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points by freakynit 2 days ago | 0 comments

I freaking hate liquid-glass UI Apple has "forced" onto us. No freaking way to disable it. I hate it so much.

[–] randomblock1 2 days ago

There's a slider to reduce the liquidity

[–] gessha 1 day ago

Big Tech found the wrong slider

[–] Telaneo 2 days ago

Reduce != disable.

[–] woah 2 days ago

Been on HN for many years now, and the one thing that never changes is people posting angrily about small UI changes. It makes me wonder- if things have only ever gotten worse, what was the peak UI? MS DOS?

[–] linguae 2 days ago

On the Windows side, Windows 2000 and XP/Vista/7’s Classic mode, though Aero was quite nice. I’m not a fan of the interfaces from 8 onward, and I didn’t like Luna in XP.

On the Mac side, it’s a toss up between the platinum interface of Mac OS 8/9 and Mac OS X Tiger. With that said, I have a work-issued MacBook Pro running Golden Gate as my daily driver, and Liquid Glass is alright. It’s not what I’d prefer if I had a choice, but it’s not a dramatic departure from previous versions of macOS. A Cheetah or Puma Mac OS X user should be able to navigate Golden Gate with ease, mostly.

[–] Uncle_Brumpus 1 day ago

I am a HUGE sucker for Mac os8/9. I currently have a PPC Mac Mini and a Powerbook G4 that I tool around with occasionally for nostalgia's sake. I used slew of various G3 computers running OS9 as my main personal computers picked from the scrap bin at my dad's job (graphic imaging company) from ~2004 until I went off to college in 2010. I had some kind of modified Mozilla browser (Classilla I think?) that had modern-ish web support.

I've been on the lookout for a good condition G3 beige desktop, that was my first ever computer that was "mine" and I really want one just for the sentimental value.

[–] rzzzt 2 days ago

Windows 2000 / XP in classic mode / XP / Vista / 7. For OSX I'd say High Sierra to Catalina.

[–] al_borland 2 days ago

I’d go with Tiger (10.4) for peak OS X, personally.

[–] asdff 2 days ago

Leopard was better because it introduced spaces. Honestly I think that whole concept (I know windows has something analogous now) was the biggest step change in OS functionality I've seen in my life having started on windows 95.

[–] majormajor 2 days ago

Expose added in Panther was the last window management feature that changed my day to day usage of PCs.

Expose + Cmd-tab/Cmd-backtick being separated == a gap that Linux/Windows have somehow never managed to close in 20+ years now.

[–] al_borland 2 days ago

I never used Spaces much.

Apple was actually last to the party on that. Linux had virtual desktops for years at that point, and Windows had them as well through Microsoft PowerToys. I’m pretty sure I was running it on Windows 2000.

[–] pmontra 2 days ago

I had virtual desktops on UNIXes with X11 well before Linus started working on Linux. They came for free to Linux because they were implemented by many window managers.

[–] 0bytes 2 days ago

Not Linux, the X Window System. The first implementation in a window manager predates Linux by a couple of years. And to no surprise Xerox had them first

[–] ant6n 2 days ago

The problem is that window management is so atrocious in Mac OS that using multiple desktops is just asking for trouble. Like of you close one window of some software, it will jump to some random other window of the same software on some other desktop.

In the end you’ll spend a significant amount of your time trying to “get back” to where you just where (that alt-tab, a possible savior for this in all other OSs, doesn’t work at all on Mac just adds to the UX mess)

[–] majormajor 2 days ago

The separation of Cmd-tab and Cmd-backtick is one of my favorite things in Appleland... what about it is broken to you compared to alt-tab?

[–] spockz 2 days ago

For me it is that cmd+` only cycles between windows of the same app in the active desktop. It makes it hard to switch back to a window of the app that was put in full screen.

I get that that behaviour shouldn’t just be changed but I would appreciate it if there were another key combination that would allow cycling through all windows of an app.

