It's tacky, but not the end of the world.

It remins me of some gnome themes from 2005-2009.

I'd choose that a thousand times over an ad filled start menu

Fair, but you could have 2025 gnome, or even KDE!

My main problem with liquid glass is it's slow, and the trade off is... a worse user experience in literally every conceivable way? Wow, okay, not a very good deal.

Granted, most downgrades in things like legibility or density are very slight. But they're still downgrades. Downgrading is only worth it if you get something out of it.

You can simply not upgrade to Tahoe and iOS 26. I didn't upgrade and am simply waiting for the next version which will hopefully ditch liquid glass. If no such version becomes available, I'll still stick to the last non-liquid-glass OS and upgrade only if/when it becomes unusable.

  > If no such version becomes available, I'll still stick to the last non-liquid-glass OS and upgrade only if/when it becomes unusable.

i felt the same with the ui/ux changes with big sur, and funny enough, when trying the older os after while i realized i was (mostly) fine with look of the new os... the bugs on the other hand... they just seem to pile up with each release...

Yeah, you nerd. ENJOY IT.

It is unironically great, especially tinted variant. A welcoming change.