Liquid Glass; Why Now? ⇥ tidbits.com

Adam Engst, TidBits, had some very kind things to say about my Liquid Glass piece. I also liked Engst’s attempt to answer the question of “why?”:

Why now? The answer may partly lie in available processing power. The balance between usability and aesthetics has always been informed by technical capabilities. Consider a few dates from Apple’s history: […]

Twenty-five years after alpha channels began appearing in our user interfaces, I think many of us have taken for granted the soft shadows and smooth corners enabled by translucent pixels. Back then, there were plenty of people who were worried about the performance impact of all these effects, just as there are now about Liquid Glass. I get it; I am not arguing that opinion is wrong or misguided.

Personally, however, I know my computer has capabilities wildly disproportionate to my actual use. Sometimes I will actually use that performance, but not most of the time. If a little bit of the M1 Pro in this Mac can go toward the stuff I see every day, I think that is a fair trade-off. If my iPhone can draw real-time lens distortion and chromatic aberration, that rocks. I think that is worth exploring.