What Are You Lot Up To?

Unemployment for Gen Z? How about unemployment for people after 55 years old?

At the risk of oversimplifying, the "Liquid Glass" update from Apple is basically translucent buttons. How could one of the most famous design companies in the world classify this as its "broadest software design update ever," as Alan Dye, Apple’s VP of Human Interface Design, put it?

The translucence looks amazing, especially in person, but it prompted snickers from Microsoft enthusiasts who likened it to 2007's Windows Vista. At the end of the day, it's just...partially see-through buttons and menus. Like other people at the event, I politely "oohed" and "ahhed" at the demos while privately trying to piece together what was going on.

But then I figured out what this redesign is really about: Creating the optimal interface for smart glasses, which Apple is reportedly working on. It makes sense given Apple's focus on "visual intelligence," Meta's success with its Ray-Ban specs, and Google's new Android XR platform. The industry is going in this direction, and Apple wants to get a piece of it.

Liquid Glass makes it easier to stay focused on content on your iPhone, Mac, or iPad, even while accessing a menu. You can still see the gist of what's behind the menu, rather than it being completely blocked. So, it won't interrupt the experience of watching a full-screen movie, or browsing a web page quite as much as if it was a solid color. The menus also appear and disappear as you scroll, in case you want to navigate to a new web page.

When wearing a pair of glasses, the visual real estate is especially limited. The wearer will want to be able to access a menu without fearing they'll run into a tree. The translucent design makes that possible. If you look a little closer at the quote from Apple's Alan Dye, he says Liquid Glass "lays the foundation for new experiences in the future." Ah-ha.

Apple also punted on futuristic releases at this year's event, despite widespread criticism that it's falling behind in AI. Maybe it's just waiting to tie it all together at this fall's hardware event, where it'll wow us with a souped-up pair of glasses with translucent menus. Bloomberg puts mass production of Apple's smart glasses in 2026 or 2027, but Apple has been known to offer sneak peeks at products months before launch, from the Mac Pro more than a decade ago to the Vision Pro at WWDC 2023.

There's also the possibility I'm giving Apple way too much credit. Maybe Liquid Glass is just a fun redesign for existing gadgets. Apple devices are status symbols, and we like them to look pretty.

Apple may also have intentionally limited the scope of the design because it wants to prevent disrupting the experience too much for its enormous global userbase. Or, it's an overdue exercise in setting a standard design language across devices, even the Apple Watch.

More cynically, Apple might be distracting everyone from its AI mishaps. It could've done this a year ago. Why now? That brings me back to smart glasses. Liquid Glass is inspired by the design of visionOS for the Vision Pro, an impressive but pricey AR headset. Perhaps the company realizes a more clear AI future will involve a slimmer version of the Vision Pro, powered by Apple Intelligence, with a new UI that's easy on the eyes.

Ukraine's defense industry is urging the West to abandon its longtime fixation on high-end, expensive weaponry in favor of cheaper, mass-produced arms, the kind needed to survive and win a grinding war of attrition against an adversary like Russia.

Serhiy Goncharov, the CEO of the National Association of Ukrainian Defense Industries — which represents about 100 Ukrainian companies — told that the West's long-standing focus on fielding limited numbers of cutting-edge systems could be a serious disadvantage in a protracted conflict. Those systems are good to have, but mass is key.

The war in Ukraine shows that instead of a handful of ultraprecise, expensive weapons, countries need a massive supply of good enough firepower, Goncharov said.

He said the expensive weapons such as the US military's M982 Excalibur guided munition (each shell costs $100,000) "don't work" when the other side has electronic warfare systems and the kind of traditional artillery rounds that are 30 times cheaper in tremendous supply.

Goncharov pointed to the M107, a self-propelled gun that was first fielded by the US in the 1960s, as an example of inexpensive firepower that can be effective in large numbers.

"You don't need 10 Archers from the Swedish that are probably one of the best artillery systems in the world," he said, referring to the artillery system made by BAE Systems that was given to Ukraine by Sweden. Instead, you need 200 cheap howitzers, such as the Bohdana one that Ukraine makes.

