In case of emergency, break glass
66 comments
·June 12, 2025mft_
vintagedave
I worked for nine years as a senior product manager, including a radical UX overhaul. I can speak to this.
There is a saying among PMs: when you're not sure what to do, you do a UX refresh.
(It's a bit like the same one for CEOs: if you're not sure what to do, drive an acquisition.)
UX rework needs to be done with real care -- not primarily care for looks, but care for function.
I _love_ Snow Leopard's UI. It was clear. Watching the videos on Liquid Glass, I was really hopeful we'd see a return to a similar design. Old OS X gave me joy, and I am sure I heard the word 'joy' used in the Liquid Glass video... and I was so happy! But what I see when I installed last night, and from this article, is glass and shadows in the background of windows, very low contrast ratios, and confusion between window areas.
Backgrounds are the wrong place for fancy effects. You need to be able to see foreground content clearly.
Foregound elements, like buttons, are great for fancy effects. They are small and isolated.
That's why pinstripes were awful (difficult background) and Aqua as a whole was great (blue gel buttons were clear.) Look at the comparison screenshots in this article: a list view in Finder, which is sorted, has a blue header on the sorted column. That is a fancy gel effect, but it is isolated and readable. If liquid glass were used the same way in Tahoe, we'd really be on to something. It's what I hoped for, and what I don't see.
However: one good thing in Tahoe is how fast UI elements interact. There is no animation on mouseover transition. It snaps in and out. This is excellent.
vintagedave
Last night, I started a small test project in Xcode to try to change how Tahoe controls render, swizzling. The idea is: use glass for foreground elements. Basically, use glass tech to drive a Snow Leopard-like UI.
Changing something like a checkbox is ok. Changing something like the side panel, or a set of toolbar buttons to resolve the background/floatiness/shadow issues in the article, is going to be hard (for me, with my level of AppKit and SwiftUI knowledge.) If I get far enough, I'll share with HN.
dan-robertson
There were plenty of pretty horrid Steve jobs era Apple designs. I’m not terribly convinced that that’s the right diagnosis of the problem.
mft_
Tastes in design are unique to individuals and change over years and decades; judged in 2025, it’s easy to find past examples one might not agree with.
But I’m not thinking of the superficial design so much as the underlying ethos informing such decisions. Early OS X got a lot right by focussing on usability. Skeuomorphism might not be in vogue today, but the iPhone was much more usable, approachable and discoverable compared to most mobile phone OSs of the day. The Apple UI guidelines have mostly stood the test of time.
I hope that Jobs (or Ive, for that matter) would’ve taken Liquid Glass in a very different direction, as the current offering seems to make things worse for users.
burnt-resistor
Constant tweaks for the sake of justifying jobs when, finally, the essential functionality is broken so that someone else can fix it in a different way next year. Churn-oriented UX and swe. I already set Settings > Accessibility > Display > Reduce transparency to On to proactively refuse to participate in this pointless UI glitter.
misiek08
And this probably was one or two man just having fun writing shader for the refraction on edges. Someone saw this, made it as biggest feature and cult goes on.
All that while I can’t connect from macOS to iPhone's hotspot, because I split family account while MacBook wasn’t powered on. Bugs growing, but shiny stuff making big money from few FTEs won.
PlunderBunny
What does the glass UI look like if Settings > Accessibility > Display > Reduce transparency is on?
culebron21
This whitewashing and hiding of everything essential is similar to Le Corbusier's aesthetics. He stripped buildings facades of any aesthetical elements, even pure geometrical ones, because he had some mental condition, that complex things bothered him.
The same in the computer UIs has been going on for last ~15 years. Astonishingly it's the company that boasts usability/ergonomics that does it. And sadly, every desktop out there (KDE, MATE, Gnome) does its best to imitate Mac OS.
I wonder if anyone in this part of "tech" industry does any sort of measurements of what they produce.
I've recently been given a Mac laptop at job (they refuse to support Linux), and the Finder UI is terrible exactly as the author describes.
varjag
For the buildings, facade decoration has very specific added cost per unit. For network-distributed software there is no such excuse.
gsf_emergency
Here's a walkthru of Corbu's own apt
Seems quite normal for 2025, so it might have been an issue in 1935?
aaronbrethorst
The macOS 26 screenshots all look profoundly amateurish to me. And I say this as a continuous user of this operating system since 2001, when I installed Mac OS X Public Beta on my iBook G3. I really hope Apple spends the next few months before release focused on making their new visual language usable.
pjerem
At first glance, I found the aesthetic of liquid glass to be pretty nice. I actually like the visual effect of glass they managed to create. At least something different from flat design !
But then came the interface overhaul. That’s incredibly bad. Looking at the screenshots comparing Liquid Glass Finder vs, e.g. Snow Leopard Finder, it truly feels like Apple should be _ashamed_ to present this.
It’s so wrong that it truly feels like Apple is making fun of me, the user.
