Apple dials down Liquid Glass, and the Mac looks better

MacOS 27 Golden Gate will bring a number of changes to the Mac when it is released later this year, with its biggest new features all around. Secret AI. But for now, using the first beta, Siri AI is only offered through a waiting list. So what is there to test is about how the upcoming machine looks and feels.

You won’t be greeted with any preferences when you launch the MacOS 27 beta (which will probably come later), but there is reason to celebrate. Go to the interface, and you will find that Apple now has a Liquid Glass slider, which allows users to adjust the transparency of the UI in macOS. At one end of the slider, it looks like Liquid Glass, and at the other end it looks cool. Golden Gate starts you in the middle of the slider at random, just for holding the snow – perhaps a gentle acknowledgment that the original feature has gone too far. Unfortunately you won’t be able to see clearly, but the frosted effect greatly reduces the distracting properties of Liquid Glass.

After only a short time with Golden Gate, I already like the visuals. I can slide the slider all the way through the range without going back. For the staunch Liquid Glass haters out there, the Reduce Transparency option is still available in the Accessibility settings, but using it is like taking a sledgehammer to the entire glass — bringing a lot of gray and black background to the dock, Menu Bar, and Control Center.

The ultimate success in the design of macOS 27 is to return to the edge of the screen with beautiful graphics and additional windows across the OS. The first ones are actually backwards in terms of how the sidebars look (which looks nice and easy to define, with an undamaged area). And the latter is understandable. How in the world did Apple get on with its design that allowed apps with windows to have inconsistent angles?

I have my nitpicks – the new battery icon ported over from iOS doesn’t make much sense (in fact, I hate it). Also, after Apple added the most important part of the screen to Sequoia, it did not change at all. Both Tahoe and now Golden Gate leave me wanting better and faster Windows 11-like controls, and the easy ability to rename virtual desktops. But so far, nothing.

Apple says the Golden Gate Bridge should be simple, with fast navigation. It’s too early to say how much of a difference it makes on the MacBook Neo I’m testing – especially since dev betas are notoriously buggy and unstable. Using Spotlight search for local files on Golden Gate does the same thing as the other Neo I had on macOS 26 Tahoe. And opening apps on both machines side-by-side produced mixed results: The Golden Gate opened Lightroom Classic and Slack faster, but the Tahoe was quicker to open Photoshop and Steam. I’m sure Apple will improve the memory and CPU usage on the MacBook Neo, which will use all it can get, but the jury is out for now.

There’s more to come with another beta release for macOS 27, where we’ll be able to fully test Siri AI, Visual Intelligence, and the updated Spotlight Search. Last year Spotlighting power users with clipboard history was a nice change, but I doubt Siri AI baked into Spotlight will be the game changer Apple is paying for. I’ll keep an eye out and let you know as soon as I get off the waiting list.

Meanwhile, I’m relieved Apple is backing off a bit on Liquid Glass. Although the interface wasn’t as bad on Mac as it was on iOS, it’s a welcome change to be able to reject these screens and get a little closer to the old Sequoia interface. These and other UI polishes are automatic upgrades. Now, Apple needs to show that it can nail the new AI, too – I’m curious to see how it goes.