This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Just to clarify something, because I think the majority of people here only know what iOS 26 looks like from the thumbnail. Below is an actual screenshot of the iOS 26 beta running on my phone.
Just like Android, things are customisable and the icons in the thumbnail are the most egregious version of the new visuals. I find it hard to believe anyone will actually use that styling tbh.
Even the non glass icons look terrible, they include some automatic blur being applied.
I agree! But, I also think that might be some weirdness with how the system treats lighting on the normal icons compared to ones updated with their new materials in mind.
Almost all of the 3rd party app icons I have are various levels of blurry but the system icons seem fine.
Any level of UI element transparency is hard nope from me. Based on your screenshot, it looks like Apple was listening, on that front.
Gross. Why in the world would anyone want translucent icons?
Yes I'd like to strip away my ability to quickly sort mentally by color and I'd love it if there was a background image partially visible intermixed with the thing I'm looking for. Windows phone was peak UI. I don't think transparency even needs to be a thing in an OS.
The icons in the article aren't even the default behavior. Mine all still have color. At least on the home screen and app drawer. The control center icons are translucent but those barely had any style before. And crucially, wifi, bluetooth etc buttons still have color to indicate status.
Transparency is fine if it's used for stuff like the background of a window, since you'd want tod emphasize that anyways but I have to agree that using it for icons hurts usability so much.
There’s an argument that increasing friction can help people addicted to their tech not get pulled in. Lots of apps designed to do that popping up with hard time limits and locks the last few years. Apple and Google are definitely aware that their design choices put them in the crosshairs at schools and employers. These sort of things pass the buck back.
Microsoft changing Outlook from gold to yet another blue blob. Google changing every single goddamn app to use the same red/yellow/green/blue pallet. And now this bullshit.
I mean, outlook has themes… but I generally hate their other recent UI changes.
I’ve unironically seen both positive and negative reactions from people.
What’s old is new again. “Glass” desktops and interfaces have made at least 3 rounds so far.
It’s such an apple thing - “revolutionize” something that already existed
Windows Vista, is that you?
Comically, Vista was criticized at the time for aping Apple’s Aqua. This clearly takes a lot from Aqua honestly.
All the major designers are borrowing from each other constantly. All roads eventually lead to NeXt.
Ahhhh yes, I remember glass Opera.
I miss that and I mean more than just the Frutiger Aero aesthetics. I miss what I felt back then when opening the browser, not knowing what awaited me today but in a good way. Despite everything, tech companies promised us a digital future that wasn‘t entirely dreadful. In hindsight it was all just escapism of course and another cycle of that trend would just feel painfully cynical today. It can never be replicated. Big tech will forever be flat design at heart.
Willfully breaking an NDA with one of the most litigious companies in the world for what is essentially fake internet points is a bold strategy Cotton. Doesn't look like it is going to work out for him.
From the article, if you read it, you will see it was not willful at all:
The full complaint, posted by MacRumors to Scribd, outlines Apple’s version of events. Ramacciotti was friends with an Apple employee named Ethan Lipnik, who had an iPhone running an in-development version of the next-generation version of iOS. Allegedly at Prosser’s direction, Ramacciotti gained access to this phone while Lipnik was away from home and used FaceTime to call Prosser and show him the new software design.
“Defendants’ misconduct was brazen and egregious,” says Apple’s filing. “After Mr. Prosser learned that Mr. Ramacciotti needed money, and that his friend Ethan Lipnik worked at Apple on unreleased software designs, Defendants jointly planned to access Apple’s confidential and trade secret information through Mr. Lipnik’s Apple-owned development iPhone.”
Intent. One was an accident, the other is potentially criminal if I'm not wrong. I could be.
I remember when the iPhone 4 leak happened because of that phone prototype that got left behind. Everyone felt really bad for the guy, and it was widely believed that it was completely by accident.
Looks like shit IMO
Kinda reminds me of Windows Aero, but with Grey as your main colour.
That example photo is with the icons set to white (or similar). By default the icons are still colorful. They showed it off during WWDC and it looks mostly good.
I’m on the beta. And I started hating it, then went to disliking it to simply not preferring it.
Being in beta, they are still making tweaks. I think, somewhat unexpectedly, the final build will be kinda nice.
Yep, when every app has a gray color, it’s much harder to find what you’re looking for on the screen.
Google committed the same sin when they made every one of their apps have the same four color look - now I can’t easily find the one app I’m looking for.
Which red, blue, yellow, and green icon on a white background are you looking for?
I'm on the fence, it's nicer than material design (I've always hated 'material design' though) but it's so colourless.
Bring back skeuomorphism!
At least material design is readable.
Actually, in the latest beta, they reduced the glass effects.
In case you missed it, find an iOS beta 1 video and see how they are rendering photorealistic light reflections on the glass UI…
Apple Vista
If it comes with the bubbles screensaver, I'm in
The difference between this and the iPhone 4 leak might just be company policy. I'm sure Apple's rules for handling prototypes got stricter after the first leak, so this guy probably broke more rules than the first, even if they did basically the same thing.
Plot twist: the Liquid Glass redesign was just a decoy they hoped would get leaked as a distraction to maintain buzz during the long delays in their secret Transparent Aluminum redesign.
they’re still trying to teach Scotty how to use the computers. Siri still can’t understand him.
Ten years later, they finally replicated my iPhone 5 jaibreak theme and widgets! Well, partially.
What was that Cydia theming app called... it was titled in leetspeak, I think?
This comment brings me way back haha. I had to look it up because I didn't remember but it was Winterboard or Dreamboard that I used on my 3rd gen iPod touch.
Winterboard, that's it!
I think it was the exploits and jailbreaks that were named in leet, like L1meRain
Oh no, does that mean glassy look will be back the next few years? Bad legibility all over again? 😱
