Slow Liquid(robinsloan.com)
robinsloan.com
Slow Liquid
https://www.robinsloan.com/lab/slow-liquid/
75 comments
My 13 mini still runs super slowly 4 days after updating. I’m just hoping for a quick patch update from Apple at this point, because 26 is a serious downgrade from 18 at this point.
When you say “running slowly”, do you mean:
- Apps launch slower (time from app launch to interactivity)
- Apps hang more frequently (interface freezes after interaction)
- Apps drop frames (scrolling and animations stutter)
I imagine it’s some combination of the above. Apps and the operating systems that run them get bigger and slower over time.
There really isn’t a “slowness constant” to tweak short of animation speed, and I believe Apple made app launch noticeably faster, animation-wise in iOS 26. Just lots and lots of regressions to fix.
- Apps launch slower (time from app launch to interactivity)
- Apps hang more frequently (interface freezes after interaction)
- Apps drop frames (scrolling and animations stutter)
I imagine it’s some combination of the above. Apps and the operating systems that run them get bigger and slower over time.
There really isn’t a “slowness constant” to tweak short of animation speed, and I believe Apple made app launch noticeably faster, animation-wise in iOS 26. Just lots and lots of regressions to fix.
The third: there’s stutter all over the place, jank in pretty much every animation. E.g. before leaving this comment I just swiped between two app screens and got a ~10 frame hiccough in the middle of the animation. The jank is pervasive.
A 10-frame hiccup is actually more of a hang (a single >50ms freeze) than consistent frame dropping (i.e. scrolling at 30fps)
but I agree, the hangs in the latest operating systems are brutal. Feels a little half-baked. macOS Tahoe is much worse than Sequoia on this by far. I’m hoping that the later releases (26.1, etc) make the situation better.
but I agree, the hangs in the latest operating systems are brutal. Feels a little half-baked. macOS Tahoe is much worse than Sequoia on this by far. I’m hoping that the later releases (26.1, etc) make the situation better.
I’ve been on the beta for a few weeks, now on full iOS26 on iPhone mini 12.
Performance is generally good, but when there are a lot of effects in Safari’s search view it stutters.
Battery drain was higher for over a week, but now it’s mostly normal. My all day battery use is 60-75% daily (you can check this in the updated battery settings tab), low phone use days are 40-60%.
There are battery use landlines though — this morning playing around with depth effect on wallpapers used 50% of my (95% health) battery in 15 minutes. Camera is very heavy as well.
Performance is generally good, but when there are a lot of effects in Safari’s search view it stutters.
Battery drain was higher for over a week, but now it’s mostly normal. My all day battery use is 60-75% daily (you can check this in the updated battery settings tab), low phone use days are 40-60%.
There are battery use landlines though — this morning playing around with depth effect on wallpapers used 50% of my (95% health) battery in 15 minutes. Camera is very heavy as well.
How's your battery health?
94%. The phone itself is fine, just the software that’s problematic.
Yep, this always happens.
My phone always runs slowly immediately following an OS update. I assume it's doing a bunch of work in the background, deleting temporary files or whatever. Even downloading and installing app updates I'm now eligible for. Can always tell because the thing gets warm.
Within a few hours it's back to normal. I don't like the Liquid Glass update but it's not impacted performance.
My phone always runs slowly immediately following an OS update. I assume it's doing a bunch of work in the background, deleting temporary files or whatever. Even downloading and installing app updates I'm now eligible for. Can always tell because the thing gets warm.
Within a few hours it's back to normal. I don't like the Liquid Glass update but it's not impacted performance.
I installed iOS 26 on my iPhone 13 Pro three days ago. It’s still choppy, especially noticeable when looking at the new search window, which has laggy animations. Besides that, the most noticeable issue is just scrolling through pages of apps. On iOS 18 everything was smooth, but here I can see choppiness and lag. And no, my batter is not below 80%.
Counter example: 12 Mini runs fine. Health-wise, it's got 22 GB free, and the battery was replaced in February, 2025.
I really dig the redesign. I've been suffering through flat UIs since at least 2013, so having some volume back is very welcome. I know we probably won't go back to skeuomorphism, but that'd be great. Metaphor in design is important. It's a shortcut to understanding. As it stands, I'll gladly take Liquid Glass's volume and distortion as a indicator of interactability.
But, I am a "harbinger of failure"[1], (12 Mini, right?), so maybe this won't be long-lived either.
1: https://news.mit.edu/2015/harbinger-failure-consumers-unpopu...
I really dig the redesign. I've been suffering through flat UIs since at least 2013, so having some volume back is very welcome. I know we probably won't go back to skeuomorphism, but that'd be great. Metaphor in design is important. It's a shortcut to understanding. As it stands, I'll gladly take Liquid Glass's volume and distortion as a indicator of interactability.
