While the fanfare of Apple's WWDC announcements are always exciting, there's something to be said for the subsequent days, which fans and designers alike invariably spend poring over every pixel of the new iPhone, iPad and Mac software. While 2025's splashy (and glassy) redesign has turned heads, it's the little things that tend to get people truly riled up – and nothing triggers designers more than corner radiuses.
As well as introducing a new transparent design language, iOS 26, iPadOS 26 and MacOS Tahoe 26 feature much rounder corners. This is particularly apparent on the Mac software, with its many windows. And for some, the whole thing just looks... off.
The ratio of inner and outer curved corner radiuses has been the subject of much theorising and debate for years, and by now it's pretty commonly accepted that simply using the same ratio results in an unsightly bump, as the below illustration explains.
quick tip for nested radii → your corners will look a lot better if you set the outer radius to the sum of the inner radius + padding pic.twitter.com/oh9ABFSuQ1August 5, 2023
But it seems Apple's new rounded corners are not only strangely matched to the edges of it displays, but there appears to be little logic to corners across the entire operating systems. The beta release of macOS Tahoe in particular is a chaotic playground of inconsistent corner radiuses that most users might not notice, but designers are definitely triggered by.
What do you think of the HUGE round corners apps will appear to have in Tahoe? from r/macapps
For the love of god don’t use the large icons on iOS 26 until they fix this corner radius pic.twitter.com/l9qP9b4OXGJune 10, 2025
This is killing me. #WWDC25 pic.twitter.com/UBuBkjxXeoJune 9, 2025
To illustrate the madness... pic.twitter.com/tzFzBAFE3XJune 9, 2025
It's not just the inconsistency of the borders that's hurting designers' feelings, but the overall increased roundness is, some feel, coming across "like the UI is made for kids". Of course, these are only the first beta versions, so Apple has plenty of time to make fixes. But combine this with that new Finder icon and the polarising transparent design language, and it's clear that Apple is trying to "think different" with its software design in 2025. It'll be interesting to see which bold choices it clings to over the coming months, and which get walked back, or at the very least finessed.
