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Just Reduce Transparency bro
 

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I know, and no, I am not a developer. I just wanted to come along for the ride until September, like I do every year, but this years first impression left me disappointed.
I understand that it’s a Dev Beta, you can’t just download it like any other update or PB.
Honestly I am just shocked how bad the first beta is because Apple knows there are people like me around, especially for something fundamental like a complete design overhaul, otherwise they wouldn’t allow non devs to register as devs without paying the annual developer fee.
They know commoners and layman will get there hands on this, which isn’t necessarily helped by articles and tutorials on how to get it like the one here on MR. They know people will sht on them if the first impression is bad. And yet they did what they did anyway.
Blame me, as one rando in an Apple forum, all you want.
The bad press is coming up regardless of this thread. And that’s entirely Apples fault.
They will have a lot of polishing to do until the PB next month.
You're blaming Apple for what you "chose" to do willingly and deliberately? What's next? You're going to blame car manufacturers for "allowing" you to get a driver's license?
If you're expecting others to hold your hand in everything you do, don't. You alone are responsible for what you put on your phone. You made a mistake, you learn, you move on.

It's a dev beta 1. You're only allowed to complain or whine if it's the public release. Till then if you're not going to file a feedback, at least stop dramatizing things for the sake of it.
 
And I can only hope that until September they've figured out how to fix this abomination.
Black Wallpaper users will not be happy, unfortunately neither will be anyone else. All in all, it seems they have forgotten what their goal should be, because this readability nightmare isn't it, and the low quality app icons don't help. The inconsistencies in the UI are glaring and, frankly, an ugly downgrade.
I understand how it might look great on a case free 16 Pro Max, but the great thing about the previous design is how it goes with every screen, every case and basically every environment.
I never imagined to be let down by Apple's redesign but here I am, typing this on my MacBook while restoring iOS 18 on my 15 Pro.

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Edit: how can something so „clean“ be so unpolished?

Edit 2:
TL;DR apparently I and everyone that dislikes the first available preview are the problem lol
I understand that things will change, they better do. But that doesn’t change the fact that this „unifying design language“ is dividing people.
First impressions matter, and Apple fumbled this one, not just in my opinion.
But if it makes you feel better for a second, tell me how wrong I am :)
I mean it just your opinion though. Like you aren’t wrong because you’re opinion can’t be wrong because it’s an opinion not a fact.
 
I know that that’s an option, but it shouldn’t be the go to option.
What’s the purpose of a redesign if you use an accessibility option buried in the settings to turn it off?
Exactly. I’m not running the beta. I don’t currently use anything in accessibility settings. If iOS 26 forces me to have to turn on reduced transparency just to make things legible then that’s a problem with the redesign.

I saw a post on Threads showing off the maps app and the controls there looked good. They weren’t clear glass but more of blurred/frosted look. The content behind wasn’t obstructing them. I have a feeling other things like notifications and control center will get/have been tweaked and we’ll see it in future betas.
 
Can we go back to the days, when developer beta’s were for registered developers, who had paid the annual fee, and understood coding and development environments.

This is a beta, and will have bugs, will have things people don’t like, and will evolve.

Hold tight, another 3 months of negativity and doom.
 
Everytime an OS introduce major changes in the design, people will always complaint. iOS 7 days was the perfect exemple of this. People don't like drastic change by default, but everyone will eventually be used to it.
 
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Exactly. I’m not running the beta. I don’t currently use anything in accessibility settings. If iOS 26 forces me to have to turn on reduced transparency just to make things legible then that’s a problem with the redesign.

I saw a post on Threads showing off the maps app and the controls there looked good. They weren’t clear glass but more of blurred/frosted look. The content behind wasn’t obstructing them. I have a feeling other things like notifications and control center will get/have been tweaked and we’ll see it in future betas.
True, Maps was the only app I used that actually looked decent. Even though I was surprised to see that it still had the sharp cut off for the status bar, which I always disliked. Hopefully that will get reworked with time, too.
 
So you’re complaining the option exists? Like what is the point of this?
I am not complaining that an accessibility option (that I use frequently myself, among others) exists.
I just don’t see the point of having it on 24/7 just because the entire UI is too translucent after a design change.
 
I mean it just your opinion though. Like you aren’t wrong because you’re opinion can’t be wrong because it’s an opinion not a fact.
You are right, it is just an opinion. However, it is not exclusive to me.
And according to what someone else shared here previously, Apple, I guess, agrees in some way, as they are planing to adjust and done down the effect in later versions.
 