But, I am a "harbinger of failure"[1], (12 Mini, right?), so maybe this won't be long-lived either.
1: https://news.mit.edu/2015/harbinger-failure-consumers-unpopu...
My very old 8th Gen iPad (32GB) works just fine with 26 too.
I'm puzzled why this very short 133 word blog post that offers nothing new — literally: "I will add my voice to the chorus" — is getting upvoted so much on HN.
I don't disagree with the blog post, but it's just not interesting, informative, or useful.
I don't disagree with the blog post, but it's just not interesting, informative, or useful.
The blog post that broke the camel's back?
It's often a matter of timing -- just enough after the update was around, time of day, day of the week, no other major or interesting news, etc.
It's often a matter of timing -- just enough after the update was around, time of day, day of the week, no other major or interesting news, etc.
People love to hate on certain companies for certain things: Apple and all things design is one of those company-thing pairs.
Just take a look at the MacOS Tahoe topic (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45252378). A HUGE portion of the comments are clearly from people who both (A) don't use MacOS and/or (B) haven't used Tahoe and they are all intensely negative.
Taking Hacker News as an inverse signal on these things makes sense. For example, HN's iPhone Air hate is making me extremely bullish on its sales prospects.
Just take a look at the MacOS Tahoe topic (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45252378). A HUGE portion of the comments are clearly from people who both (A) don't use MacOS and/or (B) haven't used Tahoe and they are all intensely negative.
Taking Hacker News as an inverse signal on these things makes sense. For example, HN's iPhone Air hate is making me extremely bullish on its sales prospects.
The Tahoe submission was new, relevant, and informative. It was posted on the day that Tahoe was released and includes a list of Tahoe features. It wasn't just a terse "me too" post.
I also think that your analysis is reductive. Liquid Glass has some serious usability regressions, so there are very good reasons to criticize it, not just so-called "hate". In any case, there have been plenty of good, informative posts about Liquid Glass and iOS 26 in general; this submission, however, is not one of them.
I also think that your analysis is reductive. Liquid Glass has some serious usability regressions, so there are very good reasons to criticize it, not just so-called "hate". In any case, there have been plenty of good, informative posts about Liquid Glass and iOS 26 in general; this submission, however, is not one of them.
You asked why it was upvoted and I gave you the reason. That the referenced post has quality content and some quality discussion is not a rejection of that. I referenced that post not because it is analogous to this post but that the discussion on it is revelatory (which is clear by what I said).
Hacker News truly has a large number of topics for which the reactions and responses are reflexively negative and large in magnitude (there are similar positive reactions as well!). This isn't "reductive" analysis and you didn't understand what I said if your point is "your analysis is reductive because liquid glass has some serious usability regressions". You can even look in my own post history to see that I agree with that just fine.
Still, look through the discussion! Much of it is clearly reflexive negativity and based on zero user experience.
Hacker News truly has a large number of topics for which the reactions and responses are reflexively negative and large in magnitude (there are similar positive reactions as well!). This isn't "reductive" analysis and you didn't understand what I said if your point is "your analysis is reductive because liquid glass has some serious usability regressions". You can even look in my own post history to see that I agree with that just fine.
Still, look through the discussion! Much of it is clearly reflexive negativity and based on zero user experience.
The problem here is that you're talking about the comments on the submission, whereas I was not. I'm talking about the upvotes on the submission.
It's entirely expected and unsurprising that Apple's announcement of a major macOS release would receive a ton of upvotes, regardless of how people feel about the release. That's why I think your analogy is irrelevant.
A low quality submission should not receive many upvotes, and as a consequence, it should not receive many comments of any kind, positive or negative, because it won't appear on the front page of HN for people to notice and comment on it.
It's entirely expected and unsurprising that Apple's announcement of a major macOS release would receive a ton of upvotes, regardless of how people feel about the release. That's why I think your analogy is irrelevant.
A low quality submission should not receive many upvotes, and as a consequence, it should not receive many comments of any kind, positive or negative, because it won't appear on the front page of HN for people to notice and comment on it.
> The problem here is that you're talking about the comments on the submission, whereas I was not. I'm talking about the upvotes on the submission.
I think the idea that one behavior being used as evidence for another behavior is problematic is ridiculous.
I think the idea that one behavior being used as evidence for another behavior is problematic is ridiculous.
If you turn on “reduce transparency” in the accessibility settings, the Liquid Glass effects are toned down, and the UI is much snappier.
Unfortunately there are a lot of visual bugs still with this setting, like clipped text boxes. And it removes your wallpaper for inexplicable reasons.
