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This week, Apple launched its biggest design update in years: Liquid Glass. Its a new approach to the software design behind the iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Apple Watch. Liquid Glass is making appearances on everything from Apples marketing materials to the 24-carat trophy that Tim Cook gifted to Donald Trump. Apple is betting that it’s going to redefine the visual language of its user experience as it enters the AI era. But at least for now, half a dozen UX experts agree that its anywhere from mildly disappointing to outright broken, due to an aesthetic-first approach that could leave many users behind. If prior Apple releases have taught us anything, its that it will take anywhere from months to years for Apple to solve Liquid Glasss core issues, and even then, it could be left wrestling with its own flawed metaphor. [insert paywall] The burden of scale With 1.5 billion active iPhones, Apple shoulders an incredible burden of scale. For every magical interaction, there can be an equally devastating reaction. Take its groundbreaking smartphone, for example, which enabled you to map your way anywhere in the world but also pinpoint users in mass surveillance capitalism. Then there’s the AirTag, which can find your lost keys but, as we warned, has enabled stalking and led to a class action lawsuit including several allegations of murder. When I met Apple reps around the time of the announcement of Liquid Glass in June, I was left with the impression that the team very much feels the weight of Middle America atop all of its decisions. Liquid Glass, at launch, would be a first step toward new modalities that a transforming, transparent interface could create in a world that feels manifest-destined to land at augmented and virtual realities. [Image: Apple] Still, Apple knows that people rely on their iPhones for everything, and they cant wholesale change the way people use the most important device in their lives. Thats why Liquid Glass is less a deconstruction of iOS than a luxe reskinreplacing chunks of iOS piece by piece rather than revolutionizing it, for now. Its a toe-dipping sensibility that I appreciate. Moving fast and breaking things is crucial for fundraising and devastating for real life. Apple may serve its customers better by being careful, adjusting its designs little by little, more like a car company than a tech startup. Unfortunately, Apple still didnt nail Liquid Glass out of the gate. And it doesnt help that, rumor has it, the company put a tight deadline on itself, only developing Liquid Glass for six months before its announcement. While Liquid Glass is full of interesting ideas and some truly gorgeous animation work from Apples still-unparalleled technicians, experts I spoke to pointed out that it was inconsistently implemented, and they believe it will make life worse for a lot of its users. They say its cognitive load (think of it as the invisible tax on your brain) is higher across the board than its previous UX. Specifically, its low contrast designwhich often blurs the distinction between the phones background and its messages in the foregroundwill prove difficult for older adults, especially, to read. I think the worst problems will not be for [people with disabilities] . . . who will probably just turn it off and/or use screen readers in the first place, Jakob Nielsen, a four-decade usability expert, told me. But low-vision users and people with various forms of slight cognitive impairments [that is, not even serious enough that they consider themselves disabled] will suffer. UX experts I spoke to for this story arent just mindless Apple haters; many generally appreciate the ethos of what Apple is doingspecifically, trying to move interface design somewhere new. But theyre worried about the unintended consequences of Liquid Glass, which is presented as an opt-out feature on iOS 26. I can see that my father is going to really struggle, says Sonja Radovancevic, creative director at Metalab. He’s going to be, like, Oh my god, I’m definitely going to go back to Samsung. Apple is trying to head off the worst of these criticisms through iteration. It has been fine-tuning certain features of Liquid Glass, like the level of transparency (during beta testing), and will continue to do so. But to get Liquid Glass to where it needs to be from a usability perspective, Apple might end up undercutting its own metaphor. [Image: Apple] The Liquid Works If one core idea has promise inside Liquid Glass, its that Apple is introducing stretchable, reshapable buttons and new animations, which can break out of the more static menu bars weve known for so long. Basically, its what you could call the liquid half of Liquid Glass. Apple has been building toward this more fluid interface for some time. Andy Allen, a lauded digital designer who created the Paper app before founding his own Not Boring apps, points out that developers have been envious of Apples Dynamic Island for years. That little black pill hiding the camera on the top of your screen continues to mature, stretching and morphing into a do-anything bit of UI that can grow and split to scan your mug for Face ID, control music playback, and split notifications side by side. [Video: Not Boring] Liquid Glass shares some of these possibilities with developers, allowing them to build more flexibility into their own app UIs. Floating atop the app, buttons can now stretch to reveal toolbars or merge to group contros. Ideally, these updates dont just lead to a prettier UI, but one that can hide clutter away until right when you need it. The white space that a morphable UI creates is exciting to many in the field, even if weve