Apple’s new iOS-26-UI: usability problems and Vista nostalgia

So far, Apple’s iOS has only known one break in terms of user interface: In June 2013, exactly 12 years ago, the company iOS 7 presented, which refrained from the Skeuomorphism of the first iPhone years and introduced a new, “flat” look. The next big step is now coming with the iOS 26 presented this week and its “Liquid Glass” design. According to Apple, it should lay the basics for the next iPhone decade. The first few hours with the new UI, which has been available for developers since Monday, show that the changeover is probably more difficult than initially thought. Even if the design apparently only changes marginally at first glance, Apple intervenes into the system in many places. Meanwhile joke user On social media that Apple with its glassy look at Windows Vista from 2006, once Arch enemy of MacOS oriented, its surface “Aero Glass” called.

Glassy: not always good for the overview

Anyone who works with the preliminary version of iOS 26 recognizes the design interventions with the first few clicks: icons have been adjusted, the well-known iOS switches have been pulled in length, many UI elements automatically wander down, corners of pop-ups and other control elements are rounded more. After all, the icons are not circles, as some of the corners had predicted. The control center is blatant, depending on which screen background and which icon compilation you use: If you pull it down as usual, you stand in front of a glass wall. Individual areas cannot be recognized as buttons. The situation is similar with apps with a colorful background: In Apple’s weather application, you will not find the bar for changing the location when you visit the first time, because it flows so much into the background.

The same applies to the control area in the Apple Music app, which has also slipped down and is hardly visible depending on the background, especially if there is currently no music there. Apple also turned the fonts. Headings are now partially fat, but still quite small. The back button in the system settings looks very bright, as if it is shown in HDR mode. The least “different” apps that have monochrome backgrounds have the least “different”, since the glass effect can hardly be seen there. Some users should turn off anyway, which will be possible via the barrier -free settings – people with only slight visual impairment can already disturb the new transparency.

iOS 26 is still at the beginning

But it is also clear: iOS 26 is still at the beginning. Apple will learn from the beta phase that has now started and eliminate the coarsest design carvers. Nevertheless, it is astonishing that problems such as the lack of visibility in the control center do not seem to have noticed the design team. Turning something on the background would already help here. Maybe Apple might want to be particularly effective, apart from iOS 7 as much as possible? You don’t know. The beta is not really stable anyway, there are still crashes in parts. But sometimes it is not a bug at all, but you can no longer find the usual element because of sheer glass effect.

Apple has made a lot of things with Liquid Glass, in addition to iOS 26, all other operating systems were also adapted. It is to be hoped that the group will dedicate sufficient resources. In addition, have users really asked for such a redesign? Didn’t you want better AI and especially Siri? Apple decided differently. Now users can first deal with a new UI.