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I'm not sure I entirely agree. The design of smartphones has largely been unchanged for a decade. Prior to that there was a renaissance of various designs, shap

I'm not sure I entirely agree. The design of smartphones has largely been unchanged for a decade. Prior to that there was a renaissance of various designs, shapes, folds, panels, buttons, keyboards, etc. Today everyone carries around rectangular slab. What is happening here is Apple is unifying their product lines. All OS versions have converged to 26, 27, 28. The M processor runs iPads, Laptops and Vision. You can install iOS apps on macOS. The headset is not a hit but it's a sign of things to come. The hardware will get better and I'm expecting seamless handoff between all your apple devices. Start a facetime call on your laptop in your office? Transfer that to your visionOS headset and start walking. Move to the living room and toss that app at your apple TV and finish up the call from the couch. We've seen apple move toward unifying their various OS interfaces for a long time. People were forecasting this when OS X 10.6 started using the app store and app icons taken straight from the iPhone. As the article says, liquid glass works best for spatial computing. That's apple's next big bet and the whole ecosystem is going to cater to it.

queenkjuul 1y ago
I love applying the solution that works best for the least used case to the most used case, where it decidedly does not work best
grishka 1y ago
> What is happening here is Apple is unifying their product lines. Who asked for this? What do the end users have to gain from this? So far, I've seen the macOS design steadily regress for no good reason whatsoever. The new settings app in particular is a disaster. Not only is it a UI that scrolls, a big no-no in desktop UI design, it also severely lacks affordances, and the hierarchy of the settings themselves feels rather arbitrary. What I've seen of macOS Tahoe goes even further with this touchscreenification. I've never used an iPhone as my main phone and never owned an iPad so I don't feel qualified to speak about them. I've also never seen a Vision Pro in person, but I treat it as a cool tech demo that solves no real practical problems. So far, VR has been mostly used for gaming, but Apple doesn't seem very interested in that use case.
- dham 1y ago
  It's obvious iOS will become the desktop OS in the next 5 years or so. I've been worried since Lion that MacOS will become iOS, but with the recent changes on iPad it's clear the opposite will happen. That's why I'm getting out now. MacOS has been going downhill anyway. It still has no great way to manage windows or workspaces. It doesn't have tiling built in or even a clipboard manager. The only way to make the OS usable is turn on accessibility reduce motion, but that still doesn't allow multiple workspaces to be usable.
  - grishka 1y ago
    > It's obvious iOS will become the desktop OS in the next 5 years or so Again, who asked for this?
    - zapzupnz 1y ago
      Not only who asked for it, but who believes it? This tired line has been the same drum for well over a decade with no proper evidence to support it other than “tHeY lOoK tEh sAmE”.
      - grishka 1y ago
        All desktop OSes are getting rid of desktop design patterns in favor of touch ones for some stupid reason. At least for Windows it can be explained by the fact that Microsoft is very desperate about putting touchscreens into everything that runs Windows. But for macOS there is no such explanation because there are no touchscreen Macs.
        zapzupnz 1y ago
        And yet macOS Tahoe reverses a lot of "getting rid of desktop design patterns", such as Launch Pad (which emulates the iPadOS home screen) being replaced by a more generic list of apps using the same interface as Spotlight. Again, I think what people see as "getting rid of desktop design patterns" in macOS is mostly aesthetic. Mac apps remain Mac apps, they retain all the aspects of their interfaces that make them Mac apps. More evidence in the way iPadOS 26 adopts certain aspects of the macOS interface, but does them in an iPadOS-oriented way that you wouldn't really say the two OS are converging, more that they're doing really weird impressions of each other — but underneath the grease paint, the same actors as always remain, each with their strengths. (In saying that, System Settings is an abomination)
FirmwareBurner 1y ago
>As the article says, liquid glass works best for spatial computing. God I hope not, the last thing I want is having to put on a stupid VR headset everyday for work. Either we stick to good ole screens or we skip straight to neural links, none of this VR bull-shieet. And I used to own a Quest device, fun for some games, but not for prolonged work. >As the article says, liquid glass works best for spatial computing. I'd love to see proof of that. Because I feel like it's the exact opposite. Imagine all the street and traffic signs being also translucent and made of glass, the accident rates would spike. It looks cool in sci-fi movies, but IRL accessibility is severely lacking.
troupo 1y ago
> We've seen apple move toward unifying their various OS interfaces for a long time 1. They claimed they would never do that. But we know how much words corporate bullshit carries 2. You cannot unify interfaces that are operated in completely different ways. There's no "unified interface" that works well on a single-app-at-a-time smartphone with touch and on a 5k screen with multiple apps, a keyboard, and a mouse. > As the article says, liquid glass works best for spatial computing. That's apple's next big bet and the whole ecosystem is going to cater to it No, it doesn't work best for spatial computing. This idiotic statement started as a way to justify Liquid Glass on Twitter. On top of that, if it "works best for spatial" means that literally every other device will work worse because of the unification no one asked for. --- However, the answer is simple: it's a vanity project by a person with next to zero design experience thrust into a position of power