seen bits of this idea before from Googles Material Design. Instead of providing rigid systems, Liquid Glass could, theoretically, reshape into just about anything. [Image: Apple] Right now, though, those floating, morphable interfaces feel different from app to app. You dont know if theyll reshape in front of your eyes (as they do in Music) or pop you to another screen (as they do in Messages . . . and sometimes also in Music!). I do feel like there is always promise in trying to move toward something, as opposed to just being stuck in our ways, Radovancevic says. She makes the point that liquidity offers a path for Apple to melt away extraneous informationand to prepare itself for AI-led interfaces. Ultimately, we can imagine that in the future, there will be way less interface on the screen anyway. [Image: Apple] Some of the best work on Liquid Glass is in Apples tiniest details. One of the small, great updates in iOS 26 is what Allen calls Apples whiter than white animations. The interface takes HDR contrasts to new heights, creating a glow that developers can use in their software. Some buttons appear to light up beyond whats white on your screen. Allen found this particularly useful for his Camera app, where the focus controls can glow white even on a white backdrop. I find the effect a bit too intense while texting in a dark roomeach time I send a message, my chat bubble flashes with an iridescent burst, so brightly that I look away from the screen. The Glass is broken Liquid UIs dont work consistently yet, but in theory, they make a lot of sense. Perhaps more problematic for Apple is the glass part. At launch, critics pointed out two issues. The first was that it failed to add new functionality to the phone. The second was more ironic: Glasss fatal flaw is the clarity with which it depicts information. Legibility is still of concern to every UX specialist I talked to for this piece. They flagged that Liquid Glass presents a significant challenge to cognitive load and creates accessibility issues where there were none in the OS before. In some spots, like the beautiful magnifier tool that helps you highlight words, the glass distortion effects are simply joyful. In many others, they muddle information and make it harder to understand what youre looking at. Charles Mauro, a human factors researcher and consultant for 40 years, says the glass is creating the most significant human factors issues with iOS 26. Liquid Glass in Apple Music. Begins on left, morphs to the right. [Screenshot: courtesy of the author] Mauro points to Liquid Glasss core conceit as making everything you see tricky to parse. The glass buttons that float above your library in Music blur with your albums. In your Control Center, they almost disappear into the background. He notes that text sizes and colors shift across the interface, ever-changing the information density on a page. And he points out that the automated accessibility tests we have today cant examine complex transparencies like this to highlight human factors issues. Apple Glass in Control Center. Accessibility mode left, regular mode right. Note how much each of these screens now darkens and blurs the iOS backdrop on top. [Screenshot: courtesy of the author] You might think that only people with disabilities will be affected, but Mauro insists that Apple Glass will increase the mental burden on everyone. He says this is largely due to the fact that Apple is creating minimal contrast between the glass information on top thats vying for your attention and everything below it. (This balance is known as figure-ground contrast.) If black type on white paper presents the most idyllic contrast for your eyes, clear glass that diffuses the shapes and colors below it verges on the opposite. Contrast represents the very core of our visual processing, possibly due to limbic parts of our brains that evolved to recognize faces by shadows and predators by movement. When you reach a desktop-style interfacelike on our phones and PCscontrast isnt just about text on a page, but about discerning a stack of the background stuff from whats above it. The most pertinent information floats to the top to grab our focus, and for good reason. A UX principle known as Hicks law dictates that the more choices someone has, the more difficult and time-consuming the decision becomes. All of this means that a low-contrast pile of media is just a lot for our brains to juggle. It seems like [Apple] has sort of put this forward without having the amount of time to almost challenge, Should these things be floating? Or What is exactly the quality of this blur that’s happening inside of the glass? Radovancevic says. Maybe it does feel a little bit impulsive in some way . . . but a lot of this may be interaction problems that have to be solved. Compare this to Google, whose release of Android 16 took the opposite approach of Liquid Glass. During our call, when Glass was still in beta, I had Radovancevic pull up Googles Control Center menu side by side with an iOS 26 beta Control Center featuring Liquid Glass. On Apples interface, the simple flashlight, calculator, and Wi-Fi buttons on this screen became illegibly blended. Whereas Googles buttonsbrighter buttons atop a darker backgroundrepresent a more legible foreground/background relationship. Theyre using a lot of solid color, so it’s automatically going to [work], she says, before concluding that neither of them is necessarily the answer. [Image: Apple] Striking a compromise Apple has since adjusted its approach to the Control Center. In fact, Apple has been constantly fine-tuning Glass, in what appear to be experiments to fix legibility. In beta releases, it reduced Glasss opacityfrosting it and adjusting