Why many of us have no patience for liquid glass

Jason Snell: Apple in 2025: The Six Colors report card

It’s time for our annual look back on Apple’s performance during the past year, as seen through the eyes of writers, editors, developers, podcasters, and other people who spend an awful lot of time thinking about Apple. The whole idea here is to get a broad sense of sentiment—the “vibe in the room”—regarding the past year. (And by looking at previous survey results, we can even see how that sentiment has drifted over the course of an entire decade.)

I love this survey, and I've read it every year (and I was delighted to start participating in it a few years ago…thanks, Jason 👋🏻). What really got me this time wasn't the "impact on the world" or Vision Pro scores, both of which were atrocious, it was actually the Mac score, which was a 3.5. For some context, that is the same as it scored in the middle of the butterfly keyboard, only USB-C ports, underperforming Mac era. Snell pointed this out as well:

After a few years of relative stability, the Mac has now given back all the goodwill it earned from our panel with the release of Apple silicon Macs. The issue wasn’t on the hardware side: There was wide agreement that Apple is at the top of its Mac hardware game. But macOS 26 Tahoe was condemned as a disastrous OS release

Here's John Siracusa, who has more than a little context to make such statements:

Tahoe is the worst user interface update in the history of the Mac. Every change is either wrongheaded, poorly executed, or both.

And here's John Gruber, someone also in a similar position:

Tahoe is the worst regression in the entire history of MacOS.

Those are big statements from people who know a thing or two about the Mac, so it's worth taking note when they are put off a Mac update like this. That said, I do think we've got a way better Mac situation today than we did 8 years ago when we were in the depths of the Mac lineup (hell, that's when I gave up the Mac entirely). Seriously, force me to get rid of all but one of my Apple products, and without thinking for even a moment, I'd keep the MacBook Pro. These machines are amazing, even if the liquid glass redesign has made much of the UI look worse.

But let's look at this chart on people judging Apple's impact on the world:

Apple's good will from this community has vanished. They may still make our favorite products to use for our computing needs, but we don't see them the same anymore. There was no, "liquid glass isn't good, but you're still my favorite," attitude from us, it was more, "liquid glass isn't good, and I don't even know you anymore." For a comparison, here are some quotes from this section in the 2015 survey:

“I think Apple does a very good job in this area, or at least tries to,” wrote Adam Engst.

"It feels like Apple is finally one of the companies that’s truly leading in these areas,” wrote Dan Frakes.

Stephen Hackett wrote: “I like that Tim Cook is using Apple’s size for social impact. […] it’s nice to see the organization take on his personality more and more.”

It truly was a different era, and after settling into a solid range for the next decade, it's pretty clear that things are nowhere near that today. Here's Joe Rosensteel on the 2026 survey:

I don’t care what Tim’s personal feelings on the matter are, and I don’t care what his fiduciary responsibility is, Apple simply can not claim they are serving the greater good in any way, shape, or form.

When that's the the vibe, you don't get any slack when you mis the mark. It shifts you from a lifestyle choice…a brand you would throw a sticker on your car to show you support…and turns it into a passionless seller and consumer relationship.