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I absolutely loathe iOS 26
- Thread starter profmjh
- Start date
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When it comes to visual aesthetics it's impossible to please everyone. Still, form should serve function, not the opposite.
So far I really dont mind it on iPhone16+. Feels a bit fresher overall with all the subtle stuff, but I'm not in love with the new icons. They feel like a half baked jailbreak theme, but I like some of them. I guess as someone who used to customize for many years its an 'eh'
Battery life seems ok but I just updated last night.
iPad mini (7) has been mixed. The animations don't feel as fast as phone, I cannot wrap my head around the mail app or windowed multitasking mode (it even caused a bug where I couldn't launch any app or do anything until the battery dies, luckily whatever process it was stuck on chewed through battery so I could plug it in and reboot). But once the dust settled, not as bad but doesn't seem like super amazing either. Overall sort of indifferent at the moment.
In general, trying to get it to create themes from your photos LS/Home Screen took an ABSURD amount of time. What a bad experience.
Since going down the list,
watchOS I notice almost no difference. Exactograph and Flow are cool new faces, but I absolutely could use a few more.
Tahoe - small things but I like the more exaggerated corners, dark mode has nice outline, safari looks a bit more stylish.
Widgets on desktop. LOVE not having a distinct menu bar and one that goes with the wallpaper transparently.
Themed messages feels like a jailbreak tweak but I'm glad its there. I am a sucker for any visual differences functionality wise as long as it's optional.
ATV4k's: Notice almost no difference other than CC and see through stuff on buttons for native apps (just AppleTV+ for now? others are unchanged). But I do notice 2nd gen 4k feeling much more sluggish going through UI. They ought to fix that it's really ugly.
Also I wish the new keyboard worked consistently across all apps. nearly nothing but the native apple apps has the new keyboard. nOt sure that I love it either, but the inconsistency drives me nuts! what an oversight
Battery life seems ok but I just updated last night.
iPad mini (7) has been mixed. The animations don't feel as fast as phone, I cannot wrap my head around the mail app or windowed multitasking mode (it even caused a bug where I couldn't launch any app or do anything until the battery dies, luckily whatever process it was stuck on chewed through battery so I could plug it in and reboot). But once the dust settled, not as bad but doesn't seem like super amazing either. Overall sort of indifferent at the moment.
In general, trying to get it to create themes from your photos LS/Home Screen took an ABSURD amount of time. What a bad experience.
Since going down the list,
watchOS I notice almost no difference. Exactograph and Flow are cool new faces, but I absolutely could use a few more.
Tahoe - small things but I like the more exaggerated corners, dark mode has nice outline, safari looks a bit more stylish.
Widgets on desktop. LOVE not having a distinct menu bar and one that goes with the wallpaper transparently.
Themed messages feels like a jailbreak tweak but I'm glad its there. I am a sucker for any visual differences functionality wise as long as it's optional.
ATV4k's: Notice almost no difference other than CC and see through stuff on buttons for native apps (just AppleTV+ for now? others are unchanged). But I do notice 2nd gen 4k feeling much more sluggish going through UI. They ought to fix that it's really ugly.
Also I wish the new keyboard worked consistently across all apps. nearly nothing but the native apple apps has the new keyboard. nOt sure that I love it either, but the inconsistency drives me nuts! what an oversight
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The fact that you can’t swipe through the text selection action menu anymore, and instead have to press the arrow for a secondary vertical menu to pop up for additional actions (even for something simple like Select All that I use fairly often) isn’t exactly an improvement. For one, the arrow is a much smaller hit target than the swipeable menu. Secondly, you have to move your finger farther to tap the arrow, and then to select from the vertical menu, while the swipeable menu was basically in place (while still allowing to use the arrow).
It would be simpler to just have a single vertical menu (like a regular context menu) in-place that is also swipeable, even if it covers part of the selected text (which I suppose is the original rationale for the horizontal menu).