The significant rate of ammo and equipment attrition in a fight such as this means a constant supply of weaponry is needed to keep fighting, especially when there isn't any guarantee the high-end weapons will be the game changers promised.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has been marked by extensive use of artillery and tremendous ammunition expenditure. The war in some ways resembles the huge, destructive battles of World War I and World War II, with high numbers of injuries and deaths and substantial equipment losses.

Russia has one of the world's largest militaries, backed by a large population. The country has repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to pursue an attritional style of warfare, committing a lot of troops and weaponry to a fight to slowly wear down its foe.

Russia's invasion has chewed through equipment. The UK Ministry of Defense said in December that Russia had lost more than 3,600 main battle tanks and almost 8,000 armored vehicles since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022.

The Russians have the mass to absorb those losses. Ukraine has struggled with weapon and ammo shortages, as well as deficiencies in manpower. Ukraine turned to small, cheap drones as an asymmetric warfare alternative; Russia has employed uncrewed systems in battle as well.

China, another concern in the West, has built a similar kind of force, one with the mass to take losses.

The West, on the other hand, has spent the past two decades and change fighting lower-level adversaries where its forces can win the day with superior capabilities.

Goncharov's warning is one that has been echoed by other Western defense officials and companies.

Countries have been keen to learn lessons about fighting Russia from the conflict in Ukraine, particularly in Europe, where many countries warn Russia could pursue further aggression in the future, and defense spending is growing rapidly.

Gabrielius Landsbergis, the former defense minister of Lithuania, a NATO ally bordering Russia, previously described the war as one of "high quantities."

He said that while the West had largely focused on new and expensive weaponry that takes a long time to manufacture, Russia had been "building something that's cheap, that's expendable, that's fast."

He said the West had "been preparing for a different kind of war" than what it would face in one against Russia, focusing on impressive equipment that is "very expensive.

Troels Lund Poulsen, the Danish defense minister, previously told BI that "one of the lessons" from Ukraine was that the West needed far greater quantities of inexpensive weaponry to meet the threats posed by Russia and China.

The head of NATO, Mark Rutte, urged countries to take similar learnings earlier this year, saying the alliance was too slow at developing weapons. He said the alliance was working toward perfect, "but it doesn't have to be perfect."

He said Ukraine would go ahead with equipment that was a "6 to 7" out of 10, while NATO militaries insisted on reaching "9 or 10."

He said it wasn't about getting rid of the expensive weaponry completely but about finding a balance: It's about "getting speed and enough quality done in the right conjunction."

Michael O'Hanlon, a senior fellow and the director of research in the foreign-policy program at the Brookings Institution, said the West's approach needed to change. The American military, for instance, is far more used to wars where "the whole point is you're not going to be slogging it out for months and years on end," he said.

But he also said that didn't mean the West needed to completely abandon the development of advanced systems. "Those things have not become unimportant just because we realized that other things are also important," he said.

The UK's armed forces minister also warned last month that the war showed the West needs to change how it procures weaponry. Luke Pollard said Ukraine's fight showed NATO "the way we have run our militaries, the way we have run our defense, is outdated."

He said NATO militaries "build and procure really expensive high-end bits of kit," adding: "It will take you five, 10 years: five years to run a procurement challenge, another 10 years to build it."

Kuldar Väärsi, the CEO of Milrem Robotics, an autonomous uncrewed ground vehicle company in the NATO ally Estonia, told BI in May that "we need to learn from Ukraine, and we need to get more pragmatic about what kind of equipment we buy."

He said Europe needed to learn that "having a hundred more simple pieces of equipment is better than having 10 very sophisticated pieces of equipment."

He said countries needed to start buying less sophisticated pieces of weaponry en masse so industry could adjust. "Industry has to manufacture what the customer is buying. And if the customer is still buying only a few very sophisticated items, then the industry just aligns with that," he said. And the reality is that may not work.