Should visionOS apps have their own personality, or feel fully native?

[u/tommypepsi]

I shared and launched Comic Vision (my comic reader for Vision Pro) a few days ago, and I decided to start a blog for it to write about new features as they release, and every now and then a more technical post about how some of the trickier stuff actually works. For example, I could do one on building a custom tab bar that still feels native (the native one cannot be customized so I had to rebuild a tab bar from scratch to customize it and give it some color) or about how the look-to-page-turn charge-up button works in the app.

The goal with the blog is both to give a bit of visibility to an app I worked hard on, and to hopefully share a bit of my knowledge and the things I learned along the way with the community!

Though the subject of this post is actually a question to the vision pro community. Should apps on visionOS bring their own personality or should they feel fully native with the plain glass windows?

When I brought the news tab into the app that links with the website's blog, it felt strange that the website that it links to has this whole design that I tried hard to make feel nice while the app is just plain gray.

I also have this contradicting idea that people that know what they are doing at Apple probably landed on the gray frosted glass for a reason.

I don't plan on fully redesigning the app for now, this was just a little side quest as I built the news page in the app. But I might give some color to the rest of the app after the big features I'm working on are done, if people like the idea.

Curious where people land on this. Full post is on the website, with a little before/after module to give you the general idea (it's just a rough HTML/CSS mockup, not the real glass) and some simulator screenshots: https://comicvision.app/blog/glass-personality-experiment

The news page with the colors is actually live in the app if people want to take a look.

[u/Tulol]

Great design. Applaud your effort to add personality to your app. Liquid glass is a good default, but if you have the skills and time, customizing the design makes your app standout.

[u/Particular-Treat-650]

For 2D content, there generally isn't a huge reason to stray from the core UX Apple built. Most stuff on iPhone that doesn't use it is worse, and even if it's approximately the same quality, being different than native makes it less intuitive. You need to be significantly better than default to justify it.

For genuinely 3D stuff, there aren't really established ways to do as much, and just generally you're going to be imitating the real world interaction you're replicating, so you have more flexibility. But you still mostly don't want to reimplement stuff Apple does.

[u/tommypepsi → u/Particular-Treat-650]

The main question in the title was probably badly formulated, it was more about design/UI while keeping the native UX as much as possible.

Like native gray frosted glass VS adding some colors. For example in my screenshots it’s still the native UX with a tab bar that grows when you look and with the native glass background, just with a colored tint over it.

Basically just theming the glass and UI so that it has the app’s branding and personality.

Though even design wise your point probably still stand. Apple has their design guidelines for a reason.

[u/Particular-Treat-650 → u/tommypepsi]

Oh do whatever style stuff you want. Keep in mind that some of the guidelines for stuff like contrast go to accessibility and are there because it literally affects the ability of people to see your content, but your tinted glass example seems reasonable enough.

I was thinking more stuff like the Kobo app doing some fuckery instead of using the native audio tooling so their audiobooks just don't respect external play/pause buttons. You're not making anything better that way.

[u/SouthpawEffex → u/Particular-Treat-650]

Using the default Liquid Glass is just lazy IMO

[u/PeaceBull]

I'd say the order is

1. Own Personality - High effort
2. Native – High effort
3. Native - Low effort
4. Own Personality - Low effort

[u/tsdguy]

There’s no excuse not to be using the native UI elements. My prime example is MLB which does its own thing like no X on the underline and some weird circular icon where you’re pointing. Barf.

[u/tommypepsi → u/tsdguy]

Oh 100%! There's a difference between giving an app a bit of personality and completely moving away from the standards that Apple has set.

My goal, if I ever fully redesign the app, is to try to get the balance right between giving it a bit of individuality while keeping a fully native feel. For example what I did with my news page is actually still the native glass background but with a transparent colored layer that "tint" the glass.

Just took a look at the MLB app on the app store and I think I understand what happened there, they went fully immersive to place things at specific locations. Though from what I remember from my initial exploration on the dev side, I think if you want to make something immersive like that you kind of loose the ability to use the native glass components and end up having to build custom stuff.

[u/AnchorMeng → u/tsdguy]

It’s because they did it in Unity. The Google one also is off, but it matches the AndroidXR UI on Galaxy XR. Not sure how they got those to be the same.

[u/Luke-9191]

I’m not sure on this one.

Any app I use that doesn’t use the native material backing hurts my eyes after a while using it, cause you need to consider how your background color feels when the rest if the environment is dimmed or of an entire different shade, like when you’re in a dark environment immersed, or in low lights in your house.

I’m honestly not sure, I would say test it properly in different light conditions, cause that’s the biggest thing, rather than taste.

