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Also, no evidence that Liquid Glass isn't a bad UI for AR too. John Carmack writes: Translucent UI is usually a bad idea outside of movies and non-critical ga
by xnx 1y ago
Also, no evidence that Liquid Glass isn't a bad UI for AR too.
John Carmack writes:
Translucent UI is usually a bad idea outside of movies and non-critical game interfaces.
The early moments of joy are fleeting, while the usability issues remain. Windows and Mac have both been down this road before, but I guess a new generation of designers needs to learn the lessons anew. Sigh.
All of the same issues apply in AR as well. Outside of movies, people do not work out their thoughts on windowpanes or transparent “whiteboards” because of the exact same legibility issues.
Would you prefer a notebook of white sheets, or hundreds of different blurry image backgrounds?
https://x.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1932521605340483607 https://x.com/ID_AA_Carmack/status/1932521605340483607
- FirmwareBurner 1y ago>Translucent UI is usually a bad idea outside of movies and non-critical game interfaces. We're taking about Apple here, who prioritize aesthetics over everything else, shipping a defective keyboard design for 5 years straight just to shave 1 millimeter of thickness on the laptop. It needs to 'wow' people in the Apple Store in terms of looks and feel, usability be dammed.
- oxygen_crisis 1y agoI thought the touch bar was even worse than the butterfly keys... I put off upgrading my personal MacBook for years after work issued me a MacBook with the touch bar. Such a usability nightmare for the sake of eye candy. That was a long seven years.
- bigyabai 1y agoHey, at least Apple hedged their bet on the future needing emoji keyboards.
- encom 1y agoYou'd rather go 7 years without upgrading, than buy a computer without an apple on it?
- oxygen_crisis 1y agoThere was a Lenovo and an ASUS and an Acer in between but those all went in the graveyard pile before their second year was up and I had to keep resorting to the 2011 Macbook. And that's counting the extra ~year I got out of the Lenovo after having to replace the fans. Having user serviceable parts is nice but having parts that last 14 years is better. If there was a brand that did both, that's what I'd buy.
- FirmwareBurner 1y agoI can't concur. Growing up poor, I've only owned the cheapest Acers and HPs and none of them ever died on me. They're still at my parents place chugging along. Later I switched to Lenovo when I got money and still no issues. Meanwhile all my mates with 2016-2018 era Macbooks have had endless issues, that they swore off ever buying Apple. Anecdotal stories can swing in both directions, that's not proof of anything.
- iw7tdb2kqo9 1y agoLiquid glass looks great on the "Meet Liquid Glass" video. Implemention feels wrong. I think it was rushed. Video has some selective background/font color combinations. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IrGYUq1mklk https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IrGYUq1mklk
- tomasf 1y ago[dead]
- makeitdouble 1y agoTwo points stand out in that demo video: - most of the close look examples are on very simple buttons with a single geometric shapes, like ">" or "□". Those will be legible even in pretty extreme conditions, and we can't expect real world applications to be mostly composed of those. Imagine the screen at 11:51 with a "Select" as the button text instead of the geometrical icons. It wouldn't be great. - text is only presented on very low contrast areas. When scrolling the elephant picture around 9:30 to show the title go dark -> light for instance, it's a switch between a very pale background to a very saturated one, and they stop the scrolling when the title is against the darkest part of the image, where it's the most legible. It's not just the implementation IMHO, in a real application you can't adjust every screen and interaction to only hit the best absolute conditions to make Liquid Glass look good. The whole idea behind it is just harder to look good in real world, short of giving up and going for very low transparency.
- didgeoridoo 1y agoI think the issue is less about whether it’s a good idea or not, but rather that AR interfaces essentially HAVE to be translucent (unless you’re doing video passthrough) — so might as well figure out how to get it right.
- layer8 1y agoIn AR the user needs to be able to tell which objects are real (R) and which are virtual/injected (A), but the latter type doesn’t need to be indicated by transparency. Consider the scenario where, instead of conventional HUD-type AR, we could conjure up the A elements as physical objects into thin air by magic. There is no particular reason why those would have to be translucent. Sure, depending on the situation it can be useful to control their opacity in order to be able to see what’s behind them, but otherwise there is no more reason than for real physical objects.
- two_handfuls 1y agoParent was talking about current screen technology ("real AR" vs "passthrough AR").
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Dylan16807 1y agoIt's not particularly hard to dynamically darken part of a pair of glasses.
