June 9, 2025
Apple goes through the looking glass
As I watched Apple’s presentation of its new Liquid Glass design, my first thought was one of practicality — if you can see through it, won’t the background be a distraction?
Then I remembered I had this same concern while developing my Ciders web app. At the time, glass morphism was riding a surge of popularity, and I figured it would be perfect for the app. Cider often comes in glass bottles, so it would be fun if each item could look like it was on a pane of glass.
There are a number of things you have to think about if you want a glassy look. The edges need to look like they are raised, have a thicker density, and catch the light in their own way. The main part of the glass should have some frosting and blur so it isn’t completely see-through. A bit of sheen makes it look like it’s reflecting light. Rounded corners are also a nice touch.
The detail I sweated over most, though, was the opacity. It has to be just the right amount so that you can see through without the text becoming hard to read.
I had the advantage of working with a single-colour background that never changes — my idea of what might be the colour of cider. But what if you were designing this for, say, the notifications that come up on your Mac?
You would have no idea what the background might be. It could be dark or light. It could be an image where dark and light are both present. Or it could be a gradient from dark to light.
I’m interested to see how these variables are handled. My inclination would be to program the notifications so they sense the background and adjust accordingly, but I don’t know enough about programming to know whether this is possible.
Apples’s presentation, as you would expect, demonstrated Liquid Glass under ideal conditions. But as we all know, the real world is often less than ideal.