Unfortunately there are a lot of visual bugs still with this setting, like clipped text boxes. And it removes your wallpaper for inexplicable reasons.
I suspect that OP might be having his photos re-indexed. Running on old hardware, and not seeing this problem.
Yeah I bet that's it. The first ~24 hours, my iPhone 15 Pro was burning hot and sluggish. Now it's fine.
Toggling Reduced Transparency ON in Accessibility makes it so much better.
It makes it much more usable, but it doesn’t make it faster. Or at least it doesn’t bring it up to an acceptable level.
On my phone it made it very snappy, just as fast as the old 18 experience.
Far less polished and imho still a downgrade from a usability perspective, but definitely faster than with the setting off.
Far less polished and imho still a downgrade from a usability perspective, but definitely faster than with the setting off.
My Mac Air M1 ran a lot slower until I reduced transparency. The glass change would be fine if the UI was objectively better, but it's an usability downgrade. Things are harder to see/read.
Meanwhile, I still get prompted by the OS whether I want to allow Chrome to access my local network after it asked me that 10 times already.
Meanwhile, I still get prompted by the OS whether I want to allow Chrome to access my local network after it asked me that 10 times already.
Hmm I don’t feel like my iPhone 12 mini got any slower? Wonder what op experiences specifically…
Thank you for the link to Robin Sloan’s blog and temporarily answering my question about whether I should upgrade iOS. I love his books and for some reason never thought to look to see if he wrote anything else online.
I'd encourage you to get his email newsletter as well! He puts out really interesting and thoughtful content in my experience.
Granted I have the M4 Mac Studio, but it seems to be running just fine in my 3-4 days of use so far. Also the OS seems to be as stable as last version. I wonder if there are any issues besides the visual glitches and slowness? Also over the years I have found MacOS generally stable. I hope they will address the issues over time.
On the side note, I actually miss Snow Leopard release and in general miss the "Skeuomorphism" in all the software I use.
You do realize you're comparing a high-end desktop to a budget phone, right?
Website owner has disallowed Wayback Machine.
Just got a brand new iPhone 17 Pro. Even in the setup flow there are tons of little UI glitches going on. Layout jumping around randomly, screens resetting awkwardly, icons not laid out well in their buttons. Not so great first impressions of Liquid Glass, and with absolutely no excuses.
I haven't updated my iphone 14, and seeing posts like these makes me want to wait longer.
Does anyone enjoy or like the changes after the upgrade? Are there any worthy tradeoffs like "ok it's slower but at least I can now do $x or they fixed $y and I don't regret updating it".
Does anyone enjoy or like the changes after the upgrade? Are there any worthy tradeoffs like "ok it's slower but at least I can now do $x or they fixed $y and I don't regret updating it".
Alternatively, you can add my voice to the chorus of people with older phones who at first had a choppy experience and then it became perfectly smooth. Likely due to background indexing/updates. iPhone 14 Pro.
My Mac actually seems to run faster but I may just be imagining that (M3 Max MBP)
My Mac actually seems to run faster but I may just be imagining that (M3 Max MBP)
I am running iOS26 on my iPhone 13 Pro, and on my m1 iPad Pro. It runs fine on both, but I really regret upgrading on my iPad because the new window management options are terrible. It makes me actively dislike using my iPad now, and it used to be my daily driver.
You can turn those off, no? When I upgraded it asked me which I preferred, the old or the new style, and I kept the old. I presume it’s a setting toggle somewhere.
No, the original slide over is gone. See https://www.reddit.com/r/ipad/comments/1nk36lz/can_we_get_ap...
Given how many visual glitches persist on last year’s top-of-the-line phone, I’m guessing they’re far behind where they wanted to be and older phone performance got “appropriately” bumped
I’m willing to bet they moved LG up a year to help fill
I’m willing to bet they moved LG up a year to help fill
Not surprising, Apple is going to make you say “I love glass” whether it works or not or if there’s pushback or not or if it makes your device worse or not.
Time to switch to a Linux phone where the UI doesn’t need to constantly be redeveloped for lifestyle + product manager promotions.
Time to switch to a Linux phone where the UI doesn’t need to constantly be redeveloped for lifestyle + product manager promotions.
Linux would be the poster child of fractious UI fights and different ways of doing things and changing things just because.
Yup. Imagine my surprise as a Linux user, seeing paying customers subjected to this level of quality control...
That’s what Android is, right? The Linux phone? Where there is an ongoing battle between Samsung and Google interfaces?
This is just a short rant, more like a tweet, and should not be here
Just when I was considering upgrading to iOS 26 in an iPhone 12...
