As the world moves toward digital artificiality, Airbnb's redesign and Apple's Liquid Glass UI bring back skeuomorphism and dimensionality to digital interfaces
From Airbnb's new app icons to Apple's “Liquid Glass” design, skeuomorphism is back and everything in the digital world has dimensionality again. Threads: @asallen . X: @austincarr , @asallen , and @austincarr . Forums: r/technology Threads: Andy Allen / @asallen : Deep dive by Bloomberg connecting the history of skeuomorphism → flat → fluid in software design with a few quotes from me and a not-yet-shown peek at how we designed ! Camera. X: Austin Carr / @austincarr : Lovely to see how deep Apple is taking spatial UI with its new “liquid glass” redesign. Feels like the next generation of the translucency + parallax effects introduced with iOS 7. The depth seems much more immersive now yet it's still a very measured move beyond the flat era. [image] Andy Allen / @asallen : @sandra_letter ... Glad it connected. Lots of rich history to be told and this just scratches the surface. Austin Carr / @austincarr : Some thoughts on post-flat design and the future of skeuomorphism, with Airbnb's @bchesky & Not Boring's @asallen: https://www.bloomberg.com/... [image] Forums: r/technology : Big Tech Is Dealing Flat Design a Death Blow
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple’s visual design had already been moving away from strict flatness: macOS Big Sur restored more expressive interface cues, while visionOS 26 spatial widgets extended interface elements into a spatial computing context.
Airbnb’s redesigned icons and Apple’s Liquid Glass give that direction a visible cross-company expression. The significance is less a wholesale return to old interface styles than a renewed use of depth, translucency, and material cues to make software feel more tangible.
First-order effects
- Airbnb’s redesign changes the visual language users encounter in its app, making icons and interface treatments more dimensional.
- Apple’s Liquid Glass direction reorients its interface system around translucency and spatial depth, giving developers and users a new visual reference point.
Second-order effects
- Product-design teams at adjacent consumer apps face a clearer choice: retain flat minimalism or add depth cues without compromising clarity and consistency across screens.
- The subsequent readability complaints over Liquid Glass transparency show the practical constraint on this approach: visual richness must survive real-world legibility testing.
Third-order effects
- If major platforms keep standardizing dimensional UI, design systems may shift from static flat components toward layered, motion- and material-aware interface primitives.
- The pattern points to a post-flat design cycle in which spatial context and usability, rather than nostalgia alone, determine how much skeuomorphic detail persists; Apple’s later partial restoration of the liquid effect illustrates that calibration challenge.
The trend: Consumer software is moving toward post-flat interfaces that use depth and material cues to make increasingly spatial digital environments easier to perceive and navigate.