Liquid Glass Whiteout Conditions ⇥ eclecticlight.co
In real life, whiteouts are dangerous because they’re so disorienting. There’s no horizon, no features in the landscape, and no clues to navigation. We see and work best in visual environments that are rich in colour and tonal contrasts. Tahoe has continued a trend for Light Mode to be bleached-out white, and Dark Mode to be a moonless night. Seeing where controls, views and contents start and end is difficult, and leaves them suspended in the whiteout.
Oakley reviews several lingering problems with Liquid Glass in MacOS, but the above remains the most — and I use this word intentionally — glaring issue I have with it. It is a problem that becomes entirely clear as you scroll to the bottom of Oakley’s post and find a screenshot from — I think — Mac OS X Mavericks with evident precision and contrast. I do not think Apple should have frozen this interface in time, nor that there are no changes made since which have been an improvement. However, though the exact same elements remain in today’s MacOS, they lack a similarly rigorous structure and care. It is notable how many translucency controls have been added in the intervening years.