Does anyone have experience with iOS 26 on an iPhone 15 Pro yet?
so far, i haven't noticed any performance issues myself. my phone usage is pretty minimal - i don't venture outside of iMessage, feeed, my insulin pump software, a couple of low-requirement games and Orion.
on the other hand, my coworker also has a 15 Pro and he complains that things are slow compared to iOS 18 for him.
on the other hand, my coworker also has a 15 Pro and he complains that things are slow compared to iOS 18 for him.
I’ve an iPhone 16 Pro and it is definitely a noticeable slowdown for me, if you compare having “Reduce Transparency” on or off (which toggles most of the Liquid Glass effects).
As evidenced by the sibling comments, not everyone seems to be as sensitive to this.
As evidenced by the sibling comments, not everyone seems to be as sensitive to this.
Smooth, no performance issues for me, been using it since first public beta. I thought the whole liquid look was pretty meh at first, but I'm used to it enough at this point that I don't even think about it.
smooth
Remember when Snow Leopard came out? No new user features. It just ran faster. Greatest OS release in history. Why can't Apple just do that again with one of their OS's?
I don't understand this narrative anymore. The yearly macOS changes are objectively minimal. It's a mature platform. This year, a new design and a few power user features (Spotlight, Shortcuts, tidbits like Call Screening/Hold) and framework overhauls (Metal 4), that's it. Heck, new design excepted, I doubt Snow Leopard added fewer features than Tahoe.
Snow Leopard was mainly framework overhauls, but they're still doing those, year after year, only piecewise. People praise Snow Leopard as a golden release, but early on it was very buggy and, for many, slow (I still remember). It only became great after refinement. Now Tahoe seems stable enough (not counting minor UI glitches) that even Ableton/Pro Tools/SPSS/AdobeCC and other frequent troublemakers work fine on release day, an unusual feat. The "downhill" narrative seems to be nothing but baseless nostalgia.
Everybody also forgets that Apple always did yearly macOS releases except for a short gap around the iPhone and iPad introductions. That's not new either.
Snow Leopard was mainly framework overhauls, but they're still doing those, year after year, only piecewise. People praise Snow Leopard as a golden release, but early on it was very buggy and, for many, slow (I still remember). It only became great after refinement. Now Tahoe seems stable enough (not counting minor UI glitches) that even Ableton/Pro Tools/SPSS/AdobeCC and other frequent troublemakers work fine on release day, an unusual feat. The "downhill" narrative seems to be nothing but baseless nostalgia.
Everybody also forgets that Apple always did yearly macOS releases except for a short gap around the iPhone and iPad introductions. That's not new either.
This is generally seen as mythologizing, as Snow Leopard had mountains of bugs at launch.
Everybody just fell in love with 10.6.8.
Everybody just fell in love with 10.6.8.
It would erase your home folder! https://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyle/snow-leopard-bug-d...
It's no surprise that it had lots of bugs because it rewrote lots of components. But the power of storytelling (and remembering via most-upvoted Reddit comment) has turned it into the perfect release.
It's no surprise that it had lots of bugs because it rewrote lots of components. But the power of storytelling (and remembering via most-upvoted Reddit comment) has turned it into the perfect release.
You seem to be saying something entirely different and not contradictory?
I'm certainly regretting updating my iPhone SE (3rd gen) to iOS 26. It doesn't feel much slower, but the battery life seems to be a lot less than it was last week.
And I had to turn off my accessibility customizations (reduce transparency, etc.) so the interface didn't look completely terrible.
And I had to turn off my accessibility customizations (reduce transparency, etc.) so the interface didn't look completely terrible.
yet another person complaining while their phone is indexing
"You're holding it wrong"
damn almost as bad as the IDF /s
It's not clear what you were intending to achieve with this, but please don't post off-topic inflammatory comments here. HN is for curious conversation, not whatever this is. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45303687 and marked it off topic.
We detached this comment from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45303687 and marked it off topic.
You are welcome to Linux, 11iquid refugees.
more like graphene os on android phones
on an iPhone?
The blog post also talks about MacOS at the end.
Linux isn’t on option on recent Mac hardware either.
asahi linux is still a thing as far as I know, give it a shot
Asahi only supports M1 and M2 at present. Having lost their main contributors, I’m not expecting that to change either.
Technically that’s what Android is.
This is Windows Vista all over again! I remember people complaining their pieces of crap computers couldn't render the fancy desktop transparent windows
Maybe the iPhone 13 Mini really will stay choppy, but even my brand-new current gen iPad got super-choppy for the first couple of hours and I was freaked out. Turns out it was just that thing where iOS reindexes everything for Spotlight on a major version upgrade, or god only knows what it's doing in the background.