- Microsoft compared Liquid Glass to Windows Vista on its Instagram account
- It’s rather late to the party in drawing this kind of comparison
- Mind you, if anyone has a right to do so, it’s Microsoft, which brought in transparency with the Aero effect on the desktop of Vista
Microsoft has joined the throng of those who’ve been making fun of Apple’s new Liquid Glass interface for macOS Tahoe 26 (and iOS 26 or indeed other platforms such as iPadOS 26).
On its Instagram account yesterday, as flagged up by Windows Latest, Microsoft posted a collection of screenshots of Windows Vista. This arrived complete with nostalgic sound effects (the chime of booting to the desktop) from back in the day (2007), with a single, simple sentence: “Just gonna leave this here.”
In case you missed it, Apple has caught quite a volley of criticism for what’s perceived as making it seem like Liquid Glass has reinvented the idea of transparency – a glassy, see-through interface – when this was actually done by Microsoft in… yes, you guessed it: Windows Vista.
In Windows Vista, this effect was called Aero (and later, Aero also came to Windows 7), and as you can see in the Instagram montage above, it’s all about translucent windows, allowing you to see the background through them.
Microsoft is late to the party here, really, and in that respect, the company looks a tad silly. Everybody’s done their take on how Liquid Glass is Vista (or Windows 7), how Apple are copycats, etcetera – and so Microsoft is running the risk of inducing some yawns here.
But still, Microsoft did invent Aero with these venerable desktop operating systems many translucent moons ago, so in a way, more than anyone, the software giant has a right to poke some fun at macOS Tahoe 26 here.
Analysis: Fun but not fair?
So, given the hail of critical bullets trying to shatter Apple’s Liquid Glass – Microsoft’s latest potshot included – it’s worth considering a key question. Is it really fair to level accusations at the Mac and iDevice maker for being so unoriginal and dated with its UI innovation here?
I don’t think it is. Still, Apple must’ve known it was going to face this kind of backlash, even if it’s a rather tongue-in-cheek affair (mostly). And for Microsoft, it’s an obvious opportunity to take a rival down a peg or two, which, let’s face it, is not to be missed. However, I’m not sure why Microsoft was slow to move with its post.
Whatever the case, one thing is obvious: Liquid Glass does not equal Vista’s Aero effect (and I hardly think Microsoft is suggesting that, of course). Yes, there are clear visual parallels, but what macOS Tahoe 26 is doing is very different from Windows Vista or 7.
For starters, the reason nobody liked Aero much in Windows Vista was because it caused the OS environment to run slower – nobody wanted lag when dragging windows around the desktop, unsurprisingly. (Windows 7 did better here, of course).
Not only is contemporary hardware ripe for a much better implementation of transparent interface elements now, so it’ll all be suitably responsive, but Apple’s Liquid Glass appears to be far more sophisticated in nature. It looks like there’s a lot of careful crafting here, with nuances in the way light passes through the ‘glass’ and interacts with the interface behind.
Granted, it’s still too early to say exactly how this will pan out, but Aero it ain’t, that’s for sure. I’ve been told by others on the TechRadar team who’ve seen the interface in action that it looks much better in real-world use than screenshots can convey.
Even so, worries remain, without a doubt. The most obvious potential thorn is the diminished accessibility and the potential lack of clarity that these fancy, see-through effects might cause. What we don’t want is a muddied look where the user may struggle to read basic text or make out icons in the foreground.
Time will tell regarding those concerns, but Apple appears to have thought this whole plan and overarching philosophy through quite fully, given that this is not just a mere interface revamp, but a wholesale cross-platform unification for macOS, iOS, and all the rest of the company’s operating systems.
Thus far, Liquid Glass looks pretty slick, it looks like function is as important as form, and yes, it looks like Windows Vista a bit, too. But hey, what did you expect Apple to do with all eyes on its big WWDC 25 interface reveal? Acknowledge Microsoft as the forerunner of glassy transparency in the realm of desktop operating systems?
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