I upgraded yesterday, and mine looks very much like it did before, with small GUI tweaks here and there of course. I don't mind it so far.
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I absolutely loathe iOS 26
- Thread starter profmjh
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I felt the same way.... in July. Now its settled in Liquid Glass is really nice. Any change taked time to adjust to. Think of it like moving house. It doesn't really feel like home for the first few months.
Loving iOS 26 on my 16 Pro, things seem faster than 18 for some reason, same on my iPad M4 and Mac Studio M4 Max. A few bugs but I like going with change, and the call screening feature in iOS is long over due, so far I'm enjoying the updates.
The thing I don’t like is that almost no apps have been updated for the new liquid glass design, so only Apple’s own apps look nice. Every other app feels off. The ChatGPT app, for example, looks broken on iPadOS. Also, the keyboard doesn’t look the same in apps that haven’t been updated. Right now, iOS 26 really feels inconsistent across the whole OS, and I’m still shocked that after three full months of beta testing, almost no apps have been updated to match the new design.
That bothers me, too. Also the new liquid glas ui redesign requires lots of work. So it'll be inconsistent for a while. Also I question if even app developers will care enough about this. Is this effort even worth it for them?
Good. Buy Android then. I don’t remember Apple coming to my door to force me to upgrade or buy anything. We all have freedom of choice.
Sounds like a lot of folks aren't feeling iOS26. Typically, I wait a bit to see the reactions and for Apple to iron out some of the kinks before jumping in. I'm still happily running iOS17.7.
Maybe Apple held a design team retreat at Cracker Barrel.
Haha I remember all the hate when that one dropped. Eventually it all faded away though.
As an app developer I do want my company's app to not look too old so we'll get around to it eventually. I think some of the bigger brands that tend to use more custom UI will take longer for the reason you mentioned - it's a lot of work, especially because it introduces weird cases that don't need to exist (e.g. a liquid glass button in Mail/Safari that's over partially black/white content results in the text being only partially legible).
What didn't help was that Apple kept changing their minds about liquid glass during the beta period, it almost felt like an alpha tbh.
I am not complaining.
I was responding to someone who wondered why Apple spent great effort on revamping UI for every iterations while leaving a nos of apparent bugs untouched.
For me, I don’t think the new UI is too bad, just feel it not making sense for doing away a nos of tiny little things, e.g. useful controls and indications in the new IOS.
In what ways?
I found some of them he UI tweaking make things less intuitive and omitting some of the controls, e.g. exposure adjustment for night shots, indications of number of pics in full or summary mode in trip albums, wiping off a tab in Safari requiring one more click, notification popup shown on the top hardly visible owing to the transparency nature of the new UI.
Ngl, the Liquid Glass is jarring. A few thoughts come to mind, it reminds me of the glass dock from the OS X days. So apple might be self referencing to that and to improve it somehow because of modern aesthetic know hows and tech. They went back to thefuture because they think it’s unique or different. It also made sense to them because their pro phone now is also made of unibody aluminum much like the old PowerBook and PowerMac G-era. Tbf, the iPhone 17 pro does have nostalgic look. And that talk of premium well the IP17P is no longer shiny but our OS is now. So they compensated the premiumness whatever that means lol Just my 2 cents
I know I'm late to the party but ye Gods, iOS26/macOS26/iPadOS26 are ugly.
It just doesn't work. It's bad design, and also design for design's sake. It looks amateurish, like it was created by an intern on the UX team. It looks fake.
I really hoped Apple would've figured it out during testing and salvaged the situation but... no. They really have gone ahead and put this on public release.
Turning off transparency in accessibility actually makes it look worse. But it might be the only option.
If it was bold design, then I wouldn't mind. If I just didn't get it, then I wouldn't mind. But I do get it, and I can see how it just falls on its face. The fact it ISN'T bold design is what's so upsetting.
It just doesn't work. It's bad design, and also design for design's sake. It looks amateurish, like it was created by an intern on the UX team. It looks fake.
I really hoped Apple would've figured it out during testing and salvaged the situation but... no. They really have gone ahead and put this on public release.
Turning off transparency in accessibility actually makes it look worse. But it might be the only option.
If it was bold design, then I wouldn't mind. If I just didn't get it, then I wouldn't mind. But I do get it, and I can see how it just falls on its face. The fact it ISN'T bold design is what's so upsetting.
J
If you don't like Samsung's default, unlike Apple, there are 100's of optional launchers and icons available.
Yay another thread about iOS26.
Minor visual differences (they were bragging about the biggest visual overhaul, which might be true, but I still expected much more change - at times it feels like a winamp-skin), new bugs, a little less visibility and usability (e.g., quite some actions that used to work with one tap now need two) while using an unproportionally amount of ressources for not much functionality gained. I understand that they had to do an overhaul to introduce a lot of elements that don't go edge to edge, for future use in AR, but I don't like how that downgrade was sold to us.
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Im quite liking the upgrades TBH.
Did my computer and iPhone last night, watch just now, and will upgrade my Apple TV this evening.
Design is always a matter of taste so there were always going to be those who hate it, as well as those who like it (and those who just dont care as long as they can do what they need!)
Did my computer and iPhone last night, watch just now, and will upgrade my Apple TV this evening.
Design is always a matter of taste so there were always going to be those who hate it, as well as those who like it (and those who just dont care as long as they can do what they need!)
Or…maybe you have no taste.This is great.
Strongly disagree. Update looks great.