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Shouldn't they have waited until it's further 'refined' before releasing this clearly unfinished product? We're not paying bottom-of-the-barrel prices here...
Welcome to a web forum dedicated to products of a company that sells $1000 monitor stands 🤷♂️
Omg it isn’t just me ! I find that so annoying!
I choose to be iOS 18 because I like the look of it , and now I am having apps updating with the new liquid glass style on the apps !
It boggles the mind how that can happen surely they can sort it server side and only let through iOS 18 style app updates if your are that version for example.
This is why with my iPhone 16 pro max I am never upgrading the phone or updating it past iOS 18 because I don’t like the direction apple is going in , I hate to say it but Steve jobs would be turning in his grave if he saw what apple shipped ….
Shortcut app is my new best friend. As a workaround.
In a few weeks my whole homescreen will be only shortcuts I think.
They have lost their minds without doubt.
Agree that it's ugly, but you can turn off the worst of it. Just setting 'reduce transparency' solves a ton of problems.
And honestly, this is a cycle Apple goes through. Flat, transparent, etc. Next round will be skewmorphic again
Haven’t tried it yet
But love it or hate it, it’s got many talking and conveniently veering the conversations away from Apple’s ongoing AI challenges.
But love it or hate it, it’s got many talking and conveniently veering the conversations away from Apple’s ongoing AI challenges.
The keyboard thing is intentional, apparently. Apps built using the latest Xcode targeting iOS 26 will supposedly get the new keyboard.
How can inconsistent UI elements , and the most crucial ones like a keyboard, across the platform be a feature and not a bug (and not really a bug, just apps aren't ready for it)?
I get that its to force adoption but from end user perspective its disorienting
depends, if you are a developer you will want Xcode 26 (requires Tahoe aka macos26) , if not it gives you another year of security support , otherwise if you like the os 15 ui and willing to have an obsolete system a year earlier than absolutely necessary upgrade to 15.7 now, you should be able to upgrade to Tahoe in the future (hopefully the bugs will be tamer then)
I wouldn't call it a feature. More like a compromise, so that apps that haven't been updated to leverage Liquid
I thought computers were suppose to adapt to its users, not the other way around.
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I see. I still find it more incosntiwnt than just being retro fitted. I think most would agree but Apple gonna Apple
I’ve adjusted to it very quickly but then I am, by nature, an early adopter.
The only thing I find strange is that my battery life has actually improved!
The only thing I find strange is that my battery life has actually improved!
I haven’t installed it myself yet, but worked on devices with it. I thought I was being handed an android at first, I don’t want android, that is why I buy Apple “think different”.
I don’t think it will have any major dent in Apple customers, rather it will be the original type of Apple customer that starts to look for something different. I think these days they are in a minority (myself included). Even some of those will stay at Apple for other reasons.
Basically I don’t like it. I didn’t like iOS 7, I still miss the old style ios6. But thus far I haven’t found a good alternative.
I don’t think it will have any major dent in Apple customers, rather it will be the original type of Apple customer that starts to look for something different. I think these days they are in a minority (myself included). Even some of those will stay at Apple for other reasons.
Basically I don’t like it. I didn’t like iOS 7, I still miss the old style ios6. But thus far I haven’t found a good alternative.
I couldn't stand ios 26 beta 1. Now that I have gone through all the betas and gotten used to it.... I like it.
We are the same! This is a stupid waste of everyone's time, especially mine. Poorly conceived, horrendously executed. Scrap it and go back to a time before Ive. Sad that is is what a multi TRILLION dollar company thinks we need/want. FU Apple!
Poison ivy will grow on me too. I hate 26 as much as poison ivy.
Based on the title I expected to read a list of criticisms about what features are hard to use, obvious bugs and just general problems.
What I read is that you don’t think it looks pretty.
So I reduced the transparency in the settings
Doesn't look good in light mode but it's fine on dark mode
Doesn't look good in light mode but it's fine on dark mode