Week 398 was posted by Charanjit Chana on 2025-06-12.
Liquid Glass
My initial reaction is that I like it.
With a bit more thought, I need to see and use it in Apple's apps before I can give a meaningful take on it. It looks like it should be sprinkled in rather than being used to redefine the entire interface.
I did download the Xcode 26 Beta but I've only had a few minutes to experiment. There's a bit to learn here about modifiers so that I can build up an interface but an app I've been working on was already using .ultraThinMaterial as a modifier that went some of the way but the new Liquid Glass (or .glass modifier) take it up a level. So I'll be looking at that and while I had small plans to launch something in August, maybe I'll push it back to September so that I can take advantage of the new look and feel.
Overall the fluidity of objects and components looks really nice. A radical evolution rather than an overhaul, but I have seen accessibility complaints and I wonder how it will work for those that it is thrust upon come the public release.
I won't be putting the betas on my phone but I am tempted to apply the public beta to my iPad when it's available...
This Apple Developer video is well worth a watch, especially for the last segment on usage.
OS numbering
Almost 6 years ago, I suggested Apple name their phones by years rather than arbitrary numbers. When you look back through the lineup, we they skipped 2, but there were two 3G models and at least 4 'S' models so we should really be at iPhone 19, not awaiting the iPhone 17.
This year, Apple announced at WWDC that all of the operating systems they build will all be shipping with the number 26. This is a numbering schema that gaming companies have used for years. Whether it was FIFA/FC, NBA or Madden, they are suffixed with the next year's last 2 digits. This has been the norm going back to the mid-90s at least and makes sense as the games are released in and around the last quarter as the game for the next year.
Apple are now following suite and it makes it all a little more sensible. iOS/iPadOS, watchOS and macOS are probably the three main platforms and having them all on completely different version numbers helped no one.
The question is though, will we see the iPhone 17 or the iPhone 26 lineup launched in September. I actually feel good about saying it will be the second, but to me it's 6 years late!
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