Apple’s new design across all of its operating systems, dubbed “Liquid Glass,” is drawing sharp criticism from some corners online. A user on X, @Greggertruck, shared a screenshot of the new Control Center and wrote, “Steve Jobs would have fired everyone.” The post quickly gained traction, with investor Ross Gerber responding with a Hundred Points emoji.
— Ross Gerber (@GerberKawasaki) June 9, 2025
Ananya Gairola for Benzinga:
Other users echoed the sentiment, calling the design “a smeary mess of colors and overlapping functionality.” One said, “Looks like when you get someone to use Photoshop for the first time, every effect box is clicked.”
Wedbush analyst and longtime Apple supporter Dan Ives described the event as showcasing “slow and steady improvements,” but ultimately called it “a yawner.”
Wedbush analyst Dan Ives, an Apple bull, said the event showed “slow and steady improvements” but was “overall a yawner.” 🍎🍏🔥📱@nypost https://t.co/Vm7NvtEFjq @nypost
— Dan Ives (@DivesTech) June 9, 2025
In 2019, Apple’s design legend Jony Ive’s departure seemed sudden, but reports from The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg suggested that it was the result of a years-long shift in the company’s priorities—from design to operations.
Ive and his team reportedly grew frustrated as design took a back seat under CEO Tim Cook, whose lack of involvement in product development led to discontent and departures within the design team.
MacDailyNews Take: Liquid Glass is a dynamic UI, not static. Therefore a still screenshot fails to accurately show the level of readability offered by the Liquid Glass design language. Only videos can accurately show how Liquid Glass works, reads, and looks.
As for WWDC 2025, yes, it was a yawner. Tim Cook’s lack of stage presence and boring-to-cringeworthy live stage presentations have the company continuing — sadly, desperately, and tellingly — to rely on overproduced, canned video keynote addresses in which Cook is clearly kept to a bare minimum.
Steve Jobs could make a power cord seem insanely great. Tim Cook could put a room to sleep while unveiling teleportation; he makes watching paint dry seem like must-see event.
Apple is currently helmed by a charisma black hole.
Lacking a charismatic leader who could sell ice cubes to eskimos, execution is the key… With excellent products and execution, the weak keynote presentations would be bearable. Apple’s issues with late, old, sometimes problematic products and services do more to dampen excitement and devotion than anything. – MacDailyNews, January 4, 2019
Apple is boring because it is headed by a boring operations manager who should have been a 3-5 year stopgap following the untimely death of visionary Steve Jobs and its next visionary, product-focused CEO. Alas, operations manager Cook clings on well past his sell-by date. The good news is that time continues to tick on and Apple easily has enough in the tank to make it through this period of incremental iteration and blindly missed paradigm shifts. This too shall pass.
Of course, the biggest announcement of WWDC25 wasn’t Liquid Glass, but that Apple’s on-device foundation models will be available to third-party applications as part of the Foundation Models API, a major tool enabling developers to seamlessly integrate the Apple Intelligence LLMs directly on-device.
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[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]