- ozten 1y agoThis is impossible in current glasses form factors. The display is additive. If you are starting at a display which displays a video feed (VR/MR form factor), you are correct.
- Dylan16807 1y agoIt is not impossible in the current glasses form factor. You add a film onto the glasses that darkens specific areas on demand.
- manmal 1y agoI get the legibility argument, but if you want to make an AR device that’s safe to use in _any_ context, you just can’t occlude the environment. People would have accidents because of that - as drivers, but also while walking or just bumping into things while putting something in the fridge. For walls of text you can still opt out of this and use a less translucent material.
- philwelch 1y agoThat's unfortunate because it would make it extremely difficult to implement adblocking in AR (as in, blocking ads from the real world).
- bastawhiz 1y agoA semitransparent glass pane with text sitting in front of my face while I'm walking (let alone driving!) would be hazardous. Anything that's taking the focus of your vision away from what's in front of you while you're using coordination is a hazard, plain and simple. Would you drive with a smudge over part of your glasses? It's not about transparency, it's about not using AR and multitasking in the real world. The purpose of AR in a headset isn't to free up your hands so you can read the group chat while you drive or walk, it's to make UIs that can't feasibly exist with a screen alone.
- bee_rider 1y ago> Would you prefer a notebook of white sheets, or hundreds of different blurry image backgrounds? Weird tangent, but I used tracing paper over piece of graph paper for notes for a while. I liked it because I could use the graph paper for drawing my figures or align my text, but then have something more aesthetically pleasing and nice for reading after. I find reading on graph paper annoying, due to the vertical lines. Anyway, I can’t think of any way that a transparent OS window could be similarly helpful.
- zimpenfish 1y ago> I find reading on graph paper annoying, due to the vertical lines. You might get on with a Whitelines pad[0]? [0] https://www.whitelinespaper.com/product/engineering-pad-8-5-x-11-squared/ https://www.whitelinespaper.com/product/engineering-pad-8-5-...
- bee_rider 1y agoOh, that is neat. These days I’ve just settled on a regular lined notebook (no graphs) because my figures don’t need to be so precise (no more fields-and-waves lectures for me).
- hxtk 1y agoI’ve definitely been preferring a transparent background on my terminal lately, particularly when I only have one screen, because it increases my ability to read the reference material I have opened behind it. At the very least, if I have to alt-tab it out of the way, I’m already oriented on the page. So I can see the benefit in at least some use cases. I don’t think I’d like to have it on everything, though. Or basically anything except my terminal, for that matter.
- SoftTalker 1y agoTransparent terminals are still a thing? I thought that fad ended 10 years ago. Never made any sense to me.
- hxtk 1y agoHonestly I thought I’d hate it, but if I get the transparency just right where it’s not distracting but I can still see read through it if I try, I do find that it helps when I find myself lacking screen real estate. I’d still rather have an opaque terminal and just get a second monitor, but that’s not always an option.
- evanextreme 1y agoAs a visionOS user (somewhat) what is so funny about all of this is that the translucency effects in visionOS are significantly toned down compared to liquid glass for this specific reason. The glass is heavily diffused, you can maybe get an idea of what is behind (a person moving, a television thats turned on) but nothing even close to the level that I have experienced in the iPadOS beta
- crooked-v 1y agoSimilarly, I am perfectly content with the visionOS UI, and yet I turned off the iOS 26 transparency after maybe five minutes of using the Music app.
- ncphillips 1y agoWait, that’s an option? My god. Just found the setting…thank you! It was actually driving me crazy. There’s still a bunch of really weird, unnecessary UX changes but this helps a lot.
- carabiner 1y agoBig exception is aviation HUDs that are much closer to AR than conventional workspaces. In HUDs, everything is overlaid with bright green lines. It must be visible in day/night all sorts of conditions. But Apple's take on an overlay GUI isn't like this at all.
- kccqzy 1y agoYeah because these bright green lines are obviously not aesthetically pleasing enough for Apple.
- Aloisius 1y agoAs someone who uses an exterior sliding glass door as a whiteboard, I haven't experienced any legibility issues while using it. It's actually remarkably easy to read. This could be partly because there's nothing immediately close to the window so any writing is the only real thing in the focal plane. If I stand further back, it is somewhat harder to read, but I imagine this wouldn't be a problem with displays that can emulate that (like laser retinal displays iirc)
- bigyabai 1y agoDo you use multiple marker colors? Or just one?
