Liquid Glass? That's what your M4 CPU is for
6 days ago
- #Performance
- #Apple
- #Design
- Apple introduces 'Liquid Glass' design language, featuring translucent, fluid, and subtly animated aesthetics.
- Concerns raised about the computational cost of such eye candy, drawing parallels to past resource-heavy designs like macOS dynamic wallpapers and Windows Vista’s Aero.
- Example given of a web app with animated tiles that performs poorly on less powerful hardware like a Raspberry Pi 4 due to background blur effects.
- Apple’s timing with Liquid Glass coincides with the release of overpowered M-series chips (M2, M3, M4), which can handle the extra load for now.
- Potential downsides include battery drain, increased thermals, and future performance issues as software demands grow.
- Liquid Glass is seen as Apple flexing its hardware capabilities, but it’s acknowledged that such features come with a computational cost.
- Conclusion: While visually impressive, Liquid Glass represents 'tech debt' that current hardware can manage, but may pose challenges in the future.