In this week’s “Sunday Reboot,” Liquid Glass gets an award, Tim Cook heads to China once again, and a wish for HomeKit to be more cat-friendly.

Sunday Reboot is a weekly column covering some of the lighter stories within the Apple reality distortion field from the past seven days. All to get the next week underway with a good first step.

This week, Apple’s ambitions to expand its F1 coverage got knocked back, hackers attacked supply chain partner Foxconn, and AI has managed to break Apple’s security in new ways.

Appreciation for Liquid Glass

Since its introduction, Liquid Glass has been widely criticized for not being good enough for the perfection-seeking average user. It was an aesthetic that led to complaints that it was too transparent, or when it wasn’t transparent, that it wasn’t transparent enough.

It was a change that you either liked or hated, and that Apple worked to try and make people like.

Liquid Glass in iOS 26 – Image Credit: Apple

This is in part due to Apple having invested so much time in the design. So much so that you can expect it to hang around in the iOS 27 and macOS 27 generation, and be enhanced further.

While its user base has seemingly underappreciated Liquid Glass, it still got its dues from the experts. It received a Gold Cube honor at the 2026 Art Directors Club of New York Awards.

At a minimum, it means judges who know about the hard work and thinking that goes into design acknowledge what Apple has done. Even if there is a vocal contingent who dislike it.

No, it wasn’t the only thing Apple got a Gold Cube for, as it was honored for its Apple TV rebrand and a couple of ads too. But Liquid Glass getting a gong is a big thing for something that everyone complained about since the outset.

After a year of living with it, Apple’s reached a good place with the UI. As a modern interface, it’s an aesthetic that I can certainly live with, without much complaining.

When WWDC hits in June, Apple will certainly be making more changes, but it’s got a decent base to work from. Just hope it doesn’t go too nuts with it.

Tim Cook in China, once again

Current Apple CEO Tim Cook is enjoying his last few months in the hot seat, in preparation for the John Ternus era. While he can take his victory lap with ease, Cook is still the top man at the company for the moment, and so is still being called upon to do his CEO thing.

The latest is a headline that we have heard quite a few times before: Tim Cook has gone to China.

President Donald Trump and Apple CEO Tim Cook at a previous meeting

We’re all familiar with Apple executives visiting Asia for various reasons, and Cook has done so quite a few times already. He’s visited stores, talked to developers, and even took part in the recent anniversary celebrations there.

This time, it’s somewhat different. He’s gone there with a bunch of executives from other companies, as part of a group following U.S. President Donald Trump to the country.

Trump’s trip is one about trade, a hot topic that he wants to talk to Chinese President Xi Jinping about. Naturally, Trump needed to bring over a bunch of CEOS to emphasize the point of America being serious about business.

Cook’s travel on a US-sanctioned package holiday is still of benefit to Apple, despite really being more to support Trump’s high-level discussion. He has spent years building a working relationship with Trump to Apple’s considerable advantage.

At the very least, it will be a way to pacify Trump as Cook shifts from CEO to Executive Chairman in the fall. Cook will still be around, dealing with the political side of Apple on behalf of Ternus, who simply doesn’t have a history with Trump at all.

The Trump trip wouldn’t have been that productive for Cook at the time, but it’s one to help maintain a relationship for Apple’s future. At least while Trump is in charge.

Cat business and the need for HomeKit to adapt

As an Apple-focused site, it won’t surprise anyone that our team uses HomeKit and the Apple Home in various ways. We also know that cats rule the Internet, so if there’s an excuse to talk at length and to put photos of them up, we’ll take it.

On Friday, the two topics combined in a piece discussing the various ways one AppleInsider writer uses HomeKit with his collection of fluffy mischief missiles.

However, as usual, HomeKit is not playing that big a part here compared to what it could be doing. There’s some elements that can be HomeKit-powered, like cameras for monitoring and sensors for gates, but not the specialized stuff.

In Wesley’s case, that consisted of two product categories. One is an automatic pet feeder and the other is an automatic litter box.

Wesley’s cat Harvie handling business in the Litter-Robot 5.

While I can’t talk much about the feeder, I can certainly enthuse about the benefits of an automatically-cleaning cat toilet. With four cats of my own, it’s something that makes the air clearer and the process of ejecting used litter considerably easier, as I have mentioned before.

That said, these sorts of products are not directly supported by HomeKit at all. There’s no specific product category for a cat toilet, so we are stuck relying on a companion app.

My wish is for Apple to open up HomeKit in WWDC to allow manufacturers to specify the controls and sensors that HomeKit can access on their hardware. To me, this does obviously mean enabling some functions for automatic litter boxes and other devices in HomeKit.

The hope is that hardware could be added to HomeKit regardless of whether there is existing support for particular product categories. Sure, Apple could more firmly define what is permissible to do with a litterbox in HomeKit in the future, but I just want to be able to have a “Clean it now” button in HomeKit.

Sure, I wouldn’t mind having the hall light flashing red if the litter box is “full” and needs cleaning. But really, just having the ability to put the basic controls into HomeKit at all would be great.

Last week’s Sunday Reboot discussed Apple’s chip troubles, trademarking oranges, and “Schmigadoon!” going fantastically in its life after Apple TV.