- jimmySixDOF 1y agonot OP but I use normal wb markers any color and as long as you wipe down pretty regularly using glass cleaner it is a great option in certain rooms
- Aloisius 1y agoSeveral colors, though I do tend to use one at a time until it runs out before switching. Whiteboard markers don't really work though (too transparent when it's bright out). Permanent markers and liquid chalk work best, though the latter can be especially annoying to erase. Some glass-specific erasable markers aren't bad either.
- xnx 1y agoProbably not very good at night?
- bongodongobob 1y agoThis is completely dependent on what's behind it, not mention you need to light an entirely separate room/hallway to read it.
- bastawhiz 1y agoImagine another pane of glass with writing on it about a foot behind. You can imagine how illegible it could become.
- zozbot234 1y agoIs Liquid Glass really "translucent" though? I mean, aside from the gimmicky transparent setting, which is going to be horrible for accessibility (can you say "contrast"?) so anyone with less than perfect vision and/or a sensible concern for usable UX is going to turn that off immediately. The non-transparent icons and widgets look a lot like the older "flat" ones with some glassy/ceramic 3D effects on top. Still a bit fuzzy, but they're at least bearable for long-term use.
- serf 1y ago>s Liquid Glass really "translucent" though? I mean, aside from the gimmicky transparent setting, which is going to be horrible for accessibility (can you say "contrast"?) so anyone with less than perfect vision and/or a sensible concern for usable UX is going to turn that off immediately. I have a hard time parsing this. "Is the glass effect transparent if I don't turn off transparency?" uhh.. Yes. As a bit of a citizen scientist myself let me explain how I wrapped my laymen's brain around it : If I can see through it, it's transparent. If the color changes behind the thing, and I can somehow intuit that -- good chance's we're dealing with transparency.
- brailsafe 1y agoSeems like you're conflating translucency and transparency, and Apple is being a bit imprecise with those terms too. As in, if you turn off what Apple is calling "transparency", is the interface still arguably "translucent" in the way that's implied by the Carmack quote, which I take to mean some Minority Report barely frosted-glass effect in the background. > If I can see through it, it's transparent. Yes, if you can clearly make out the details behind whatever it is you're looking through. > If the color changes behind the thing, and I can somehow intuit that -- good chance's we're dealing with transparency. This would normally be translucency, akin to a shower door or curtain that lets you see that someone is in there and maybe who, but not much more. In this case though, it's a bit weird, and it seems like the person you responded to did have a relevant question, because as far as I've seen it's kind of pseudo-transparent but not quite translucent in different contexts, in the sense that you can more clearly see through to detail that's sometimes there (slider position, magnifying glass) and sometimes only derived from the bottom layer, like colors changing. To me, it's less like a shower door vs window, and more like a window vs looking through the bottom of a shot glass, but im some cases closer to opaque than translucent if the transparent gimmick is turned off, based on how the question was asked.
- outofpaper 1y agoWriting on blurry glass can work but it requires effort. It the real world we have elements that can create shadows and refract light around writing making it more legable but we still don't bother printing books on overhead sheets and tracing paper!
- mrandish 1y ago> Translucent UI is usually a bad idea outside of movies and non-critical game interfaces. Reading the article's claims about translucent UI being ideal for AR, all I could think about was how bad this roadside traffic sign would be if it was white text printed on translucent glass. https://images.app.goo.gl/MU4kJmWZ8ogNGAD9A https://images.app.goo.gl/MU4kJmWZ8ogNGAD9A Assuming the information a daily-use AR headset is presenting is important, it needs to be instantly legible to be useful. I guess my counter to the article would be images of "Roadside traffic signs as re-imagined in Apple's Liquid Glass." Would showing an intersection with a Liquid Glass stop sign and a car crashed into the side of another be too much?
- cheema33 1y agoI agree. Apple apologists keep saying that Apple will tweak the transparency a bit to improve contrast. And I am thinking that this shit does not need any transparency at all!
