OK I installed iOS 26 on my phone. I’ve concluded that the Liquid Glass idea is fundamentally impossible to get right, because the aesthetic ambitions are directly opposed to the functionality of the interface.
You can’t make elevated UI elements nearly transparent, while also keeping them readable on top of background content that can have any combination of colors.
The only way to solve this is to not do this—the UI just has to be more opaque.
@jonasdowney@mastodon.social
It also seems to contradict the basic philosophy of “getting out of the way” so content can be more upfront.
If anything, the glass UI does the opposite—it draws more attention to itself as it magnifies and distorts color in distracting ways, and forces awkward transitions between light and dark text as you scroll over content.
