It’s hard to look at Apple’s new “Liquid Glass” aesthetic and not think about Windows Vista, Microsoft‘s much-maligned OS which also touted transparencies and glass-like effects as a bold new vision for computing. You can see the similarities between Apple‘s UI and Vista’s “Windows Aero” design language everywhere, from the glassified app icons in iOS 26 and macOS Tahoe 26 which look a lot like VIsta’s glossy icons, to the transparent backgrounds used in drop down menus, which hearken back to VIsta’s transparent window borders. The key difference is that Apple is just doing it all better. (Sorry, not sorry, Windows fans.)
While Microsoft started off with an intriguing idea, it failed to execute the Windows Aero UI well in Vista. Mostly, that’s because Vista itself was a huge mess — it was far slower than Windows XP, it was notoriously buggy and it handled drivers poorly. And if you actually wanted to partake in the glory of Aero transparency bars, you needed a computer with a powerful GPU. That was far more rare in 2007 than it is today, when even integrated graphics can run basic 3D and fancy UI elements well. With its homegrown chips, Apple also provides decent graphics capabilities in its devices that support iOS 26, iPadOS 26 and other new software releases with Liquid Glass.
It also helps that Liquid Glass isn’t really a huge change for Apple, unlike the jump from Windows XP to Vista. Apple has been creeping towards a flashier UI and more widespread use of transparencies ever since iOS 7 was released in 2013, which dropped the archaic skeuomorphic design trend in favor of a flatter and more stylish aesthetic. So sure, your icons and menus may have a bit more shine to them in iOS 26, but they mostly work the way you remember. (You could also argue Apple itself kickstarted the move towards transparencies in desktop operating systems with the original Mac OS X in 2001, which gave its iconic dock a glossy background.)
I can argue for the overall wisdom of Apple’s Liquid Glass, at least compared to Windows Vista, and personally I also think it gives iOS a much-needed dose of personality. But I can’t really convince you otherwise if you think it looks ugly, as many of my Engadget colleagues do. Senior News Editor Avery Ellis calls it “busy and obnoxious,” and Editor-in-Chief Aaron Souppouris noted that “it truly feels like Aero, rooted in the mid ’00s…. I don’t need light refracting around my…