- raverbashing 1y agoYeah, I'm more tempted on believing the other takes on it That basically is just a way of making people upgrade their iPhone
- marxism 1y agoI have to disagree with Carmack here. The evidence suggests this isn't AR prep at all. I watched Apple's 20-minute design presentation, and their design team makes the same point repeatedly: Liquid Glass has very narrow guidelines and specific constraints. Here's the actual design problem Apple solved. In content apps, you have a fundamental trade-off: you have a few controls that need to be instantly accessible, but you don't want them visually distracting from the content. Users are there to consume videos, photos, articles - not to stare at your buttons. But the controls still have to be there when needed. Before Liquid Glass, your least intrusive option was backdrop blur or translucent pastel dimming overlays. Apple asked: can we make controls even less distracting? Liquid Glass lets you thread this needle even better. It's a pretty neat trick for solving this specific constraint. So you'll feel like you're seeing Liquid Glass "everywhere" not because Apple applied it broadly, but because of selection bias. The narrow use case Apple designed this for just happens to be where you spend 80% of your phone time: videos, photos, reading messages. You're information processing, not authoring. Apple's actual guidelines are clear: only a few controls visible at once, infrequent access pattern, only on top of rich content. The criticism assumes they're redesigning everything when they explicitly documented the opposite. People are reacting to marketing tone instead of reading what Apple's design team actually built. [1] https://peoplesgrocers.com/en/writing/liquid-glass-explained https://peoplesgrocers.com/en/writing/liquid-glass-explained
- devnullbrain 1y ago>Before Liquid Glass, your least intrusive option was backdrop blur or translucent pastel dimming overlays. Or an outline, like gameboy emulators have been doing forever
- jitl 1y agoNow they made the outline shiny
- radley 1y ago> their design team makes the same point repeatedly: Liquid Glass has very narrow guidelines and specific constraints Often, UX design rhetoric floats way beyond reality. For now, a lot of Liquid Glass is grossly applied. It's only dev beta 1, so it's likely it'll improve over time... especially if they launch an AR product.
- danhite 1y ago> Outside of movies, people do not work out their thoughts on windowpanes or transparent “whiteboards” because of the exact same legibility issues. I knew a lovely man, a kind hearted engineer, Larry Weiss, for whom this was not true... In the early 1980s I was in his VW van that he used for business roadtrips when he, while still driving, grabbed a felt marker and started drawing on the window in front of him to illustrate a point. I learned that he kept markers handy and used them to capture his thoughts on long drives (to conferences, customers etc). Rough mechanical sketches mostly. Back then I did not generally know to describe myself as (modern term) aphantasic as I had yet to realize I was different from most people, but hopefully this context helps you to understand why I then (and now) grokked the value of putting your conceptual thought into your ongoing visual field, non-occlusively aka transparently Legibility is no more the deciding factor of ~utility here/AR/VR than it is in dreams. Indeed I have been very near sighted for over 50 years and I do not find this ~illegibility to be an issue for clarity of visual~assist to thinking. The point John Carmack makes may have greater merit for other people or if we were limited to discussing text--but Liquid Glass is not about text per se, is it? "...there’s way too much information to decode the Matrix. You get used to it. I…I don’t even see the code." -- Cypher from The Matrix 1999 P.S. If my story about Larry intrigued you, I am happy to share these two tiny tidbits I found in memoriam ... https://isaac-online.org/wp-content/uploads/ISAAC-E-News-October-2018-final.pdf#page12 https://isaac-online.org/wp-content/uploads/ISAAC-E-News-Oct... https://w140.com/tekwiki/wiki/Larry_Weiss https://w140.com/tekwiki/wiki/Larry_Weiss [re his work and patents at Tektronix in the 1960s]
- int_19h 1y agoWin7 had translucency, and it looked way better than Win8+. Vista looked meh because it overdid it initially, but Win7 dialed it down (mostly with "frosted glass" effect) in most places to where it didn't impede contrast, and added various ways to highlight text in places where it was directly overlaid over glass. Judging from the demos, Apple's version is even more translucent than Vista, so I have no doubt that it'll be bad.
- zapzupnz 1y agoFunnily enough, I thought 7 dialled it up with windows no longer going opaque when maximised and the default blue being slightly more translucent-looking than the sky blue in Vista.
- scotty79 1y ago> people do not work out their thoughts on windowpanes or transparent “whiteboards” because of the exact same legibility issues. Damn, now I want a frosted glass whiteboard. As if wanting a whiteboard wasn't bad enough.
- qnleigh 1y agoFor VR goggles, I agree. But if we're headed toward AR glasses, most (all?) technologies in that space don't support opaque screen content. They project images into your eyes, but they can't block light coming in from the real world. So if that's the next big thing, Apple had to get consumers used to translucent UIs.