The kitchen was an excellent analogy. This sacrifice of tools for content has been going on for years. How long have we been dealing with a jump on a page without a clue as to what we did and how to get back to where we were? Then it is click here. Slide there. Use more fingers. It is like hiding the knives in separate drawer and cabinets instead of in one place in the knife rack. And eventually to do a search on the internet for some kind soul who has solved the problem and shared the solution. Steve Jobs’ statement “… the computer for the rest of us” no longer applies. A couple of OS versions ago. I had to enhance contrast in order to see window layouts and divisions with white windows and pale gray lines and type. My optometrist says I have 20/20 vision but I cannot easily read all of the “tool type” on my 14 inch MacBook Pro at knee distance. No battery life when you have to run the screen at maximum brightness to read it easily. This liquid glass is just another step in “disappearing” the tools. Next one is perhaps to make tools invisible and to remember where the active areas of the screen are.
Although I agree 100% with @adam, all my Apple devices are tools, at present I just try to ignore it. I know my brain will get accustomed to the new things.
I just upgraded and the next morning I had a very nice experience thanks to Apple. I have made a spreadsheet in Numbers that tells me how long I have to charge my Apple Watch to reach 75% every morning. This is the minimum charge I have found will get me through the day. I set a timer as I put it on the charger. The timer now have a Stop button that is big and easier to hit than the old one. 
I think Adam was primarily talking about software in the comparison of tools versus content consumption. A device can be all of these things at once, but only a narrow range of apps (such as web browsers) function well in both roles. The OS should be enabling both roles, but when it favors one over the other, in either direction, you lose the passion of a market segment.
It’s a fair point, and there is some truth to it. At the same time, I find that many are very quick to pronounce that “people hate change” as an excuse to ignore valid criticism.
It’s also been my experience that people embrace change when it makes their lives easier/better.
You make a good point, and something I could have explored a little more is how digital devices are malleable, so what may make sense for content consumption doesn’t have to carry over to productivity scenarios. To an extent, we’ll see what Apple thinks about this once we get significant updates to the iWork apps—does Apple embrace the Liquid Glass ethos there or not?
My Mac is a tool. Not an art piece.
Funny story:
When I was young my dad had a full wood shop, he made most of the furniture in our house. I was learning how to use tools. One day he gave me a bunch of nails, an old board, and a full sized hammer, and I went at it. After a few minutes he stoped me and showed me how to hold and swing the hammer, (from the elbow, not the wrist).
Then the next week he saw me holding the hammer up near the head, and ‘pushing’ the nails. He took the hammer an cut off about ⅔ of the handle. And said; “Use this for month, I’ll give you a new one when you figure out respect for the tool.”
Liquid Glass = Cutting off the handle, and making hammering work much harder.
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A fascinating discussion at Reddit - thank you for the link.
I have bookmarked it for when I eventually “upgrade” to OS26.
The comparison with MS Windows is a worry!
I take Adam’s point, but from my extremely near-sighted frame of reference as a user and a “content creator,” it seems to me Apple has made branding more important than users.
Apple long ago lost sight of the fact that a computer is a tool, instead focusing on whiz-bang neato stuff that often detracts from its purpose. Steve Jobs oversaw the creation of magnificent machines that improved on their predecessors. Tim Cook created revenue streams. I don’t need a new OS every year, I need the one I have to work for me.
To me there is more here than frustration. This is the kernel of a very good idea. The option to NOT use some of the “New Features” of the new interface ( or at least choose to implement a version without them) would be a very good solution.
True it is that it might be a bit of an ego-killer to work hard on adding some slick new thing and yet maintain the ability for a user to turn it off. But, by keeping an eye on how many of which demo of user chooses to “go retro”, Apple might get a better handle on how important this eye-candy really is - or isnt.
Years ago I likened Windows to a “yank tank” - the oversized, glitzy American cars of the 1950s. Apple is going down that path!
My undergrad design profs spent a decent amount of time discussing the qualitative difference between a design process lead by pursuit of a single vision (usually by a single lead designer) and the process when there is no single vision. Even when the teams are composed of the same individuals, the solutions are reliably quite different. One consistent feature of the differences was the tendency for particular components to be “over-diesigned” in ways that made them individually “better” but which made them detract from the overall design when integrated with the other parts.
I would posit that that was a big part of the “Ive effect”. He was a stellar designer but what he managed to do that was just as important was to make sure that the final design was a gestalt and not a collection of well designed components with individual personalities.
