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„Just some beta bashing“
- Thread starter Parowdy
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- downgrade ios 26 ugly ugly
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you can see it in this video after 6 minute mark: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2025/219
develop focused video giving developers overview of final design
Missing in Dev Beta 1
-lower refraction of text
- button legibility on variable backgrounds
- No Color Bleeding in final design
- Button label changes color based on background
I don’t see a difference between that and how it looks right now tbh. In fact, the new video playback UI looked especially bad during that video.
Edit: considering the loft you added I suppose there will be a difference? Doesn’t really change the fact that the my first impression is really bad.
Last year when iOS 18.0 was no longer in beta, I still downgraded back to iOS 17.7 because of the death of classic widgets as we know it on iOS 18.0
I like the tinting option, the dark mode for icons and the ability to place them anywhere, but losing the classic widgets [since iOS 9 or iOS 10] is a deal breaker for me, and even though I enabled iOS 26 Developer Beta in Software Update, and as much as I like the Clear option for icons more than the Dark or Tint modes, I will still keep my iPhone 11 Pro Max on iOS 17.7 until the apps I use require newer iOS version before I can use them.
I like the tinting option, the dark mode for icons and the ability to place them anywhere, but losing the classic widgets [since iOS 9 or iOS 10] is a deal breaker for me, and even though I enabled iOS 26 Developer Beta in Software Update, and as much as I like the Clear option for icons more than the Dark or Tint modes, I will still keep my iPhone 11 Pro Max on iOS 17.7 until the apps I use require newer iOS version before I can use them.
I feel bad for the presenter in this video. He posted something on Twitter after WWDC about how proud he was of the work his team did on this and the post had nearly 1,000 comments last time I checked and so many were negative.
I've really deliberated if I should downgrade to iOS 18 or use 26 for a couple of days after my initial restore attempt failed, but I decided against it. It's just ugly the way it is right now. Im certain things will change, until then im not an out. The Notification Center animation is bad, the translucent Control Center is ugly, the keyboard feels wrong, Settings items take up too much space while the searching function continues to not work properly, the Lock Screen is buggy and the 3D wallpapers reset too fast and aren't high quality enough.
I know that this is a developer beta and not a public first-look sort of thing, and that's why I appreciate the ability to downgrade to 18. It's just not meant to be for now, at least for me. I'll give it another try when PB 2 or 3 drop I guess.
IF they make it look less horrid. Until then "Liquid Glass" won't coma anywhere near my ecosystem.
I know that this is a developer beta and not a public first-look sort of thing, and that's why I appreciate the ability to downgrade to 18. It's just not meant to be for now, at least for me. I'll give it another try when PB 2 or 3 drop I guess.
IF they make it look less horrid. Until then "Liquid Glass" won't coma anywhere near my ecosystem.
I agree. I am sure the team did the best they could and I am also sure their vision isn't flawed, just the implementation as of DB 1. I am really looking forward to seeing this new design language done right.
idk how they thought text on glass was a good idea. my eyes are struggling on macOS tahohe
Watching the developer session shared above you get the sense a lot of thought went into this. I’ve got to believe legibility issues will be fixed in future betas. I mean there’s no way the people at Apple who worked on this would say this is legible and should ship in the fall.
Just to add to this: I think there is a lot of revisionist history when it comes to iOS 7. I remember people being horrified by it when the first beta dropped. Now I’m seeing posts on Mastodon and Threads about how iOS 7 was fine at a foundational level (it just needed some refinement/reigning in) but iOS26 is fundamentally flawed from the ground up and refinement wont’t fix it. I find it especially amusing coming from someone like Marco Arment as I seem to remember him shipping an update to Overcast that was universally panned.
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Before he died, Steve Jobs spent a lot of time with Tim Cook sharing his vision for the future. Looks like Tim finished the checklist a couple of years ago and has no ideas about what to do.
Why do people always attribute so much to Tim Cook? I think he has more important things to worry about than liquifying a transparent solid, especially since the current US administration and their policies and "promises" were on the horizon again.
You guys always make it sound like Apple is really just a one man show. I'm pretty sure he actually inserts himself fair less into product design than Jobs did.
OK it actually has over 2K comments now. I guess I noticed it because I don’t remember tweets from Apple employees receiving that many comments before.
Another one from a co-worker that has over 950 comments.
And another that has over 500 comments.
thanks. that's good. the more people who complain, the more chances they'll actually improve it. i still think glass is a terrible idea . if it were only in the menus and corners, maybe . but everywhere, including the background where the text is written? that's terrible. i wonder if there are engineers for ergonomics and this kind of stuff at apple, because their products are beautiful but getting terribly harder to use
And I can only hope that until September they've figured out how to fix this abomination.
These images kind of remind me of when the GPU is acting up and glitches outWatching the developer session shared above you get the sense a lot of thought went into this. I’ve got to believe legibility issues will be fixed in future betas. I mean there’s no way the people at Apple who worked on this would say this is legible and should ship in the fall.
I don’t mind it overall but they absolutely need to fix the legibility issues. If that means reducing transparency in some cases, going to frosted glass or making the text black, whatever it needs to be they can’t ship something in September that causes people to get eye strain, headaches or nausea.
frosted glass would be a good idea ! but i'm not sure they're gonna do this sadly...
i use dark mode and it's so hard to see
i think its kinda hilarious that they saw how negative the reaction was to the safari update that tried to do all the same things, and instead of doing some introspection decided what if we applied this to the entire OS
Hello, out there! This is beta 1 of a new OS. Why the violent reactions? Actually considering that it's the first beta of a new operating system, I think it's pretty good. Give Apple a chance to respond to user reactions; that's what betas are for! No reason to go ballistic.
apparently visionOS still uses frosted glass ? and this looks good, definitely the way to go
this is the way to go
i feel they won't do it, but it would be nice if this design applied to all platforms. it's actually a bummer they didn't make the same OS for everyone
I also downgraded from a beta for the first time, actually on my iPad, but that's just because I found a "breaking" bug (which is to be expected in a developer beta, not complaining at all):
I've been through enough Betas to know things will change a LOT between now and September. Happens every year. They rework stuff considerably over the beta cycle.
I'm sure a lot of it comes from the how secretive Apple tends to be. So they don't ship everything in all their internal releases before WWDC to limit leaks...
There is also the natural human hate for change. So people will have very strong opinions on why this is horrible and why the old design was perfect. Then in a year or two they'll feel exactly opposite.
It needs some tweaking, but I'm reserving my opinion on it until the Fall when we see a final version of it shipping.
I'm sure a lot of it comes from the how secretive Apple tends to be. So they don't ship everything in all their internal releases before WWDC to limit leaks...
There is also the natural human hate for change. So people will have very strong opinions on why this is horrible and why the old design was perfect. Then in a year or two they'll feel exactly opposite.
It needs some tweaking, but I'm reserving my opinion on it until the Fall when we see a final version of it shipping.
It's just beta -- everything will be ironed out by OS 35.