the blur effectsbefore tuning it more transparently again. In the final release, theyve landed on a significant compromise. The Control Center is far more legible now than in those earlier glass experimentsits now quite similar to Googles version. Apple increased the opacity of the glass, and to help further, it darkens and blurs your wallpaper. Today, you no longer really see the wallpaper through a glass interface. Apple traded continuity of interface for legibility. Operationally, it was the right decision for users, but it does appear as an inelegant solution to Apple’s glass problem. Meanwhile, the moments of that hypnotic, optically distorting glass are few and far between. The most prominent permutation I see is in the icon for nested groups of apps, which appear framed in something like a squared-off water droplet. This bit of interface almost feels anachronistic as it has entered a more accessible context. For developers to figure out where to maximize versus minimize implementations of glass, they are largely on their own. Apple has offered minimal guidelines around the best use of Liquid Glass within app interfaces, frustrating some developers, but it does offer them the option to tune opacity and blur in their own apps. We tried to implement Liquid Glass and found it didnt work in a lot of cases, in terms of readability, or aesthetically it clashed, so we ended up pairing it back quite a bit, says Allen, who later notes: I bet theres not a person on the Apple design team who doesnt wish they had another six months or year to polish it up more. While Apple views Liquid Glass as the foundational design language of its future interfaces, some in the industry question whether it pushes things far enough. Allens greater criticism is less about legibility than the limitations of the foundational technologies behind Liquid Glass effects. Hes built his Not Boring software collection as rich, experiential products with true 3D interfaces that leverage the powerful graphics processing of these supercomputers in our pockets. The aesthetic-first approach of Liquid Glass pulls on his heartstrings, but he points out that its not actually 3Dsome future-proof interface that can take us into the next decade. The glistening, specular highlight effects you see on elements like app icons are actually 2D shaders. If youre someone like me who lives and breathes 3D, we were hoping to see a lot more 3D: true 3D icons, true 3D interfaces, Allen says. He admits that extra processing might be more taxing on an iPhone battery. But he also thinks that to move the interface forward, UX designers need to be thinking in the third dimension. And why build layers of transparent glass interface if not to explore 3D? [Image: Apple] Apple can fix glass, but its worth asking why No doubt, Apple will continue to refine the design language, much as it has done in the past. Apples Aqua design language in OSX, announced in 2000, struggled with legibility around its transparent water effects, and took about a year to repair, and a few more to run smoothly. When Apple launched iOS 7, introducing a flat design and sleek sans serif fonts to the iPhone in 2013, it struggled with legibility again. In less than a year, Apple made rapid adjustments and laid much of the foundation for what were still using today. I suspect a similar timeline. In another year or two, this will feel a lot more intentional and polished, Allen says. Theyll have a better understanding . . . [of] how to use it themselves. For the last week, Apple critics have dunked on the company for all sorts of superficial reasons. The logo on the iPhone 17 Pro is in the wrong place for its case. The curvature of the iPhone Airs camera doesn’t match the radius of its case. These issues demonstrate a certain carelessness, perhaps. But, like a thin new iPhone thats not perceptually much thinner than an iPhone 6 (2014), they also dont really matter. They dont affect how well you can read and communicate. For anyone with vision impairments, in particular, UX experts warn that Liquid Glass could continue to be hard to use in many contexts. Given the commonality of macular degeneration, it will impact older adults in particular. But Apples challenging information architecture will impact everyone, including people with mental disabilities like ADHD. Apples own designers arent ignorant of such issues: In fact, I hear the design team is split on the direction of Liquid Glass. It wasnt an inevitable evolution for Apple. Its transparency was introduced in Vision Pro as a practical way that people could see floating screens but not be cut off from the world around them. Of course, those same challenges dont exist on the iPhone, so the benefits to transparency arent the same. Notably, you can disable Liquid Glasss worst offenses in the Accessibility settings. (Its not labeled Liquid Glasscheck Display and Text Size.) You can reduce the window transparency while increasing the contrast. Doing so frosts over the glass effect and flattens the background. You lose the most beautiful animations that seem to break the very laws of physics of your phone, but you can also read things a lot more easily. These compromises feel like the only way to fix Liquid Glass, and so its unsurprising that Apple has ultimately worked its accessibility options into instances of the main interface. The fix negates the most egregious issues. It also negates the core concept behind Liquid Glass.
