Okay. I finally installed ios 26 because of the DarkSword hack. I’m so pissed about how this looks immediately that I’m going to post what I hate to this thread. I’m going to be very rude because I’m in a bad mood and I’m starting to Hate Designers (speaking as a former)
all right first of all, something’s wrong with the way the keyboard works; it pops up the letter above in a way I can’t quite put my finger on but it looks like shit
Next. I fucking hate the pre-existing design of Screen Time warnings. But I need them, because I’m a goddamn obsessive and I need reminders to quit looking at socials.
But these MOTHERFUCKERS, in their endless pursuit of false tidiness, have HIDDEN THE OPTIONS BEHIND A SECOND TAP
you used to get the “one more minute” etc immediately. Now I tap one button and it POPS THESE UP?? halfway up the SCREEN? you assholes
Oh!! I just realized that I had my accessibility vision settings on; reduced transparency, high contrast, etc. I turned all those off so I can get the Genuine Experience and get real good and mad for a little bit
this floating shit above the keyboard? fuck you. these icons look so bad, the spacing is a fucking nightmare
some of these bloopy swoopy animations MIGHT be fine if they were twice as fast and didn’t have the goddamn glass blur
DONT MAKE ME WAIT FOR THE FUCKING INTERFACE YOU FUCKING AMATEURS
TWO TAPS TO OPEN ALL MY SAFARI TABS????
I OPEN THEM HUNDREDS OF TIMES A DAY
which, admittedly, I wish my life and brain were different but my ass reads a lot of internet
GUESS WHICH PART OF THE INTERFACE IS THE WEB PAGE AND WHICH IS THE BROWSER
bastards killed accessibility with a glass shovel
I’m going to turn ALL OF THIS OFF AS SOON AS IM DONE BEING MAD
but it’s a fucking travesty to ship this to a billion devices. truly, shame on everyone involved
why is this SO BIG AND UGLY
AND HALFWAY UP THE MOTHERFUCKING SCREEN
PUT THE CONTROLS DOWN NEAR MY FINGERS
AND DON’t MAKE EVEYRHNG A GIANT FUCKING CENTER ALIGNED ROUNDRECT
aahhhhHHHHHHHHHHHH
high pitched scream, all the fucking “glass” cracks and falls to the ground
hideous
to give credit where it’s due: I think a fair amount of the squash-and-stretch animations are cute. playful in a good way. when you pull down the command center, and the buttons all stretch? that’s cute.
glass looks like shit, but I’ll probably still think that’s cute when I Reduce Transparency
and I do appreciate the buttons that have big circles around them, in some of the cases I’ve seen. a big round checkmark is better than “Done” with no outline
and I appreciate how big the outlines get on lock screen buttons when held down. But I’ve been wishing they’d do this for the entire time iphones have existed, so points docked for being a decade late
every touch interface should visibly react when touched, BUT RESPECTFULLY
also nice: moving the Search button down to the bottom of Music.
But this is with Reduce Transparency, Higher Contrast, and several other accessibility settings. Let’s see what it looks like by default!
come on, MANNNNNN. this isn’t violently illegible, but it’s just nasty looking.
also noted: even when all transparency and everything turned off, the animation between tabs (Home, Library, etc) still briefly renders the glass as it scales and translates to the new selection. it’s “fine,” but looks unpleasant as it briefly shimmers
I know he was an asshole, and bosses shouldn’t yell at their employees because that’s not how you create a positive environment for good creative work
… but I keep imagining Steve Jobs yelling at the people who even presented liquid glass as a demo. he would have caught this shit day one (probably, who knows, but it troubles me to no end that current Apple seems to have lost all sense of what used to be good about their software)
again: this negative space with the mismatched curves above the keyboard, just to maintain Squircality??? so gross.
and making the arrows and checkmark a separate squovoid? A stunningly innovative waste of space and unpleasant neighboring curves
“Only Apple” could make this kind of mistake :[
I used to think the rounded corners of the display were cute. I have grown to loathe it for the way it pushes content ever-inward at the corners. And I fucking HATE how huge the curvature is on the app windows in macos 26.
A few pixels of rounding? Cute and unobtrusive. It’s so bad now though
@splendorr fucking UGH. Shit like this in iOS 26 drives me CRAZY.
Honestly, if Apple implement the age verification thing on my phone, I'm leaving for a Fairphone. Fuck this shit.
@splendorr I'm so glad I'm not the only one raging at this right now.
I can't even read the goddamn clock on my phone after it wakes up because now it's OOOO TRANSPARENT FONT, and that's with reduce transparency on.
I had to manually go through EVERY APP ON MY PHONE (all 40+ of them) on Siri to disallow suggestions or whatever the fuck that is
@distractal oh i haven’t even got to the Apple Intelligence yet………..
yeah dude, this sucks so bad
@distractal maybe you figured out, but if you press and hold on your lock screen, then tap edit, then tap on the time, you can make it “solid”
which is still not clear enough but is better
@splendorr > (speaking as a former)
You don’t stop being a designer. As evidenced by your criticisms. (With which I agree, BTW)
@morrick thanks. And, yeah, I still have the capability.
I’m being so unkind and uncharitable, which I NEVER do professionally or personally. But this is such a hideous mistake by such a wealthy company. It’s worse than I even thought from seeing other folks’ posts about it!!!
@splendorr Sometimes the truth is unkind and uncharitable.
A reader of my blog wrote me last week. It’s not the first time he writes me, so our correspondence is kind of informal. The entirety of his email was:
“I eventually did it, against my better judgment.
Now I fully understand why you refused to update all your devices to the latest versions. 😔”
@morrick Yes. What a profound sadness, actually, to have these once-beloved devices corroded by mismanagement.
I had a taste of all this because my work macbook was force-updated a couple months ago.
I will /never/ let this stuff touch my personal macbook (which I already dislike in many ways, because it came with whichever macos precedes 26, which was already annoying!
The shame is: there /are/ nice details in these. Not worth it!
nina splendorr 🌻🏳️⚧️
Bloo (they/she) 🍓 🏳️⚧️ 🍉
Mark Shane Hayden
Erik Johnson
Gaston
Riccardo Mori