Prime Highlights
- Apple fires Jon Yongfook, the Liquid Glass UI designer, just a few hours following the iOS 26 release.
- Yongfook makes public his transfer to Samsung, where he will direct interface design developments.
Key Facts
- Jon Yongfook led the development of the Liquid Glass UI for iOS 26 and other Apple platforms.
- The new user interface emphasizes blur effects, floating toolbars, and glass-like transparency.
- The designer’s departure came after users and designers received mixed reactions after launch.
Key Background
Apple has let go of Jon Yongfook, the principal designer of its just-released Liquid Glass UI, less than a week after the world premiere of iOS 26 during its WWDC 2025 conference. The Liquid Glass interface was the graphical highlight of Apple’s recent operating system releases across iOS 26, macOS 26, iPadOS 26, watchOS 26, visionOS 26, and tvOS 26.
The Liquid Glass UI has been created to introduce a glass-like, transparent, futuristic look to Apple’s whole universe. It makes heavy usage of Gaussian blur effects, hovering toolbars, and glassy overlays to provide apps and menus with a more immersive and liquid-like visual appearance. This redesign represented Apple’s biggest design change since the onset of flat design with iOS 7.
Yongfook had spearheaded the design project for more than a year, testing out real-world influences like how physical materials respond to light. The outcome was a layered, semi-transparent interface Apple marketed as a bridge between digital design and physical behavior. Within the company, the project was regarded as a design leadership statement, marrying visual elegance with material-based UI innovation.
But the response to the new UI was diverse. While some welcomed the futuristic design and Apple’s courage in revamping its style, others lambasted the interface as too flashy and could compromise readability. Some likened it to the retro “glass” theme of Windows Vista, while disability rights activists expressed concerns regarding how the transparent layers could impact visually impaired users.
Yongfook responded to the criticism on social media, saying that the design was based on intensive observation and materialism. He previewed future codenames of future iOS designs like “Orangutan,” “Rattan,” “Candy,” and “Sashimi,” which promised additional visual evolution. However, his announcement ended with the shocking revelation that he had been laid off at Apple and would be taking on shimmering 1-pixel border design roles at Samsung’s Galaxy UI team.
His unexpected exit has fueled rumors of potential inner struggles or discontent with the UI reception. Even with the setback, Apple continues pursuing its Liquid Glass vision, which persists at the core of iOS 26 and future platform releases. The tech community now awaits anxiously to observe how Apple responds based on feedback—and how Yongfook’s concepts continue to develop at his new destination, Samsung.