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Is there any way to wear a Newsom Was Right About Everything! hat, but ironically? Even if youre an earnest fan, its still meant as a joke. Californias Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsoms political action committee Campaign for Democracy recently launched merch that parodies President Donald Trumps. Dubbed the Patriot Shop, the storefront sells unserious items with serious stakes. The shop features apparel like the $32 hats designed in the style of a Trump hat, a $20 Newsom 2026 mug, and a two-pack of California-flag themed Dont Poke the Bear stickers for $6. Newsom said the store made more than $100,000 in a day, and thats with leaving money on the table. The sold out $100 Bible was never actually for sale (Trumps, for $60, still is, however, and that seems to be the point), and though Newsom tweeted an image of a Make America Gavin Again flag suitable for boat parades, the flag is not actually available on the site. The new merch turns memes into fundraising by taking on the tone and content of Newsoms GovPressOffice account on X. In mocking Trumps social media phrasing, sentence structures, and capitalization through imitation, Newsoms office has used the account to trick Fox News hosts into criticizing Trumps behavior without realizing it. [Image: Campaign for Democracy] As the highest profile elected officials in their states, governors are inherently brand ambassadors, and their jobs offer them a unique platform to build a national profile. In the lead up to the 2024 presidential campaign, Floridas Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis built name ID for himself as governor through culture wars fights like his war on Disney, and selling merch like a Florida gator Gadsden flag that said Dont Tread on Florida. DeSantiss Make America Florida message didnt help him win, but with a Florida Man in the White House today, its not clear campaigning on the Floridization of America was the reason why. Newsom now offers Californication, and with the Election Rigging Response Act, his job as Californian-in-chief has taken on new urgency. The legislation, which passed the California legislature and now heads to voters, will determine whether the state throws out districts drawn by a nonpartisan redistricting commission for new maps more favorable to Democrats through 2030, and it comes after Texas redrew its maps at Trumps request to favor Republicans. For Newsom, this isnt just about building a brand as governor, hes building a bulwark against Trump that Democrats nationwide are noticing. Californias politics are again nationalized, and Newsom is leading the fight. His merch and memes may be a joke, but in taking trolling seriously, Newsoms found a way to trigger the cons and fundraise off it by holding a mirror up to MAGA. This story originally appeared on Yello, a Substack about design and politics.
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Microplastics seem to be everywherein the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. They have turned up in human organs, blood, testicles, placentas, and even brains. While the full health consequences of that exposure are not yet known, researchers are exploring potential links between microplastics and negative health effects such as male infertility, inflammation, liver disease and other metabolic problems, and heart attack or stroke. Countries have tried for the past few years to write a global plastics treaty that might reduce human exposure to plastic particles and their harm to wildlife and ecosystems, but the latest negotiations collapsed in August 2025. Most plastics are made with chemicals from fossil fuels, and oil-producing countries, including the U.S., have opposed efforts that might limit plastics production. While U.S. and global solutions seem far off, policies to limit harm from microplastics are gaining traction at the state and local levels. Marine animals ingest microplastics from the water and as theyre eating. These were found in marine animals at the Hellenic Centre for Marine Research near Athens, Greece, in 2025. [Photo: Milos Bicanski/Getty Images] As an environmental lawyer and author of the book Our Plastic Problem and How to Solve It, I see four promising policy strategies. Banning added microplastics: Glitter, confetti, and turf Some microplastics are deliberately manufactured to be small and added to products. Think glitter in cosmetics, confetti released at celebrations, and plastic pellet infill, used between the blades in turf fields to provide cushion and stability. These tiny plastics inevitably end up in the environment, making their way into the air, water, and soil, where they can be inhaled or ingested by humans and other organisms. California has proposed banning plastic glitter in personal care products. No other state has pursued glitter; however, some cities, such as Boca Raton, Florida, have restricted plastic confetti. In 2023, the European Union passed a ban on all nonbiodegradable plastic glitter as well as microplastics intentionally added to products. Personal care products, particularly makeup, have added glitter in recent years. However, when that makeup is washed off, it often goes down drains and into wastewater, adding to plastics in the environment. [Photo: Bernadett Grega/Unsplash] Artificial turf has also come under scrutiny. Although turf is popular for its low maintenance, these artificial fields shed microplastics. European regulators targeted turf infill through the same law for glitter, and municipalities in Connecticut and Massachusetts are considering local bans. Infill flies up from artificial turf as a high school soccer player kicks the ball in 2022. [Photo: Isaac Wasserman for The Washington Post via Getty Images] Rhode Islands proposed law, which would ban all intentionally added microplastics by 2029, is broad enough to include glitter, turf, and confetti. Reducing secondary microplastics: Textiles and tires Most