Apple’s final main redesign of a platform was iOS 7, a brilliant and vibrant tackle the OS, however one which was developed and in the end launched inside a special Apple. It was 2013, and Apple merely didn’t have as a lot of a cohesive ecosystem or as many gadgets.
It’s not 2013, although. It’s 2025, and Apple has an expansive and terribly built-in ecosystem – you possibly can copy and paste between an iPhone and a Mac, with an iPad in between, or vice versa. Common Management allows you to use your Mac’s keyboard and trackpad on an iPad, and AirPods shortly sync between all of them.
So with a characteristic set and a mantra or ethos that goals to mix {hardware} and software program, Apple’s new Liquid Glass search for all its platforms – iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS 26, watchOS 26, tvOS 26, and visionOS 26 – begins to make quite a lot of sense.
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There’s additionally the truth that Apple has all the time cherished glass; living proof, I’m penning this with Apple Park in view – a large ring seemingly made principally of glass.
(Picture credit score: Jacob Krol/Future)
Liquid Glass isn’t a large redesign when it comes to relocating buttons, because it was launched by Apple through the keynote and later restated by Apple’s VP of Human Interface Design, Alan Dye; it’s designed to be immediately acquainted.
Shortly after the roughly 90-minute particular occasion wrapped, I used to be in a position to be a part of a dialog with Alan Dye. It was temporary however complete, focusing totally on the brand new materials and Apple’s method to design.
I don’t suppose we’ve got to look very far, although, to seek out out the place Liquid Glass got here from. When Apple unveiled the Imaginative and prescient Professional and visionOS again in 2023 at WWDC, it was introduced as the longer term, and in my use, it actually feels that method. It overlays apps, messages, FaceTimes, motion pictures, and all the things else that may be a visionOS app onto the true world round you.
So, if visionOS is the longer term, it’s arriving now for everybody else – effectively, now in a Developer beta, with a public beta in July, and this fall as a full launch, all inside Liquid Glass. It’s a translucent and sleeker OS than earlier than. As you progress your finger across the display screen on an Apple Watch, iPhone, or iPad, all of it form of flows collectively.
I obtained to attempt transferring alongside the brand new backside bar in Music, because the highlighted portion morphs into a superbly rounded oval that glides easily alongside. You possibly can say the identical for the cursor on the Mac.
Relating to the origins of Liquid Glass, Dye shared, “A lot of the work that you saw today was influenced by the many years that we’ve worked on visionOS.”
And that was all about taking glass, due to its translucent nature, and permitting it to layer these numerous parts on the true world round you. That makes a ton of sense for a spatial laptop that goes over your head and eyes.
That effort finally led to Dye and his group fascinated with how they “might bring that language to the rest of our operating systems.” After all, although, it’s not a one-for-one recreation. “We had to kind of treat glass very differently,” defined Dye.
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And after making an attempt out Liquid Glass, it’s clear that it’s a display screen with a correct again and the interface now flows between functions, over and round overlapping home windows, and over a wallpaper. This digital materials is way extra malleable and transformable than precise glass.
It’s nonetheless the basic working system, however Dye hopes that it feels a bit completely different after a while – “it feels far more expressive. It feels far more responsive. You can kind of feel like you’re pushing through the screen and kind of coming in contact with the Liquid Glass itself.”
It’s additionally clear that Apple took their time with this launch, and that, just like every other characteristic the corporate rolls out, it must hit the mark. Dye shared that “99% of the work that we make in the studio never gets out into the world.” When requested why, he shared the notion that design is tough, particularly designing for simplicity.
That’s form of Apple’s secret sauce, and whereas Liquid Glass screams, effectively, glass and translucent, I believe we’ll discover that it has layers, and that similar to every other OS launch, it’ll evolve.
For now, I’m simply excited to see that evolution hit iOS in addition to macOS, iPadOS, watchOS, visionOS, tvOS, and no matter else is but to come back.
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