I liked Liquid Glass when I first saw it. I don't especially like the whole flat look everyone has had going the past few years so I was really looking forward to a refresh.
I downloaded the beta and the more I use it the less I like it. The icons are blurry, washed out and look terrible overall. I have a difficult time using the buttons on the lock screen to activate the flashlight and camera. Most of the time, I push them and the lock screen customization screen comes up instead of the flashlight turning on. I don't know if they changed the geometry of the buttons or what, but I can't reliably use them anymore. There are other instances of low contrast text, weird blurry artifacts and janky animations.
I hope these are all things that get worked out during the beta period. Overall, the whole thing looks unimpressive so far. I keep telling myself that OSX had the same kind of jank during the first beta and it will all work out. I want to roll back to iOS 18, but I can't do that without using iTunes, which isn't possible because I only have Linux machines.
I use virtual box to run Windows under, precisely to have iTunes to sync my mp3 library to my phone. No streaming here my dudes, you’ll rip (pun intended) my mp3 collection from my cold dead hands.
God I gave up trying to use the camera from the lock screen because if you fail, it's slower than just unlocking it and using it from the main screen, which is itself pretty unreliably and slow. I wish there was a way to quickly and reliably take photos without constantly fighting the stupidly fragile UI. Back in the day, you could just press the shutter button on your camera and it would take a photo instantly, but somehow we've regressed and nobody cares. It eliminates a whole range of spontaneous photos.
Apple cares. The iPhone 16 introduces a hardware camera button. You can use to launch to Camera while the phone is locked. You can use it as a shutter button. And other stuff.
Except that it doesn't actually take a photo - it (slowly) launches the camera app, which you can then use to take a photo. You can long press to begin filming a video, but at least by default it won't actually take a photo to press the shutter. Poster above is correct, it's slow enough that I frequently miss spontaneous pictures on my iPhone 16 Pro - as much because of the terrible recessed design of the shutter button as the software delay.
As I read your reply, I couldn’t help but think of the number of spontaneous photos I’ve been able to capture over the last decade because a camera is now built into my phone and available wherever I am. I still carry my camera a lot of the time, and for those who keep missing photos that depend on an instant shutter perhaps that would be a good move— but it’s hard to see how the effort to integrate a camera into phones is acting as a limit instead of expanding one
Oh it's certainly great having a camera in your phone. But it feels artificially crippled by all this fiddly software and tapping and swiping and reacting to the many screens you have to navigate through to get there. Great to hear newer phones have a hardware camera button, even if it does just open the app, that's still a big step forward.
I downloaded the beta and the more I use it the less I like it. The icons are blurry, washed out and look terrible overall. I have a difficult time using the buttons on the lock screen to activate the flashlight and camera. Most of the time, I push them and the lock screen customization screen comes up instead of the flashlight turning on. I don't know if they changed the geometry of the buttons or what, but I can't reliably use them anymore. There are other instances of low contrast text, weird blurry artifacts and janky animations.
I hope these are all things that get worked out during the beta period. Overall, the whole thing looks unimpressive so far. I keep telling myself that OSX had the same kind of jank during the first beta and it will all work out. I want to roll back to iOS 18, but I can't do that without using iTunes, which isn't possible because I only have Linux machines.