microplastics dont start small; rather, they break off from larger items. Two of the biggest culprits of secondary microplastics are synthetic clothing and vehicle tires. A study in 2019 estimated that textiles accounted for 35% of all microplastics entering the oceanshed from polyester, nylon, or acrylic clothing when washed. Microplastics can carry chemicals and other pollutants, which can bioaccumulate up the food chain. In an effort to capture the fibers before they are released, France will require filters in all new washing machines by 2029. Several U.S. states, including Oregon, Illinois, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, are considering similar legislation. California came close in 2023, passing legislation to require microfiber filters for washing machines, but it was ultimately vetoed due to concerns about the cost of adding the filters. Even so, data submitted in support of the bill showed that such filters could cut microplastic releases from laundry by nearly 80%. Some states, such as California and New York, are considering warnings on clothing made with synthetic fibers that would alert consumers to the shedding of microplastics. Tires are another large source of microplastics. As they wear down, tires release millions of tons of particles annually, many of which end up in rivers and oceans. These particles include 6PPD-quinone, a chemical linked to mass die-offs of salmon in the Pacific Northwest. Synthetic rubber in vehicle tires shed particles into the environment as the tires wear down. [Photo: Wenson Wei/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY] One approach would be to redesign the product to include safer alternatives. Californias Department of Toxic Substances Control recently added 6PPD-quinone to its priority product list, requiring manufacturers to explain how they will either redesign their product or remove it from the market. Regulating disposal Microplastics can also be dealt with at the disposal stage. Disposable wipes, for example, contain plastic fibers but are still flushed down toilets, clogging pipes and releasing microplastics. States such as New York, California and Michigan have passed no-flush labeling laws requiring clear warnings on packaging, alerting consumers to dispose of these wipes another way. Construction sites also contribute to local microplastic pollution. Towns along the New Jersey shore have enacted ordinances that require builders to prevent microplastics from entering storm drains that can carry them to waterways and the ocean. Such methods include using saws and drills with vacuums to reduce the release of microplastics and cleaning worksites each day. Oregon and Colorado have new producer responsibility laws that require manufacturers that sell products in plastic packaging to fund recycling programs. California requires manufacturers of expanded polystyrene plastic products to ensure increasing levels of recycling of their products. Statewide strategies and disclosure laws Some states are experimenting with broader, statewide strategies based on research. Californias statewide microplastic strategy, adopted in 2022, is the first of its kind. It requires standardized testing for microplastics in drinking water and sets out a multiyear road map for reducing pollution from textiles, tires, and other sources. California has also begun treating microplastics themselves as a chemical of concern. That shifts disclosure and risk assessment obligations to manufacturers, rather than leaving the burden on consumers or local governments. Other states are pursuing statewide strategies. Virginia, New Jersey, and Illinois have considered bills to monitor microplastics in drinking water. A Minnesota bill would study microplastics in meat and poultry, and the findings and recommendations could influence future consumer safety regulations in the state. State and local initiatives in the U.S. and abroadbe they bans, labels, disclosures, or studiescan help keep microplastics out of our environment and lay the foundation for future large-scale regulation. Federal ripple effects These state-level initiatives are starting to influence policymakers in Washington. In June 2025, the U.S. House passed the bipartisan Wastewater Infrastructure Pollution Prevention and Environmental Safety (WIPPES) Act, modeled on state no-flush laws, and sent it to the Senate for consideration. Another bipartisan bill was introduced in July 2025, the Microplastic Safety Act, which would direct the FDA to research microplastics human health impacts, particularly on children and reproductive systems. Proposals to require microfiber filters in washing machines, first tested at the state level, are also being considered at the federal level. This pattern is not new. A decade ago, state bans on wash-off cosmetic microbeads paved the way for the Microbead-Free Waters Act of 2015, the only federal law to date that directly bans a type of microplastic. That history suggests todays state and local actions could again catalyze broader national reform. Small steps with big impact Microplastics are a daunting challenge: They come from many sources, are hard to clean up once released, and pose risks to our health and the environment. While global treaties and sweeping federal legislation remain out of reach, local and state governments are showing a path forward. These microsolutions may not eliminate microplastics, but they can reduce pollution in immediate and measurable ways, creating momentum for larger reforms. Sarah J. Morath is a professor of law and an associate dean for international affairs at Wake Forest University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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