Pasi SaleniusMy current thinking is I’ll heavily use the prominent button style to have color tinted buttons in my iOS and Mac app updates. Apple says not to use the prominent style much but I think that’s incorrect advise.
The one good thing to come out of this could be that it brings back color to our apps 🌈
https://parkerortolani.blog/2025/08/04/tinted-liquid-glass-should-be.html
Mario Guzmán@pasi@infosec.exchange I do think that tinted buttons should only be used rarely; as a CTAs. Otherwise everything will be equally calling your attention.
Original standard Aqua buttons were white while Platinum had gray buttons, none of which called your attn so much.
I think what we’re missing here is depth and detail in the design of the button. All of which can be done w/o eye-catching colors and still inform their purpose.
This article just wants to solve a problem Apple created — background-less buttons.
Mario Guzmán@pasi@infosec.exchange when iOS 7 came out, we got buttons without borders and backgrounds. And now we have backgrounds and borders — just fully translucent. All of which still doesn’t help.
This article is trying to solve a problem we don’t need to be having. Just make button backgrounds opaque and give them some depth.
The article I think is more concerned with keeping flashy and shiny at the forefront and doing anything to make it work.
Pasi Salenius@marioguzman@mastodon.social Okay for example for Maptrails where the “theme color” is this jungle green, I could make all buttons either lighter less saturated green or stronger green depending on their purpose. But my thinking was to leave no buttons to that default transparent glass. I think it would still highlight the prominent button as having special purpose but at the same time give nice color to the whole app and make all buttons more legible.
I still haven’t even started but in my mind it looks absolutely glorious 🤩
Pasi Salenius@marioguzman@mastodon.social This here is what I mean. We can use Liquid Glass for this. Not that transparent shit.
https://mastodon.social/@dlx/115009988380649181
Mario Guzmán@pasi@infosec.exchange but is it even liquid glass at this point? These just look like regular 3D buttons now. Regular buttons. This is something else.
When you say Liquid Glass, it implies the full transparency. The transparency is the baggage that comes along for the ride.
Pasi Salenius@marioguzman@mastodon.social I don’t think it means transparency. The edges of all these buttons shine and reflect their surroundings. The material can be partly transparent. Nothing is forcing app development with 100% transparent stuff. And it doesn’t even look good so why do it.
Now we have bordeless buttons with color tinted text on them. With LG we’ll have color tinted button shapes with vibrant white text. That’s a win in my books!
Mario Guzmán@pasi@infosec.exchange it isn’t just transparency. It’s the light refraction and the highlights you’re talking about together. But I don’t think you can call those buttons Liquid Glass just by that effect alone. Other materials irl can show their surrounding colors bouncing off that aren’t glass. I guess what I’m saying is you can’t pick and choose properties of liquid glass and continue calling it that.
Pasi Salenius@marioguzman@mastodon.social Yes but why not pick the best parts of LG and make actually usable UI in the process? :-)
We’ve wanted color back in our user interfaces. Why not do it now? What forces us to use LG like Apple says we should? They are our apps not Apple’s.
Mario Guzmán@pasi@infosec.exchange oh I’m not disagreeing with that — I guess I misunderstood you only want the edge highlights and outer light reflections from Liquid Glass and only that.
Pasi Salenius@marioguzman@mastodon.social Ah no. But I’m saying I’ll much prefer having buttons in my apps using color this way (with some of the LG refractive effect) over having them fully transparent where their text is illegible.
Same as pretty much nobody does iOS app UI exactly the way Settings looks. There’s usually a bit of extra thrown in, whether it be color or something else.
People will mix and match things with some of the LG effects and I think that’s totally okay and even much recommended.
Mario Guzmán@pasi@infosec.exchange this actually makes TOO MUCH sense for it to exist on Apple platforms and the Apple Design teams. 😆
😂
Pasi Salenius@marioguzman@mastodon.social iOS native apps usually come with this very bare template look, using all UI components in their defaults, with perhaps a global tint color if even that.
But most third party apps don’t do that. They use the same components, sure, but heavily customize and adjust them.
The same we can do now with LG. Its base look is that fully transparent thing. But I think it’ll be very common to use other materials and settings.
This is why I’ve chosen to sit and wait. I want to see what others do with their iOS 26 updates before I make my decision. I think we’ll all learn a lot during the first months after public release.