A Gold Cube Win for a Polarising Apple Interface
Liquid Glass, the bold visual overhaul behind iOS 26 and the current Liquid Glass macOS experience, has just earned Apple a Gold Cube from the Art Directors Club of New York. The award recognises the redesign in the Interactive / UX / UI category, placing it alongside Apple’s other highly regarded creative work. In its submission, Apple framed Liquid Glass as a holistic reimagining of how software should look, feel, and work, highlighting refined typography, expressive iconography, cohesive colours, and sensor-driven parallax. This recognition signals strong approval from design professionals, even as everyday users remain split over the aesthetic. For Apple’s in-house design team, the win effectively validates the high-level direction of Liquid Glass, reinforcing the company’s belief that it is building a visual language meant to scale across devices rather than a one-off experiment it can quietly walk back.
Why Liquid Glass macOS Divides Users
Despite the Apple design award, Liquid Glass macOS has sparked intense debate among users. The design leans heavily on transparency effects and layered visuals, an approach that looks striking in screenshots but can hinder day-to-day usability. On Macs, critics point to cases where glassy UI panels sit over bright windows, making text in areas like Control Center harder to read. Others complain about an uneven look between native apps and third‑party software, with some elements embracing the new language and others feeling visually out of sync. Underneath the controversy is a broader industry tension: visually rich, translucent interfaces versus accessibility and clarity. Apple has already responded with options in macOS 26.1 that increase opacity and contrast, but these tweaks are more like a dimmer switch than a full opt-out, leaving those who dislike the aesthetic still living with a softened version of Liquid Glass.
macOS 27 Design: How Apple Plans to Fix Readability and Consistency
With macOS 27 design work underway, Apple is focusing on refining Liquid Glass rather than replacing it. Reports suggest the company will tune shadows and transparency effects across the system, specifically to better match the larger displays and mixed panel technologies used on Macs. Apple’s designers reportedly believe the original Liquid Glass concept never fully materialised in software, in part due to implementation and engineering constraints. macOS 27 is expected to push the interface closer to that original vision, smoothing over visual quirks and improving legibility in overlap-heavy UI areas. The goal is not only prettier glass but a more consistent experience between native and third‑party apps. Under the hood, these adjustments should also bring performance optimisations, so that layered visuals and parallax feel responsive instead of heavy, making the Liquid Glass macOS experience less distracting and more usable for everyday work.
The OLED Factor and Apple’s Long Game for Liquid Glass
A key reason Liquid Glass works better on some devices than others comes down to display technology. The interface was conceived with OLED in mind, the same kind of panel used on iPhone, Apple Watch, and some iPads, where deep blacks and high contrast make transparency effects pop cleanly. Most Macs, however, still rely on LCD or mini‑LED screens, which can reveal odd shadows and muddier glass layers, especially on larger monitors. macOS 27 aims to compensate for those realities, but Apple is also reportedly developing an OLED touchscreen MacBook that could finally showcase Liquid Glass as intended. This roadmap explains why the company is doubling down instead of retreating: Liquid Glass is not just a skin for today’s macOS, but a forward-looking aesthetic built for future hardware. The ADC recognition simply strengthens Apple’s resolve to refine, not roll back, this controversial design language.