For me the look and feel of the UI are the things I most like in Sailfish OS. Sure it could benefit from some changes but not anything huge. Mostly there are just some inconsistencies that feel a bit awkward like I think the incoming call UI and alarm UI were supposed to be unified. Also some spacings could be adjusted to fit better for different screen sizes.
One big thing in looks of Sailfish OS is the background shader texture. There has been some discussion on the forums about some people liking it and some not. I couldn’t find much about it in this forum but at the old TJC-forum there are actually discussions about people changing it.
Shader is just a small image file located at /usr/share/themes/sailfish-default/silica/icons/graphic-shade-texture.png. By changing that to blank image the backgrounds become smooth but the glowy slides and indicators start looking kind of weird. Maybe they could somehow be changed to look more like the one in top menu which would also make the UI more consistent and more modern to someones eyes.
I actually like the look of the glass effect. Only problem I have with that is that I don’t like i drawing the white dots on dark backgrounds too. Kind of ruins the fun on Amoled screens. When I got my Xperia 10 ii I started experimenting with the shader becouse of that. The first thing I did was to just reverse the colors on white shader image. That seems to keep the look of the glowy dots and sliders the same but makes the background darker and a bit more smooth looking. Thats actually quite nice look but as I said I like the glass look on the back so I experimented with making a custom image with also only blacks but with a bit more contrast and flipped it upside down. This became the shader I used on my 10 ii as long as the phone broke.
I’ll attach some screenshots taken on my Pinephone since 10 ii is broken and currently I’m sadly running Android on 10 V while waiting for Jolla Phone.
I encourage anyone complaining about looks of the UI to try testing different things themselves. Many of these things are just image files and config files that anyone can change quite easily on their devices. Just make sure to make backups of original files before messing with them and search forums or ask on the forums if there is some specific ideas.
original
reverse colors
custom image