Steve Troughton-Smith
There are a lot of you that aren't developers and don't at all see how broken so much of iOS 26 is, behind the scenes. Any app that's managed to ship alongside it has navigated a minefield of problems just like these, and has probably ended up with a design that looks as close to vanilla as possible as a result. Anybody whose app does, or did, customize its UI — something that its users may value or expect — has probably had a very tough summer
Aug 28, 2025 at 4:43pmIvory for Mac
Show threadChrisAug 28, 2025

@stroughtonsmith

I’ve advised friends and family to turn off automatic iOS updates. It just seema like it’s going to be huge mess.

Show threadKayAug 28, 2025
@ChrisBoredom Unfortunately, that will make it even harder on developers. (And it’s not great for security reasons either)
Show threadTheEJJ 🇨🇦Aug 28, 2025
@stroughtonsmith god forbid you’re a novice developer and you can’t tell if the problem is you or iOS 26.
Show threadTimo HetzelAug 28, 2025
@TheEjj @stroughtonsmith welcome to my entire day today
Show threadLoïc GardiolAug 28, 2025
@stroughtonsmith thanks for sharing all your findings. In addition to being useful, it makes other developers like myself feel less lonely in this very rough ride that has been adopting Liquid Glass.
Show threadTopremoteAug 28, 2025
Can't explain how tough it was for the team.@stroughtonsmith
Show threadchris overcashAug 28, 2025
@stroughtonsmith this post makes me wonder… perhaps app intents are not being implemented by enough developers so Apple is going to try to LLM their way out of this in order to ship their app aware AI. And in order to do this, they need apps to be as vanilla as possible 🤔
Show threadDan WinemanAug 29, 2025

@covercash @stroughtonsmith So that an LLM can more easily parse the screen? That seems like a silly way to go about it when Apple controls the frameworks that display that UI. They can infer the tap targets and control labels the same way VoiceOver does.

This wouldn’t work for any apps that use cross-platform SDKs or that draw directly to the screen, bypassing Apple’s frameworks (games mostly), but such apps won’t be affected by the vanillification anyway.

Show threadFeloniousPunkAug 28, 2025
@stroughtonsmith more like Liquid Ass, amirite
Show threadTimo GrünAug 29, 2025

@stroughtonsmith
I'm getting a new phone this year because my iPhone 12 Pro is getting old but I'm now seriously considering getting a 16 so that I can avoid iOS 26 for as.long as possible.

I also suspect that the general reaction to Liquid Glass is going to be a lot more negative than many suspect. I showed to my wife and her reaction was immediate and visceral: "I never ever want that on my phone."

Show threadDrew McCormackAug 29, 2025
@stroughtonsmith @marcoarment This
Show threadPieter OmvleeAug 29, 2025
@drewmccormack @stroughtonsmith @marcoarment I can confirm, a very tough summer 😅
Show threadCalamity Jan 🐍Aug 29, 2025
@stroughtonsmith I’m using the public beta, and given the bad state that Apple’s own apps are in and the inconsistency of the interface, I can imagine. I expect nothing from the app devs this fall, and I’m okay with it. I may not even update macOS this year. It looks like a nightmare.