I wonder if Apple has a “disable Liquid Glass” kill switch at their disposal just in case things turn awful before September launch so they can get more time refining or scrapping Liquid Glass altogether until next year? What would be left in os26 then?

The Apple Intelligence Story Nobody Wants to Talk About

When I read the news about Apple Intelligence, it is most often related to the perception that Apple is way behind their competitors in the field of artificial intelligence1. It is rarely about what sets Apple Intelligence apart from its competitors: privacy protection. It’s as if this is not important to the majority of users or the tech press. However, it is an important differentiating factor that I believe will work in Apple’s favor in the long term. Fortunately, some articles highlight this fact, such as this article from 9to5Mac.

  1. One could argue, including myself, that it’s not entirely true when you step back and see the whole pictures. People tend to compare to ChatGPT conversational interaction model. Apple do use a lot of AI technologies in their operating systems and has been doing so for many years. Apple is not good at addressing this perception problem. ↩︎

Jesper on the upcoming iPhone 17 Air:

So, while I don’t necessarily agree with the consequences of the inexorable march towards new frontiers in terms of super-slimness that no one asked for, the ergonomic benefits of a larger display in a “small”-ish footprint are interesting enough that pursuing it may be necessary to avoid a relative brick.

I think Apple is doing the iPhone 17 Air because they wanted to make the iPhone Fold first.

One simple thing that is missing from iPadOS 26: CMD-Q to quit an application. Other things that need work: the CMD-TAB switcher is not glassified and lacks contrats with the background view. Same comment goes for the Spotlight search field which can be really hard to see. Oh and here’s the thing: if you happen to work both on the Mac and an iPad: you kind expect that both platforms behave the same way. As an example, I want Spotlight on iPad to be the same as on the Mac by offering the four search modes.

Currently starting my week-end long experiment with an 2024 M4 iPad Pro running iPadOS 26 with an external display. This feels so different and yet familiar to the… Mac? The iPad? I’m not sure, just yet. Expect more posts in the coming days.

Here’s a thought: I would like to ask people of all ages, specifically those between 16 and 70, how they feel about Apple Liquid Glass. Do younger individuals prefer the original version, while older ones favor the toned-down version? I suspect this might be the case.