You're blaming Apple for what you "chose" to do willingly and deliberately? What's next? You're going to blame car manufacturers for "allowing" you to get a driver's license?
If you're expecting others to hold your hand in everything you do, don't. You alone are responsible for what you put on your phone. You made a mistake, you learn, you move on.

It's a dev beta 1. You're only allowed to complain or whine if it's the public release. Till then if you're not going to file a feedback, at least stop dramatizing things for the sake of it.
I didn’t mean to dramatize anything. Just share my opinion on an Apple centric forum.
You can obviously blame me, a non developer, all you want for installing a developer beta. I don’t really care.
My main complaint is that Apple thought this was good enough for the first impression the world gets of their new design. Even if you discredit my opinion, which I at least only started forming after some hands on time, you can’t discredit everyone else’s. Apple is getting bad press despite this one thread in the internet, and rightfully so.
Considering they are apparently going to change the design anyway, according to their own videos shared with devs, rightfully so.
Because of this ain’t it AND they know it, they are to blame for all the criticism they get. No matter what I think or you think about what I think.
Also, your car and driver’s license analogy makes no sense.
To also say everyone is responsible for what runs on their phones themselves is obviously not entirely true. It is in the case of optional betas, but going forward, like every year, Apple has systems in place to „incentivize“ users to update.
 
Even if you discredit my opinion, which I at least only started forming after some hands on time, you can’t discredit everyone else’s.
I’m not discrediting anyone’s opinion. If you go thru my previous posts, I’d already predicted this happening well before the WWDC.
Sensationalizing your distaste for the design based on a dev beta 1, which we all know is going to get tweaked a lot before the public release, and dismissing the entire design as an “abomination” is what I disagree with.

Also, your car and driver’s license analogy makes no sense.
Imagine being in a fender bender after getting your license and it starts to make sense.
To also say everyone is responsible for what runs on their phones themselves is obviously not entirely true. It is in the case of optional betas, but going forward, like every year, Apple has systems in place to „incentivize“ users to update.
Unless you’re being forced by Apple to install the most unstable betas, you’re the only one responsible. No one installing the betas is incentivized by Apple in any way — they do it to experience the new features of the next iteration.

I have the option to install them too, but I know how unstable beta 1 can be, so I choose to wait until beta 5. I’m neither forced nor incentivized. And if I choose to install, I already have a backup should I decide to revert. I’m not gonna blame Apple for giving me the option for free.

I’m seriously trying to wrap my head around the concept of you blaming Apple for “you” installing an unstable version. Never heard that before.
 
Some of the comments being expressed here are because the beta experience, or really the experience of any release, is highly dependent on the user and the device being used. I’m not a paid developer; I came onto the beta scene when I was invited to the AppleSeed program back in the ios 6 days. For me ios 7 was almost flawless from the get go. That spoiled me a bit so I continued installing initial betas, but ios 8 caused some significant issues with the devices I used. 9 was quite smooth for me, 10 much less so, and 11 was horrible as a beta and when it was first in general release.

I’ve seen some posts stating that 26 is surprisingly stable for an initial beta, and others saying it is so horrible they’re going to downgrade. Both opinions are valid as, again, the experience is highly dependent on the specific user and the devices being used. For me, I had spare devices for a while that I could take the risk on installing an initial beta. However, I no longer do, so I’ve learned to wait until much further along in the versions that are released. With 26 my plan is to wait until version 4 or 5 is released to install, and just follow along until then. And since my phone is vital to me, it will remain beta-free and I will use my iPad Pro for the eventual installation.
 
For me its not the beta experience. I expected it to be choppy as its not meant to be a consumer release. I just really do not like the aesthetics at all. The glass warping in realtime and morphic icon > menu stuff is all really cool. The new icons though just don't sit right. To me they look like what would happen if I asked an AI to generate an image of iOS

My worry isn't that Apple won't polish it because they will; its that going forwards I'll be stuck with the whole thing forever. I made what may have been a rash decision and sold my 16 Pro for a Pixel. I'm not saying Android is any better than iOS visually and both of them still have far too many interactions outside the bottom 50% of the display. But if Google introduce a swathe of new icons I can just install a new launcher and roll something else.
 