[–] vel0city 2 days ago

Eh. I get what it's going for. The Multi-Window application concept and what not.

In the end though I just feel like it's extra cognitive load to have to think about two different shortcuts to do what is in many ways the same thing.

Say, I've got two browser windows open and a code editor open. I'm wanting to flip through the browser windows to check on things while I work in the code editor. In reality I'm just wanting to juggle the three windows, but depending on if I'm wanting to go from browser to browser it's a different shortcut than if I'm wanting to go from editor to browser. And there's a good chance I'll then need to swap from editor to browser, then issue a different shortcut to go from that browser to the other. When I could have just hit the same shortcut twice.

I've just never really encountered a situation where I've felt like it added something, but I'm constantly having cases where its more annoying.

[–] asdff 2 days ago

Ehh I'm not to caught up with window management on macos. Bunch of shells open I might use tmux. But otherwise I just keep things in piles organized in spaces, and use expose all to get to whatever I need in the pile. It works much like the piles on my desk in real life so I'm comfortable with it. But it was better in leopard when it was a grid of spaces vs a line of spaces. Less rigidity was nice.

[–] ant6n 2 days ago

But even then. If you close a terminal, it'll jump to some random terminal on another desktop. It just doesn't make any sense.

[–] larsmaxfield 2 days ago

Liquid Glass was not a "small UI change". It disrupted many accessibility aspects of macOS, so much so that Apple toned down quite a few aspects of the design in subsequent updates, even adding a slider to reduce the effect. [1]

The quantity of requests for how to disable Liquid Glass on Apple Discussions is staggering. [2]

[1]https://www.macrumors.com/2026/06/09/macos-golden-gate-liqui...

[2]https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256227663

[–] richjdsmith 2 days ago

Yea, I am trichromatic color blind, and it is legitimately unusable for me. I am unable to type on the keyboard. I know there are changes since it launched, by after my ipad updated automatically, rendering it near useless to me, I just disabled updates on my iphone.

[–] ericd 2 days ago

I'd say Snow Leopard was peak.

[–] asdff 2 days ago

I think the biggest thing isn't really whatever it is but the act of changing and forcing everyone to change into the new ui that is the disruptive part. It is a combination of window dressing changing but also sometimes functions breaking. It is ironic because software written for developers prides itself generally on maintaining compatibility with say depreciated flags, or if things will be depreciated plenty of notice ahead of time. But that only holds for cli software. GUI software and the OS that all goes out the window. Stuff breaks, workflows break, you have no recourse and in fact they might make it genuinely difficult to go back to an older version. Like this part of it is the shitty part. Never mind how it happens to look. It is the forcing effect.

[–] setr 2 days ago

I think it’s also because these UI changes are always designed to improve first-impression and first-usage. They are outright hostile to anyone who wants to go fast and get faster — the power user. At minimum the re-arrangement resets any gains you had, and at maximum its irrecoverable because the UI is now fundamentally designed to slow you down.

This eventually becomes awkwardly precise complaints about information density and general change; but the underlying issue is I want to go fast and the system says no

[–] ericd 2 days ago

I think the only real solution to this is to switch to an OS with a backing org that has optimization for power users as a first-class goal. I've been liking Omarchy and NixOS for that. I say this as a Mac user since 1989.

[–] 72deluxe 1 day ago

Perhaps it is the annoyance of change for change's sake. If you buy a car and then the interior changes after an update, it'd be pretty annoying, yet that is what is foisted on us.

[–] opan 1 day ago

You're probably less likely to see posts saying "I'm glad they kept the UI the same, I already liked it".

[–] jen729w 2 days ago

If you consider the transition from macOS 15 to 26+ 'small', I think you should see an optician.

Like GP, I despise the new design. I'll say the old design was pretty peak design. Windows looked like windows. Buttons like buttons. With accessibility tweaks (for transparency and borders) I could make it very, very usable.

This new thing is a crime against UI. Every icon now sits in a circle, and takes up % more room as a result. Because … it's pretty? It isn't pretty.

