Let's Talk about Liquid Glass

by Jeff Humble

Dear Reader,

Goodbye, paper-like design. Hello, moving blobs of liquid glass!

Apple's new paradigm in aesthetics is both cool and potentially awful at the same time.

Just when you thought skeuomorphism was dead, it rears its realistic head again.

I hate that we have to talk about this, but it is Apple, which means your CEO is probably going to ask you to make it "more liquid" in a few weeks.

So let's dive into it.

Accessibility Nightmare

Apple's new liquid glass is getting a lot of heat online for being the least accessible UI ever.

Imagine your grandma trying to use this. I hope that Apple figures out how to fix some of this because text will suffer in this theme.

Nobody asked for this update, and I get the feeling that it's creating more problems than it solves.

It's crazy how unusable this UI theme can look outside Apple's fancy keynote presentations.

When done right, it's a subtle layer of 3d rendering that feels slick and modern. When done wrong, it feels like a cheap WinAmp skin from 2005.

I expect Apple to iterate on text legibility, especially since the iPhone is a favorite phone among older users.

Luckily, you can turn off Liquid Glass in favor of the old UI...for now.

Let's try to look past the obvious accessibility issues for a second. With Apple, there is surely a business case behind the update. What might that be?

The Design Strategy Behind Liquid Glass

Let's look at some potential business problems it solves:

• Helps Apple stand out from all the Android flatness
• Helps them sell hardware since this is a CPU-heavy UI
• Helps them repurpose some of their VisionPro UI work IRL
• Distracts from all the missing AI features that Apple promised
• Gives Apple an excuse to push customers to upgrade

I'm sure all of these are factors, but I think the upgrade cycle might be the real culprit. Apple is seriously concerned with the upgrade cycles of its products, and I bet your company is too.

Apple is so serious about upgrade cycles that it employs a business strategy known as "planned obsolescence," which forces customers to upgrade as often as possible.

Apple has been accused of doing this in the following ways:

• Making their phones expensive or impossible to repair
• Throttling the battery life of older phones remotely
• Designing their hardware for fragility

But I think what we're seeing with Liquid Glass is planned obsolescence applied to the UI.

Apple encourages upgrades by making dramatic shifts to the UI that make previous versions look boring. By embracing UI trends, Apple can justify faster and faster upgrade cycles.

In short, Apple has built a system where new feels necessary, even when old still works. And while the tech is premium, the strategy is textbook.

This presents some big sustainability issues:

1. Phones take more power to run UI like Liquid Glass
2. Old devices can't run the latest software so they go in the landfill
3. Users buy new devices more often than they should

Not great for the planet, but good for Apple.

Since Apple is fumbling pretty much all of its AI promises, I guess they're going back to their guns: shiny new UI.

As designers, it's hard to be mad about a refocus on aesthetics and UI.

I hope you're ready to spend your entire summer vacation helping your mom learn to use her iPhone again after this update.

What do you think of the update?

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Until next week, stay liquid! 💦

Jeff Humble ​UX Strategist & Co-Founder ​The Fountain Institute

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