In 2025, the design philosophies of the two tech giants are clashing in a visual showdown:
- Google’s Material 3 Expressive: A deeply researched, human-centric redesign aiming to evoke emotion, clarity, and brand personality across apps.
- Apple’s Liquid Glass: A bold “glassmorphic” overhaul introduced in iOS 26, macOS Tahoe, watchOS 26, and tvOS 26, featuring layered translucency, depth, and dynamic blur effects.
🎨 What Sets Material 3 Expressive Apart
Google conducted extensive global research—46 studies with 18,000 participants—revealing Material 3 Expressive helped users spot key elements up to 4× faster than previous versions. Its five pillars:
- Color – Strategic hues guide focus
- Shape – Visual branding and clickability
- Size – Establishes hierarchy and accessibility
- Motion – Smooth transitions reinforce context
- Containment – Clear grouping enhances scan-ability
The result: UIs that feel emotionally engaging, trustworthy, and naturally intuitive.
🔮 Apple’s Liquid Glass: A Glassy Gambit
Unveiled at WWDC 2025 as the “most significant visual overhaul since iOS 7,” Liquid Glass is everywhere—control centers, menus, lock screens, and app icons feature translucent, context-sensitive panels that refract light like real glass.
- Pros: Stunning aesthetics, fluid animations, spatial continuity, cohesive across devices.
- Cons: Readability concerns, accessibility challenges, potential performance toll, and friction for third-party developers.
⚔️ Head-to-Head: Expressive vs. Liquid Glass
| Feature | Material 3 Expressive | Liquid Glass |
|---|---|---|
| Visual Scale | Incremental but meaningful polish | Massive UI refresh |
| Performance | Lightweight effects | Heavy transparency, higher GPU usage |
| Readability & Accessibility | High-contrast, user-configurable | Transparency may hamper legibility and usability |
| Developer Flexibility | Highly customizable with global guidelines | May lock devs into Apple tools; replicating effects cross-platform is challenging |
| Design Philosophy | User-first, expressive, human | Brand-first, immersive, consistency across hardware |
🧠 What Users and Experts Say
- Android experts say Liquid Glass is a “way bigger design overhaul,” but “translucent overload” can disorient users.
- Design reviewers praise Material 3 Expressive as “a quality-of-life upgrade,” while Liquid Glass “falls flat” due to readability and battery concerns.
- Accessibility advocates highlight Liquid Glass as “beautiful” yet “hard to read,” raising usability concerns for people with visual impairments.
- UI specialists describe Liquid Glass as “futuristic,” but note its potential for cognitive overload in everyday use.
✅ Verdict: Which Side Wins?
Material 3 Expressive shines in usability, flexibility, and accessibility—it’s thoughtfully evolved, not overhauled.
Liquid Glass pushes the visual frontier, unifying Apple’s ecosystem with dazzling sheen—but risks usability compromises.
Ultimately, this isn’t a crushing defeat or victory: it’s a clash of priorities—functionality first (Google) versus brand brilliance (Apple). The real winners? Users who benefit from both innovation and inclusivity.