As much as I defended the preview, and as much as Apple wants to make Liquid Glass a thing, the new UI is continuing to draw criticism. Dan Moren for Six Colors:
“Glass” is the overall look of these updates, and it’s everywhere. Transparent, frosted, distorting. In some places it looks quite cool, such as in the edge distortion when you’re swiping up on the lock screen. But elsewhere, it seems to me that glass may not be quite the right material for the job. The Glass House might be architecturally impressive, but it’s not particularly practical.
It’s also a definite philosophical choice, and one that’s going to engender some criticism—much of it well-deserved. Apple has argued that it’s about getting controls out of the way, but is that really what’s happening here? It’s hard to argue that having a transparent button sitting right on top of your email is helping that email be more prominent. To take this argument to its logical conclusion, why is the keyboard not fully transparent glass over our content?
I’ve yet to upgrade myself. I will say that everyone dislikes change. Lest we forget that the now-ubiquitous flat design introduced by iOS 7 was also criticized.