The new “Liquid Glass” has stirred up a storm of debate. I’m one of the many who has some thoughts.
Apple has already released impressively detailed instructions for designers and developers, available at https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2025/219/.
For designers, this is a must-watch. Even for beginners. Because beyond all the widespread (and well-deserved) critique, there are several points here that are crucial for the entire industry:
The material itself is far more complex than simple frosted glass, even the kind that beautifully processes color blooms like those ambient-light TVs. The physics of light refraction are complex, closer to water.
It’s interactive branding designed for interfaces — and they are constantly in micro- and macro-motion. The magic of these refractions is mesmerizing.
The touch response is from another planet — the material actually deforms.
Panels can softly blur and change the color of text and icons depending on the background.
Elements outside the focus area become visually simpler to avoid distraction.
The liquid glass can be tinted with the theme color, which is a whole other level of candy-like magic.
All of this complex behavior is baked into the standard components. It’s impressive that the technology has matured to a level where such a complex and graphic-intensive style can scale across different screens and sizes without a struggle.
This is one of the most significant events in design in recent years. And an absolutely new bar for what is possible in interactive branding, mass-market digital products, and design systems in general.
And this ties in perfectly with a trend set by Shopify, which removed "UX" or "UI" from their designer job titles. Now, they're just "designers." It aligns because the innovation here is at the intersection of visual branding, engineering, animation, and interface design.
(You can read the article about Shopify killing the UX title here: https://uxdesign.cc/just-a-designer-now-shopify-dropped-ux-as-a-title-3a475f0612fb, but be warned, it might require a login.)
Words and labels change; the profession remains. But speaking of words:
Why didn't Apple use the existing name "Glassmorphism"? I suspect it’s for the same reason I chose not to use it in my videos. Because it's a superficial name that explains nothing and leads nowhere. "Skeuomorphism" contains a deep explanation of its working principle within the word itself. "Glassmorphism," and even more so "Neumorphism," are just labels created based on the structure of a more famous word. (Fun fact: both terms were coined and popularized by a single Polish designer: Michał Malevicz.)
Meanwhile, users on Reddit were discussing Windows Vista and its Aero Glass interface, which bears a striking resemblance to Apple's new Liquid Glass: https://www.reddit.com/r/WindowsVista/comments/1k9fns4/the_absolute_reason_why_aero_would_not_be_making/
What I found interesting in this discussion was seeing the real experiences of users who encountered Vista back in the day. But it's even more interesting to look to the future. Will Apple set a trend, as it once did when it turned the entire industry towards "flat design"? My take: it will have far less influence on Google and Microsoft, but we should absolutely expect an invasion of websites with the liquid glass effect.
The redesign and its similarity to Vista and Apple's own Aqua raised the question of continuity in design and engineering as a whole. And I stumbled upon an interesting article about how the foundation of the Apple ecosystem was created, and why NeXT's role in it is significantly greater than that of Apple itself before the purchase of NeXT and the return of Jobs. If you don't know what NeXT is or where Jobs went, this article probably won't be very interesting. Fair warning — it's complex, long, and full of technical details. A 40-minute read. But I had a blast: https://computerhistory.org/blog/the-deep-history-of-your-apps-steve-jobs-nextstep-and-early-object-oriented-programming/
The technical side isn't for everyone, but I’m deeply convinced that this very curiosity for what’s "under the hood" is what transforms good designers into great ones.
Thanks, everyone! See you on YouTube, and now, here as well.
With love, your Ilia Werner.