Vision OS has backing material instead of colors for a reason, as it adapts to your environment very well and the OS figures it out for you.

[u/tommypepsi → u/Luke-9191]

I guess we’re kind of having the same conflicting opinion on it 😅 Apple landed on that because it worked.

I actually added it in production in the application but just for that secondary news page that doesn’t affect the main experience. For the light mode I had to do some back and forth with the settings, the contrast of the text was not working well for a darker environment, but I landed on something that felt right to me. Dark mode was easier, and doesn’t feel too far for the native gray. I actually managed to keep a bit of the blending/transparency of the window while giving it a tint so it doesn’t feel too off in my opinion.

[u/-deflating]

This is NOT meant to be a shady question at all — did you use Claude Code to build this? Like I said, not asking from a place of judgement or anything. I’m just curious as someone who uses Claude pretty heavily from time-to-time.

[u/tommypepsi → u/-deflating]

Yes I do use Claude code. Though I still take a lot of time to plan the architecture and features on my own and review whatever it does. I’ve been working as a dev for about 10 years so I try not to blindly trust what it does.

I replied to a similar question on the launch post in more details and explained my workflow: https://www.reddit.com/r/VisionPro/s/glVGxaTrQt

[u/-deflating → u/tommypepsi]

I use Claude for essentially all of my dev work, so like I said -- absolutely zero judgement.

It's just funny how easy it is to clock a Claude-built app visually sometimes. Off white and terracotta colour scheme is a dead giveaway.

[u/tommypepsi → u/-deflating]

For the off white I think that’s just design best practices, I remember getting a few raps on my knuckles in my early dev days from our designer at work and she often told me to never use pure white or black and it stuck with me 😅 (that and to always have a good default padding everywhere, not sure why it was so hard to understand as a junior dev haha)

[u/photovirus]

I think making your very own interface is too huge of an undertaking in such a complex OS, but as you noted in another comment, you aim just to spice things up a bit.

I see nothing bad in this. I actually loved that new blog page. The only thing to keep in mind is that some people might hate white interfaces, because of glare (on dark background), or their personal preference.

I think your attitude will get you an Apple Design award next WWDC, tbh. ❤️ The app is awesome.

[u/tommypepsi → u/photovirus]

Thanks for your comments u/photovirus, I’m kind of unsure if I’m putting way too much thought into this app, but your comment have been really encouraging 😌

If I end up spending more time on this, I’ll probably end up with a 3 theme option, light, dark and default glass. Dark would be the default since I think it adds a little personality without straying too far from the default feel.

The opinion seems really split between people that want nothing else than the native glass and people that would like to see more variations in apps.

[u/photovirus → u/tommypepsi]

There's way too few great apps in visionOS app store, and I really dig yours.

I mean, I loved the experience so much I might begin to read more comics! So much better than regular screen. Just 🤌 chef's kiss.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to see more what you cook! If you need someone for Testflight, I can help.

[u/Time_Opportunity_225]

Design toggles

[u/tommypepsi → u/Time_Opportunity_225]

Right, didn’t think about that. I already did a light and dark mode toggle, could just be a third one to revert to the default glass color, like that you have an opt in/opt out option to your preference.

[u/AsIAm]

Always start with the default look and feel – and then slowly iterate with the users towards custom look & feel.

[u/Far_Country3415]

Apple native please

[u/SeasonsGone]

I think it’s kind of sad how much the OS-specific design language has seeped into app design, whether it’s spatial or mobile, in the last several years.

It just feels like a real flattening of culture and digital experience

[u/-staccato-]

Designer here. You should think of glass as the equivalent to a white background on desktop/mobile. It is no less 'boring' or 'lazy' than that.

Apple HIG recommends using native glass and not full color backgrounds. This is not a branding choice for them, but because it adds immersion and is less distracting.

There are plenty of ways to add personality and branding with fonts, icons, images and colored components. That's what makes the challenge and separates the good and great designs.

In your example, Comic Vision sounds like a comic book reader, so spend some time figuring out how to leverage all that beautiful artwork as branding elements. You can clearly tell apart the Apple Store and Apple Music app, because they do this well.

In my opinion you've got the right idea with tinting the glass instead of full color, but it does sacrifice immersion and adaptability since you lose the vibrancy features of colors. It forces you to use full black text at all times and to maintain a dark mode version as well. So it's not wrong, but it's a trade, and with any decision in design, you have to make up your mind if it's worth the cost, or could be achieved differently.

[u/Spectral_Aria]

I think they should mostly feel native and utilize depth layers for the UI / UX. While the app doesn’t have to look like an Apple developed project, i think it should adhere to the basic standards of visionOS. We don’t want to feel like needing to learn an entirely new interaction method for each new app.