Liquid Glass has broken the rule; sure it is slick and sparkles with Aaah, but it does NOT enhance the usability of the package. Someone let this component go too far and it is detracting from the whole.
While I am here, IMHO this is of a piece with the kinds of things that started off as a way to deal with the tiny, low-res screens on early phones. No space for full menus spawned the whole “contextual menu” thing. Then came gestures, then came “magic spots” where menu options were revealed only in certain contexts, then comes the wonderful idea of overlaying things and making them transparent. In the context of limited screen size on a phone, this MAY make some kind of sense but carrying it over to iPads and - Gods forbid - to MacOS on machines with full sized ( or even multiple) screens, touch pads, full time keyboards, mice, and room for multiple menu bars risks alienating users who are existential to the Apple ecosystem.
When Adam says - whoa boys, you are going down a blind alley here! - Tim should look closely at what is happening. Adam speaks for many here.
I put Liquid Glass in the same category as the decision to create invisible controls, that you don’t realize exist unless you happen to mouse over them. Both are prioritizing appearance over function.
And, I think the reason behind it is that there’s a graphic design team that needs to be doing something else they lose their jobs. Same reason that companies change their logo, justifying with marketing drivel such as “the tilted box implies a bias for Action”.
The only positive, if you could call it that, is that while with iOS 7 and OS X Yosemite Apple’s change to flat design was catching up with the trendy UI design, this time Apple is leading. We’ll see if the rest of the industry follows or if Apple is too outre.
I’ve got so much work that I want to get done I choose the path of least resistance: no change.
I only just upgraded to macOS 15 and iOS 18, so I can’t see myself moving on until at least macOS 27 by which time maybe Apple will have either whipped it into shape, or reverted some things, or both.
Well, basically, they do. It’s just not a single switch:
Settings / Accessibility / Display / Reduce transparency: ON
Settings / Accessibility / Motion / Reduce motion: ON
Those two pretty much simmer down everything.
As a general note, if you thoroughly poke around and try other Accessibility settings you may find unexpected things that make your experience better.
After a couple weeks with OS26 on a Mac mini and an iPhone (but not my iPad—too old. 
) with transparency & motion off, I don’t find the new OS to be all that different. I periodically switch them back on just to see if my negative reaction was correct. It was. 
You know? When I’m in a room I like looking out windows but much appreciate very opaque walls (particularly in the bathroom). Transparency and diaphanous layers are great but like Mies Van Der Rohe’s Farnsworth house, the residents weren’t always so happy about endless glass no matter how gorgeous the design.
Dave
Adam, after all of our remarks regarding this new “innovation,” do you think Apple is paying attention to us? Are we speaking to the wind? You’ve dealt with Apple for ages; will they pay any attention, or do you think they are locked in on this change to make our Macs, phones, and iPads essentially the same?
Personally I think they’re locked in, based on some plan that was put in action a while ago. It’s like stopping a freight train.
Steve Jobs used to say they planned 4 years ahead but I get the feeling these days with aspects of software it’s more like 1 given how uncharacteristically unfinished and work in progress a lot of stuff feels. Liquid Glass essentially being designed through the beta period and into the release period is kinda unheard of.
Whether it’s a foldable phone (doesn’t seem like a good endgame to me) or AR (waiting on the killer app) or something else entirely is the question.
Another case of bling-bling is the iOS App Store. I don’t appreciate being exposed to these inane graphics that seem to be geared to kids.
So far, I’m not finding any difficulty. I’m 83 and don’t like change.
Perhaps Apple should provide the ability to manage the change for those that don’t want it - to the extent it doesn’t interfere with the ability to use it?
And, perhaps Apple does have a plan and the changes reflect moving towards that plan?
David
Great post @ace…
If computers are just a tool, they’re a pretty odd tool.
Since Ada Lovelace’s observation that the intelligence of the device was separate from its physical nature… we have had software separated within the platform. The software we use to create, communicate, to share with each other, to be entertained and informed by…it functions at times more like a medium than a tool. Content has driven so much of the technological innovation of recent times.
We craft these tools with languages we have created, they echo us and our wishes, thoughts and desires.
Prioritizing content over tools… that just might sum up the times we are living in.
But anyway…
@mschmitt makes an interesting observation above, the disappearing tool or the ‘appropriately unveiling’ tool that underpins the ‘new’ iMovie and Final Cut Pro design may well be part of the thinking which has led to Liquid Glass.