Bathtub Soap Bubble OS

Like a lot of you, I recently upgraded (or downgraded, if you’re being unkind-but-fair) my iPhone OS to the new one, iOS 26, which has the biggest UI shakeup they’ve done for years. Gone is some variation of the semi-flat Apple UI elements, replaced instead with semi-transparent floating all over the application or web page’s content, floating in and out like that stoner at your friend’s house party.

I had briefly tried a beta of this new on OS on my iPad Pro (which is these days my primary portable computing device, unless I need to do a bunch of actual C++ game dev) but found the aesthetic and interface changes ruined almost every aspect of my work flow. I returned it to its original state, and as of this moment have no plans to sully my actual mac or iPad with the new system.

My Apple Watch and my phone are a different question. For the former, the change is relatively minimal. The core interface acts much the same, so it really just means you’re popping soap bubbles when entering your watch’s PIN, rather than pressing buttons.

For someone who so thoroughly despised seeing the new UI on iPad though, I haven’t had many issues with the iPhone, and it wasn’t until I saw someone complaining about muscle memory for where everything existed that I figured out why.

See, I have a new phone. For the first time in over 4 years, I decided to ditch my old iPhone 13 Pro Max (these names are silly mouthfuls, but at least the numbers go up, unlike Microsoft stuff). I didn’t ditch it because it wasn’t working any more, or even because the battery was dying. (Its battery health was at 86% and with the huge batteries on those Max models, that meant I got two full days of use -still- on the thing.)

My reasons for finally getting a new one are several-fold:

I replaced it because I got tired of its weight, and the screen being just slightly too big for my apparently fairly average-sized hands. As well, getting one this year made some sense as the Pro Max still held enough value to offset the cost of a new phone. Next year, it’d probably be off the trade-in lists and the independent sales prices would drop hugely.

Atop of this, the other reason was: I used to buy new iPhone Pro models almost every year. I loved the camera upgrades, and the very slick “ProMotion” branded variable framerate screen. This generation of iPhones, finally, sees the “ProMotion” screens existing across all devices, so my reason for wanting a Pro dropped, especially when I felt the lightness of the 17 and the Air in person.

But the final nail in the coffin of buying a Pro phone - the thing that changed the most for me in these last 4 years - is the simple fact that I’ve gone all in being a hipster-ass photographer. A whole cabinet (and several shelves in my wardrobe) are now full of vintage film cameras, and a handful of digital but mechanically-operated ones for good measure. I always have a camera on me, even if it’s “just” my small Fujifilm X series hiding in my handbag. As a result, the “oooh shiny new cameras!” thing just doesn’t work on me any more. At best, my phone cameras are now used to take photos of random things to send to friends, and that’s about it.

This is all, of course, a very long-winded way of procrastinating before getting to the point: I’ve enjoyed using this new phone and OS, and I think it’s more because of the former than the latter. The OS changes might have annoyed me on my old phone, but given this one is a different screen size, weight and thickness (it’s the Air model, so it’s almost as big as a Max screen-wise but incredibly thin) my muscle memory is already basically gone. I had to re-learn the positions of buttons relative to my fingers depending on how I hold the phone, so learning that the buttons have also moved a bit is neither here nor there.

Is the OS good? Is the UI change good?

On balance, I’d say no. Lots of Apple’s recent changes to me feel like desperation to do Something New, when all most of us really want is just some stability.

But we’re long past that point.

All software is a service, even if it’s a free one. I can’t put off upgrading macOS forever. At a certain point, even if I think a certain OS is my platonic ideal of a perfect system, apps will stop getting updated for it, web sites will stop working on the outdated browsers, and this, like all other computers, will end up a footnote in some collector’s shelf full of digital trinkets.

Which is probably why I’m using custom hardware and bespoke media more and more. Whatever else gaming on my Gameboy Advance or my Playstation 2 is like? It isn’t an experience that’s going to change, as long as I can keep the old girls running.