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Comment by cnrad | Hacker News Reader

This beautifully summed up a lot of what I've been thinking about Liquid Glass since I first saw it. A lot of it doesn't really make sense - in an effort to make usability clearer, they are designing everything to look the same and create more empty space for... vibes?

As the years have gone on, it feels like computers are slowly losing every ounce of personality they once had. Software should be delightful to use! Computers felt fun! I'm hoping we eventually get through this minimal/bland era of UI design and come back around to design with a little creativity.

It feels like Apple is trying to subtly introduce the concept of spatial UI for the future, where the norm will be to have controls and content on separate "layers" - but I don't think it should come at a cost of sacrificing the interfaces we already have.

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I see the same sort of thing happening in housing, and I think it's because the nature of the thing has changed.

Houses used to be for families; they were often quirky or strange or emergent, with weird layouts or materials. They may have garish wallpapers or floor to ceiling wood panelling. But these touches were reflective of the personalities of the owners. They met the needs of the specific people who inhabited them.

Nowadays, as houses are more of a commodity, they must be generic. All flat white interiors, straight corners, no cornicing or archetraves or plasterwork or anything to give the home a unique character. Instead it must be a blank canvas such that any inhabitant can put his own things inside it to make it his.

Computers are the same; what was once a niche product for enthusiasts and businesses has now become an instrumental part of nearly every moment of nearly everyone's lives. Thus they also must be generic and same-y, with limited avenues for superficial customisation, so that they can be interchanged or upgraded without jarring the user against the new version or device.

Personally I prefer radical customisation and quirkiness. I find it charming. But it seems that those who are designing (or perhaps only selling) the things disagree with me.

When we all occupy subcultures the macro culture becomes a shell. The least common denominator wins.

Not that I have much of a bone in this fight - I already own a home and don’t plan to ever move (which makes this especially easy for me to say) but generic, identical housing is probably going to be essential moving forward. One of the reasons we haven’t found a way to make home construction faster is because every single project is about as unique as can be.

Not to mention, there are still billions of people needing housing, and with the climate situation we’re already in, building billions of unique homes will make the problem a LOT worse.

Again, I don’t really care much about the issue, but I just think it’s worthwhile to remind people that the American way of life (which developing nations aspire to) is absolutely untenable as far as all modern as currently-feasible technology is concerned. Maybe we could live with not being expressive just on the outside of our houses specifically?

Yeah we need those identical brutalist and easy to build concrete housing estates like on A Clockwork Orange. Or a cookie cutter surrealist hellscape like in Edward Scissor hands. Sounds lovely.

Wow you actually cannot conceive of something between these two extremes?

Those aren't two extremes. They're alternate versions of design on the same end of the spectrum. Anything in between is likely to be just as off putting, featureless and lacking in character.

Some of the similarities are because of the need to produce at cheapest options.

But much, much more are because people have too much an eye on resale value, and if your house is different from all the rest, you reduce your buyer pool.

It costs nearly nothing to make kitchen cabinet heights comfortable for the main user; almost nobody does this even on full custom builds.

The solution here is to build more higher-density housing options. Tokyo has very affordable real estate because dwellings are appropriately-sized for dense urban lifestyles and are nearly uniformly mixed-use buildings with retail space on ground floors and residence/office above. Combine this with lax zoning and you have a recipe for affordable housing.

Comparing this to my own city of Melbourne, Australia: high-density dwellings are generally constrained to innercity suburbs and are still seen as undesirable compared to free-standing homes or semi-detached houses. Councils restrict the development of new high-density or mixed-use buildings for what amounts to NIMBYism. Inadequate public transport in the growth areas of the Northern and Western suburbs increases dependence on roads and freeways.

There are options to support affordable living in cities that don't involve covering our farmland and wildlife reserves with uniform white plaster cubes.

I agree wholeheartedly with some of your premises. Melbourne zoning, public transport, uniform white plaster cubes. All need unconditional improvement and some of it is simple rule changing to allow better solutions.

I contend other aspects of your ideas are not bad but need some work.

> The solution here is to build more higher-density housing options.

and

> undesirable compared to free-standing homes or semi-detached houses.

Any good idea for housing won't please everyone. In this case, when you see anything about the rich and famous are they likely to live in "high density" the way developers think of it?

space is desirable. Space you control (rent vs own.. another can of worms.) even more so! High density housing may help - any bloody action at all would be nice - but it isn't what people desire.

As for "covering our farmland and wildlife reserves"... Australia is a huge country and comparatively tiny population as yet. There is a looooong way to go before a significant area of the country is covered. However I would argue that we don't try to have a continuously expanding population - which would also help with housing costs.

I have mixed feeling on "NIMBYism" too. On the one hand we need solutions for people. On the other hand, the general idea of "people chasing happiness" means they should be free to oppose actions too. You can characterise it as a class battle of the rich opposing solutions to homelessness but usually each such situation is not clear cut, usually being muddied by developer profiteering too.

To throw another idea in there.. why is it that all the infrastructure monies are being spent in our capital cities? We have a crap ton of towns in the countryside - many of which are dying or barely holding steady. Why can't they grow at similar % as Melbourne? Where are the jobs there? After COVID they got a shot in the arm but it wasn't sustained.

> In this case, when you see anything about the rich and famous are they likely to live in "high density" the way developers think of it?

There are an awful lot of exceptionally wealthy people living in buildings in Manhattan with hundreds of apartments. Their apartments themselves are larger than average, but given how much they cost per square foot there’s clearly a lot of demand to live in that environment.

I imagine so! I wasn't trying to say apartment living is ultimately undesirable. But when there is the money to do it, that apartment has more space.

Basically, money = space. In the city, you need more money. In the suburbs you need less. There also other concerns like commute and facilities but that varies person to person.

For many people, the tradeoff to live in the suburb is the right decision because the other factors don't matter so much and so to get more space for their $ they choose suburb.

Does that mean high density housing is bad? Absolutely not! If there are people that want to live in X space for Y money then go for it. But that applies to suburbs too. Once you involve money there are developers/builders and rent/own issues however my general take is that higher density building are impeded by rules and regulations more than a lack of demand. I have nothing to really back that up though.

> Tokyo has very affordable real estate because dwellings are appropriately-sized for dense urban lifestyles and are nearly uniformly mixed-use buildings with retail space on ground floors and residence/office above

I thought being early to the low-birth-rate party, culturally valuing new construction more than "old bones" or whatever (preventing sitting on real estate), and a low-growth economy over the last ~100 years were much more relevant contributing factors than the type of construction they've prioritized

> so that they can be interchanged or upgraded without jarring the user against the new version or device

I suppose this is a big point. I used to spend hours... days really... setting up a new PC. Partly because it would take ages just to get everything off the various floppy disks and CD-ROMs and installed onto the HDD, but also because everything was quirky.

Nowadays I hew to the default install of Ubuntu (or Windows + WSL2) and replacing my device (or SSD) or upgrading the OS is basically a seemless experience. I have some .bashrc/git config/etc stuff I can grab quickly and then I'm basically good to go.

Remember when applications had themes? Now you have the choice of Light Mode or Dark Mode.

I agree, and I'm frustrated this is the new big update because it seems like liquid glass ate up most of the energy that might have gone to a real major feature. Not only is it just UI changes, it looks worse.

> It feels like Apple is trying to subtly introduce the concept of spatial UI for the future

Fascinating observation! Speculation of course, but I think you nailed it, and this really helps me understand why they've done this

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