iOS 26 Shows Unusually Slow Adoption Months After Release | Hacker News Reader

iOS 26 Shows Unusually Slow Adoption Months After Release

macrumors.com

11 pointslatexr7 comments

Perhaps many users think liquid glass as an UI theme does not really improve their UX. At least for me the upgrade was actually a downgrade. The phone got slower (iPhone 13 mini) and I think it did not really add any value. This is of course only a very biased opinion, but I would like to see Apple to react to this tremendous amount of users that simply say no to liquid glass.

That's exactly why I'm not upgrading. This Liquid Glass UI looks so ugly...

Its not really the "ugly" feeling that bugs me. Its the feeling that I actually downgrade when I "upgrade". In my perception an update should make things better, and this is something I do not see with the new update. If anyone has a good example where they actually did something better than before than please enlight me. I would really be interested in hearing something that is better than before.

> Apple now continues to support older operating systems with security updates, allowing users to remain on iOS 18 without immediate pressure to update or forfeit critical patches. This makes it much easier for users to remain on older software.

This is an incredible untruth to end this article on. MacRumors' own reporting (https://www.macrumors.com/2025/12/19/ios-18-forced-ios-26-up...) showed Apple denying the existing iOS 18.7.3 security update to iPhones, and then shutting down the beta channel workaround the same day that MR drew attention to it, leaving iOS 26.2 as the only option.

Liquid Glass is less performant, and the interactions are less reliable due to the bouncing and wobbling. Also all the transparency makes it harder to read.

A bad "upgrade", but thankfully the designer who fathered this is gone from Apple.

I had to set up an iPhone that came with iOS 26 and it is shockingly ugly compared to iOS 18. I’ll upgrade my phone when they fix it.

I do not care about Liquid Glass or the half-baked Apple Intelligence cruft. I don’t like them, but they are easy enough to look past. My issue is specifically the bugs. My M2 iPad Pro never gave me any trouble until this update.

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