could suffer the same fate.
The Case Against Liquid Glass: Technical and Human Factors
Readability and Accessibility: Style Over Substance?
Early hands-on reports and feedback from prominent designers and tech influencers raise serious concerns about readability and accessibility in the Liquid Glass beta. The extreme transparency of UI elements, while visually striking, often makes text and controls difficult to read, especially against busy or colorful backgrounds.
Apple claims that Liquid Glass adapts to context, increasing blur and contrast as needed. However, beta users report inconsistent results, with some elements “challenging to read” and others blending into the background. Accessibility advocates warn that excessive transparency can hinder users with visual impairments or color blindness, potentially making the OS less usable for millions.
Performance and Battery Life: The Cost of Beauty
While Apple’s hardware is far more capable than Vista-era PCs, the demands of real-time rendering, dynamic lensing, and machine learning-driven adaptation are significant. Early beta testers report the following.
Rapid Battery Drain: Users upgrading to iOS 26 beta frequently complain of phones struggling to last through the day, with some reporting battery life reductions of 10–20%.
Lag and Instability: Even on flagship devices like the iPhone 16 Pro Max, the initial developer beta is described as “choppy,” with frequent bugs and crashes.
Thermal Load: Devices become noticeably warmer during extended use, suggesting that the new rendering pipeline is pushing hardware to its limits.
These issues are compounded for older devices. While Apple claims support for the iPhone 11 and later, the risk of degraded performance and battery life is real, especially for users on the lower end of the hardware spectrum.
Developer and Ecosystem Fragmentation
Apple has provided updated APIs for developers to adopt Liquid Glass, but history shows that third-party app adoption can lag, leading to a fragmented look and feel across the ecosystem. If developers are slow to update or struggle with the new design guidelines, users may face inconsistent experiences, undermining Apple’s goal of cross-platform harmony.
User Disorientation and Backlash
Major UI overhauls historically provoke resistance. The leap from iOS 18’s familiar interface to a radically new, glassy look is jarring for many users. Early testers describe the experience as “surprising” and “strikingly visible,” with some needing time to adjust. If users perceive the new design as “change for change’s sake” or find it harder to use, adoption could stall, especially among less tech-savvy demographics.
The Human Factor: Design Fatigue, Accessibility, and the Risk of Alienation
Design Fatigue and the Pendulum of UI Trends
The history of UI design is a pendulum swinging between ornamentation and minimalism. After the skeuomorphic era of iOS 6, Apple swung to flat design with iOS 7, provoking initial backlash for its starkness. Now, with Liquid Glass, the pendulum swings back toward ornamentation, translucency, and depth.
Design fatigue is a real risk. If the glass effect is overused, users may tire of the novelty and long for simplicity. Third-party apps that fail to implement the design thoughtfully could exacerbate the problem, leading to a cluttered and inconsistent experience.
Accessibility: The Unseen Cost
While Apple touts Liquid Glass as “inclusive,” the reality is more complex. Excessive transparency can hinder users with low vision, color blindness, or cognitive impairments. Even with system-level toggles for reduced transparency and motion, the default experience may exclude millions.
Accessibility experts urge Apple to prioritize contrast, clarity, and user control. The risk is not just regulatory or reputational; it is a matter of equity and inclusion.
User Agency: Customization and Control
One of Aero Glass’s few redeeming features was the ability for users to dial back transparency or switch to a basic theme. Apple offers some system-level toggles, but the extent of user control over Liquid Glass effects remains unclear. For the design to succeed, users must be able to tailor the experience to their needs and preferences.
The Broader Context: Apple’s Design Philosophy in Flux
From Jony Ive to Alan Dye: A Shift in Priorities
Apple’s design philosophy has evolved dramatically over the past decade. Under Jony Ive, the focus was on minimalism, clarity, and the removal of ornamentation. Alan Dye, Apple’s current VP of Human Interface Design, has steered the company toward more expressive, immersive, and dynamic interfaces.
Liquid Glass represents the culmination of this shift, blending the minimalism of flat design with the emotional impact of translucency, depth, and motion. Whether this new direction resonates with users remains to be seen.
The Influence of VisionOS and the Quest for Immersion
The inspiration for Liquid Glass comes not just from Aero Glass, but from Apple’s own visionOS, the operating system for its Vision Pro headset. The goal is to create interfaces that feel alive, responsive, and immersive, blurring the boundary between digital and physical worlds.
This ambition is laudable, but it also raises the stakes. If the design fails to deliver on its promises of clarity, efficiency, and delight, the backlash could be severe.
Conclusion: A Crossroads for Apple’s Design Legacy
Liquid Glass is a bold, ambitious, and technically impressive redesign that seeks to redefine the look and feel of Apple’s software ecosystem. Yet, as history has shown, ambition alone is not enough. The lessons of Windows Vista’s Aero Glass are clear: visual delight must be balanced with usability, performance, and accessibility.
Early feedback from users, developers, and industry experts suggests that Liquid Glass, in its current form, risks repeating the mistakes of the past. Unless Apple makes significant adjustments, enhancing readability, optimizing performance, and prioritizing accessibility. The new design could face resistance, disappointment, and even failure.
As Apple enters the critical months of beta testing and refinement, the company’s willingness to listen to feedback and adapt will determine whether Liquid Glass is remembered as a triumph of design or a cautionary tale. The world is watching; and the stakes have never been higher.
The next chapter in Apple’s design journey will be written not just by its engineers and designers, but by the millions of users who will live with Liquid Glass every day. Whether this new era is one of delight or disappointment is, for now, an open question.
Cover photo generated by ChatGPT
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