I upgraded my laptop thinking I was going to develop an app and that I'd need to be on the latest design. I ended up developing a TUI so I needn't have bothered. Every time I see my partner's laptop, still on Sequoia, I shed a little tear.

[–] oofabz 2 days ago

Mac OS 7.6.1 was peak Apple

[–] majormajor 2 days ago

It's been a long time, but I'm pretty sure Appearance Manager and the corresponding unreleased-but-leaked Hi-Tech theme was 8.5-or-so-and-up-only, which means I must reject 7.6 on aesthetic grounds ;)

[–] SoftTalker 2 days ago

It was great if you could tolerate an application crash taking down the whole operating system hard.

[–] epistasis 2 days ago

Small improvements don't get much accolades. And for the most part, the UX is so good that most changes tend to be neutral or for the worse. And when you're really attached to something and there's on an unnecessary change, it feels almost like betrayal!

I, for one, prefer Apple products because they sweat the small stuff more than the other options, and when they have put in effort to make things worse it's kind of infuriating.

I do a bit of desktop Linux work too, and it's OK, but hard to complain when it's all open source volunteer work! Windows is so terrible that I wouldn't even know where to start. What's the point? There's nobody at Microsoft that even gives a damn.

[–] cmoski 2 days ago

No, it was Windows 3.11

[–] dasKrokodil 2 days ago

NeXTSTep

[–] pebble 2 days ago

Small?

[–] bluecalm 2 days ago

The way things are going you will be able to run your favorite flavor of Linux on those pretty soon. It will be the best of both worlds: the best hardware and a good OS. Hopefully Apple doesn't take steps to block it.

[–] dzhiurgis 2 days ago

Whats so forced on you? I'm on still on Sequoia and no one forced me to update to latest OS. Everything still works and I get security updates.

[–] zerd 2 days ago

They're going to force us soon. When getting a new device I don't think you can install an older version either.

[–] BugsJustFindMe 2 days ago

> No freaking way to disable it.

Um. https://imgur.com/a/ydt3MN5

[–] tedd4u 2 days ago

Liquid Glass is more than just the transparency. There are many other changes that cannot be disabled that way. Not to mention the overall lag compared to Sequoia (I skipped Tahoe entirely so I had a direct knife-edge transition). 27 is less bad than 26 but Liquid Glass doesn't make anything better than prior UI and makes several things worse, even if you turn down the transparency.

[–] ndiddy 2 days ago

I imagine that the UI changes since Sequoia regarding the giant buttons and whitespace are because Apple plans to release a touchscreen laptop (most rumors say it will be announced tomorrow) so they've decided to make the UI touch friendly at the expense of bloating the UI for everyone who doesn't have a touchscreen. Microsoft made this same decision with the Windows releases after 7.

[–] LoganDark 2 days ago

The rumors also said it would be announced today, so we'll just have to see. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, after all.

[–] macintux 2 days ago

Press event is tomorrow. I don’t think a touchscreen laptop is a good idea, but I guess we’ll see whether Apple can do a good job with it.

[–] selcuka 2 days ago

A touchscreen laptop is only a good idea if it can also be used like a tablet (with a detached keyboard). Otherwise it's useless.

[–] pmontra 2 days ago

Why? My SO has a Windows laptop with touchscreen, touchpad, keyboard and mouse. She uses the mouse but sometimes pushing a button by touching the screen saves time. If you think about it, by the time you reached for the mouse and started aiming for the button you already pressed it with your finger. The touchpad reduces the travel of the hand but not the time to aim. Hitting something with a finger is always faster. She is missing that on her work laptop.

[–] LoganDark 2 days ago

I used touch on Windows to test multitouch and pen input support in a familiar environment. Less hassle than grabbing a tablet, setting up remote DevTools, etc.

[–] tedd4u 2 days ago

Yeah I think this is probably right. I use a 13" MBA as my primary machine so space is crucial and Liquid Glass wastes it.