queenkjuul 1y ago

I love applying the solution that works best for the least used case to the most used case, where it decidedly does not work best

grishka 1y ago

> What is happening here is Apple is unifying their product lines. Who asked for this? What do the end users have to gain from this? So far, I've seen the macOS design steadily regress for no good reason whatsoever. The new settings app in particular is a disaster. Not only is it a UI that scrolls, a big no-no in desktop UI design, it also severely lacks affordances, and the hierarchy of the settings themselves feels rather arbitrary. What I've seen of macOS Tahoe goes even further with this touchscreenification. I've never used an iPhone as my main phone and never owned an iPad so I don't feel qualified to speak about them. I've also never seen a Vision Pro in person, but I treat it as a cool tech demo that solves no real practical problems. So far, VR has been mostly used for gaming, but Apple doesn't seem very interested in that use case.

dham 1y ago
It's obvious iOS will become the desktop OS in the next 5 years or so. I've been worried since Lion that MacOS will become iOS, but with the recent changes on iPad it's clear the opposite will happen. That's why I'm getting out now. MacOS has been going downhill anyway. It still has no great way to manage windows or workspaces. It doesn't have tiling built in or even a clipboard manager. The only way to make the OS usable is turn on accessibility reduce motion, but that still doesn't allow multiple workspaces to be usable.
- grishka 1y ago
  > It's obvious iOS will become the desktop OS in the next 5 years or so Again, who asked for this?
  - zapzupnz 1y ago
    Not only who asked for it, but who believes it? This tired line has been the same drum for well over a decade with no proper evidence to support it other than “tHeY lOoK tEh sAmE”.
    - grishka 1y ago
      All desktop OSes are getting rid of desktop design patterns in favor of touch ones for some stupid reason. At least for Windows it can be explained by the fact that Microsoft is very desperate about putting touchscreens into everything that runs Windows. But for macOS there is no such explanation because there are no touchscreen Macs.
      - zapzupnz 1y ago
        And yet macOS Tahoe reverses a lot of "getting rid of desktop design patterns", such as Launch Pad (which emulates the iPadOS home screen) being replaced by a more generic list of apps using the same interface as Spotlight. Again, I think what people see as "getting rid of desktop design patterns" in macOS is mostly aesthetic. Mac apps remain Mac apps, they retain all the aspects of their interfaces that make them Mac apps. More evidence in the way iPadOS 26 adopts certain aspects of the macOS interface, but does them in an iPadOS-oriented way that you wouldn't really say the two OS are converging, more that they're doing really weird impressions of each other — but underneath the grease paint, the same actors as always remain, each with their strengths. (In saying that, System Settings is an abomination)

FirmwareBurner 1y ago

>As the article says, liquid glass works best for spatial computing. God I hope not, the last thing I want is having to put on a stupid VR headset everyday for work. Either we stick to good ole screens or we skip straight to neural links, none of this VR bull-shieet. And I used to own a Quest device, fun for some games, but not for prolonged work. >As the article says, liquid glass works best for spatial computing. I'd love to see proof of that. Because I feel like it's the exact opposite. Imagine all the street and traffic signs being also translucent and made of glass, the accident rates would spike. It looks cool in sci-fi movies, but IRL accessibility is severely lacking.

troupo 1y ago

> We've seen apple move toward unifying their various OS interfaces for a long time 1. They claimed they would never do that. But we know how much words corporate bullshit carries 2. You cannot unify interfaces that are operated in completely different ways. There's no "unified interface" that works well on a single-app-at-a-time smartphone with touch and on a 5k screen with multiple apps, a keyboard, and a mouse. > As the article says, liquid glass works best for spatial computing. That's apple's next big bet and the whole ecosystem is going to cater to it No, it doesn't work best for spatial computing. This idiotic statement started as a way to justify Liquid Glass on Twitter. On top of that, if it "works best for spatial" means that literally every other device will work worse because of the unification no one asked for. --- However, the answer is simple: it's a vanity project by a person with next to zero design experience thrust into a position of power