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.
I hear a lot of the revisionist history when people talk fondly of the Windows XP rollout. XP was pretty awful for the first three months or so before they took care of most of the bugs, missing device drivers, etc., and people were (understandably) howling pretty loudly the whole time. Granted, that was a release to the public and not a beta. I'm just commenting on how forgetful folks can be. And for the record, I H-A-T-E-D iOS 7 when it first dropped (and for the first couple of versions after, as well). :)
 
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Can we go back to the days, when developer beta’s were for registered developers, who had paid the annual fee, and understood coding and development environments.

This is a beta, and will have bugs, will have things people don’t like, and will evolve.

Hold tight, another 3 months of negativity and doom.
Those days are long gone.
You don’t really expect the world to hold their breath when Apple reveals a redesign after 12 years do you?
First impressions matter, Apple knows that and still they released a subpar preview.
This thread is NOTHING to what influencers in all of social media are letting loose.
If you don’t want people to have (negative) opinions, you’d need to stop releasing (bad) updates.
Bad is a bold word, but it’s definitely not the release Apple was hoping for.
 
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Everytime an OS introduce major changes in the design, people will always complaint. iOS 7 days was the perfect exemple of this. People don't like drastic change by default, but everyone will eventually be used to it.
Sure, I agree.
Big changes are seldomly welcomed by the majority, let alone all. But there are differences between changes and downgrades.
A glass like look is a nice and interesting change, but if it messes with visibility it’s more of a downgrade.
 
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And I can only hope that until September they've figured out how to fix this abomination.
Black Wallpaper users will not be happy, unfortunately neither will be anyone else. All in all, it seems they have forgotten what their goal should be, because this readability nightmare isn't it, and the low quality app icons don't help. The inconsistencies in the UI are glaring and, frankly, an ugly downgrade.
I understand how it might look great on a case free 16 Pro Max, but the great thing about the previous design is how it goes with every screen, every case and basically every environment.
I never imagined to be let down by Apple's redesign but here I am, typing this on my MacBook while restoring iOS 18 on my 15 Pro.

View attachment 2518283View attachment 2518284View attachment 2518287

Edit: how can something so „clean“ be so unpolished?

Edit 2:
TL;DR apparently I and everyone that dislikes the first available preview are the problem lol
I understand that things will change, they better do. But that doesn’t change the fact that this „unifying design language“ is dividing people.
First impressions matter, and Apple fumbled this one, not just in my opinion.
But if it makes you feel better for a second, tell me how wrong I am :)
Dunno about the style, it definitely needs work as your screen shots show… however, I’ve installed every beta since 6 or 7 and this is a very strong first revision. I have not noticed anything flaking out too badly, it runs fast and cool so far. Battery seems fine. Loving the refinements they’ve made, lots of refreshment and nice Mac stuff like menu bar and Preview. Things are looking good I’d say! I certainly don’t feel the need to downgrade. I’m running the earth backdrop, it’s nice with the glass.

Edit to add: CarPlay also looks nicer and the widgets are pretty powerful if you have something like HomeWidget on your phone.
 
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I've gone the other way. I installed the beta on my iPhone 14, since it will be a while before I can afford to get the screen replaced after breaking it, and am using a spare iPhone 11 as my main phone. Even with dev beta 1, every time I use my 11 it just looks old! I'm really looking forward to the release of iOS 26. I'm already enjoying some of the interface updates.
 
Those days are long gone.
You don’t really expect the world to hold their breath when Apple reveals a redesign after 12 years do you?
First impressions matter, Apple knows that and still they released a subpar preview.
This thread is NOTHING to what influencers in all of social media are letting loose.
If you don’t want people to have (negative) opinions, you’d need to stop releasing (bad) updates.
Bad is a bold word, but it’s definitely not the release Apple was hoping for.
Microsoft doesn't release developer builds to the general public, and rightly so, as demonstrated within these forums.

The release of a future Operating System beta, is not for the general public, it is for developers, who have an interest in ensuring, their work is compatible to the system, and as they have an understanding of coding, and IT architecture, are best placed to help Apple in ironing out issues.
The whinging, moaning, and sense of entitlement, demonstrated by many with this thread, and many others, demonstrates why developer betas, should be for them.
Apple is not releasing bad updates, they are releasing beta software. Let me say that again, beta software, defined as 'a trial of machinery, software or other products in the final stages of development, carried out by a party unconnected with the development process.'
And yes, I do expect the world, and I, to just wait. No first version is the same as the released version, and what most are complaining about, is simply their visual viewpoint, because the no little about coding and IT architecture and design.

Update: I have had a response from an email sent to Tim Cook, and there is agreement, that 'developer betas' being allowed to be utilised by 'public', outside of the 'public beta', program, needs addressing.
 
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