I tried the developer beta of iOS 26 out of curiosity and I swear it’s the first time I felt so wrong about a new iOS version. I know it will still be refined but in its current state ? It feels so wrong. There are bugs, ok that’s an early version, no issue. But the new UI ? The supposed next big thing ? It’s incredibly broken, inconsistent, chaotic, hard to read.
I hope they are on a miracle to fix this but they seem to be so proud about it …
nlitened
I think it’s also interesting to keep in mind that in 2025 people don’t really use Finder as much as they did in 2009. It was an important part of the OS and of users’ workflow back then, but nowadays it’s just a browser for the Downloads folder, it’s time to admit that. No need to keep it fancy — file system power users will likely use other specialized software anyway
zevon
People dont' use Finder? "File system power users"? Are we talking about MacOS or iOS here? Seriously, I think that's an interesting take - that does not relate even a little bit to most work domains I ever was in contact with.
pjerem
That’s not my use case but even if it were true : is the current design broken ? Can’t even the Snow Leopard version do the job of "just browsing the download folder" and allow more "advanced" users to have a decent tool ?
I mean, sure, usages changed (even if not for everyone) but even for someone "just browsing downloads", the new design is not better.
Changing/modernizing the general theme of the OS ? Changing colors ? Textures ? Fonts ? I’m not against it and it’s an age old tradition at this point. But why mess with the general organisation / visual clues / layout to make it less functional especially when your users are already happy with the current design ?
It’s change for the sake of change, not to build a better tool for the user.
al_borland
iOS 7 faced a lot of similar criticisms of being hard to read and amateur looking. The minimalism of the hardware did not translate well to the software.
Over time, various aspects were improved/refined, and people simply got used to it.
I expect the same thing to happen here.
tempodox
From another of Mori's articles [1], where he quotes another source:
Something IS indeed rotten in the State of Cupertino, but that rot is not new. To me, it feels like the Apple Intelligence fiasco is the accumulation of Apple’s software failures over the past 10–15 years finally coming to a head. They are just not very good at making software anymore.
Just not good at making software any more. There is ample evidence over the last several years that makes this conclusion inescapable.
seydor
I don't even use iphone but screenshots feel like ai-generated images, artifacts, extra limbs, missing limbs and general wtf-ness
molf
The points about visual hierarchy are spot on, in particular on macOS. I think Apple has two realistic paths forward to resolve this mess:
1. Double down on the aesthetic and gradually redesign apps to improve the hierarchy. That would mean adapting UX across countless apps to serve the new look.
2. Tone down the glass effects and shadows drastically. Preserve existing app layouts without compromising usability as much. We'll be left with shimmering buttons and panels, a bit more blurred transparency than in the 'current' design language.
My guess is they will end up choosing option 2, simply because it’s cheaper.
Animats
The amusing thing about all these pseudo 3D interfaces is that real 3D interfaces for CAD and graphics programs are much cleaner, because the real content can be cluttered.
zevon
Are you referring to interfaces for complex tools (such as those for making 3d things) in general or do you have a program in mind that employs "three-dimensionality" in its interface in an especially clean way?
Animats
> interfaces for complex tools (such as those for making 3d things) in general
Yes. Interfaces where you have to be able to select, pan, rotate, and zoom in combination. Those are really tough.
hermitcrab
As someone who develops and sells software for Windows and Mac, I spend a lot of my time jumping through hoops created by Apple, Google and Microsoft. I guess this is going to create a load more work for me, with no benefit to me or (judging by the overwhelmingly negative feedback I have seen) my customers. <sigh>
bargainbin
I don’t understand how a company that has effectively defined modern interfaces, which has the clout to hire the best of the best, has resulted in this.
I fear the apple is starting to rot on the inside.
HPsquared
All the glass stuff reminds me of Windows Vista and the "Aero" style.
troupo
The difference is: Aero only applied glass to large elements, never to content and buttons/toggles/etc.
Marazan
Article mention the "disappearing UI elements" mania that has tortured so many UIs.
I absolutely loathe and detest the hidden-scroll-bar convention that is now de rigour
IAmBroom
PREACH!
Something that requires finesse in using the mouse to even access the least info ("About where in the document am I?"), and more for it's primary use.
It's like having to take a sobriety test just to change the radio station.
Sadly, this feels like Google's approach to product management: change for the sake of change, driven behind the scenes by people chasing being noticed or their next promotion rather than by need and good sense, and (likely due to politics and power structures) no-one in a position to say "hold on, this doesn't work".
I'm generally no fan of Steve Jobs, but what he did offer was a single point of (dictatorial) good taste, and a willingness to stamp on bad ideas. Unfortunately, it's exceptionally rare in modern business that you have someone (who is allowed to be) in such a position of power to act dictatorially when needed, and who also has the right set of taste/experience/knowledge such that their decisions are on balance more usually good ones. CEOs are far more usually MBA drones than product people, and it doesn't appear that we've figured out a way to 'scale' taste and good decision-making throughout an organisation in a reliable manner.