Microsoft mocks macOS 26 Liquid Design with Windows Aero throwback (Windows Vista)
"Just gonna leave this here," says Microsoft in a new Instagram post while taking a jibe at Apple for discovering Windows Vista. The post Microsoft mocks macOS 26 Liquid Design with Windows Aero throwback (Windows Vista) appeared first on Windows Latest
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“Just gonna leave this here,” says Microsoft in a new Instagram post while taking a jibe at Apple for discovering Windows Vista’s Aero design in 2025 with macOS 26.
At WWDC 2025, Apple announced the “Liquid Glass” design language, which is similar to not only Windows Vista’s Aero glass (announced in 2006), but also Windows Fluent Design System (announced in 2015 with Windows 10). In Apple’s own words, Liquid Glass…. is “translucent” design that behaves like a glass in the real world.
The internet is mocking Apple for recreating Windows Vista in 2025, and Microsoft is also not sitting back quietly. Microsoft, which typically avoids taking a jump on its rival’s announcements, has responded to Apple’s new Liquid Glass design on its Instagram account with the following video:
The “Just gonna leave this here” video has hashtags like “WindowsAero” and plays a soothing nostalgic Windows music.
This video is a trip back to the early 2000s, when Microsoft shipped Windows Vista with the iconic “Aero Glass” effect, where window borders are translucent and glassy, so you could see desktop wallpaper behind them.
Like macOS 26, Windows Vista also applied translucent effects to all pages, windows and OS features, including the Start menu, taskbar and apps.
Apple says visionOS (an OS for the company’s overpriced glasses) inspired it to craft a new “Liquid Design” for all its products. Liquid Glass design is now possible because of the company’s advances in graphics and hardware, especially the new powerful ARM silicon chips.
“The new material, Liquid Glass, is translucent and behaves like glass in the real world,” Apple says. “Its color is informed by surrounding content and intelligently adapts between light and dark environments.”
But when you closely look at macOS 26’s design language and compare it with that of Windows Vista’s Aero, you’d notice striking similarities.
I already made a post comparing the two operating systems, and as I mentioned there, I’m not saying Apple copied Windows with Liquid Glass, but it’s quite obvious that Microsoft pulled that off two decades ago.
Do people still believe Apple is the same “innovator”? I personally don’t, and I wouldn’t call Apple’s Liquid Design a meaningful or significant upgrade. It’s far from “innovation.”
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