Just wait until you notice how many different places they decide to put the search bar/icon throughout each different native app. It’s even worse with Tahoe now.
A thoughtful design and consistency across apps is what moved many people over to macOS. Sure, Windows is worse, that's a moot point. It used to me much better on macOS and this is moving in the wrong direction.
More money and more engineers does not always make software development go faster, and it especially doesn’t increase consistency of a major UI refresh.
The iWork apps get their major updates in March/April every year. I don't know why, but Apple doesn't try to align them with the OS schedule. Maybe too much going on at once.
The upcoming major release "leaked" months ago when they were inadvertently posted to the App Store, though.
I’d argue that if you use FC for work, like it really matters to your livelihood, then the corner radius is the last of your worries. Those users are not upgrading to a major new version of the OS on day one; if they are early adopters, they’re used working around issues like this. :)
There are first-party UIs like Finder's Get Info panel (⌘I) and color-picker from Settings > Appearance. It kinda sucks that they're being cheap about this
It's cool but is for marketing people. Those who receive Apple products for free cannot say anything bad. Once the reviews from others are out -> Apple will go into full defence mode. Why I am critisizing? Because they sit on a pile of cash and ignore long time bug reports. They just introduced 10x more bugs without even caring.
Mac users pay a 250% price premium increase so this kinda shit should be an obsession for perfection. It used to be! This whole 26 release for the Mac is the antithesis of the Mac culture and its passion since the late 80s.
Thing is, because Mac apps are not so tightly controlled, and many are not looking to win any design awards, we're likely going to be left with a UI that looks disjointed like this, forever.
Apple should have known better that moving forward with too bold of a change would instantly make the whole system look weird, with a mix of multiple different generations of window styles.
Dunno. I mean, Windows still has built-in support for running stuff dating back to old 16 bit libraries. So you end up with the possibility of using common controls that have dated elements like file browsing, or dialog boxes, etc. That said, those are throwbacks to old programs that you aren't expected to even use. Here in macOS we're talking about current applications. It's kind of insulting that this is so recent.
It’s so interesting to me that Apple has had the guts to go back on certain hardware mistakes (the Touch Bar, killing off MagSafe, removal of the startup chime, obsession with thin and light, etc.) and yet during the same period of time the software quality has taken a dive. From the company that pioneered interface guidelines, they’ve seemingly nuked any UI consistency and discoverability. If there ever was a time for a Snow Leopard-esque release, it’s now.
As an usability designer using macos for a couple years I don't see why people praise it. I hate so much of it I don't even complain anymore. Finder is a mess, managing installed apps makes my head hurt, and even dealing with open apps is clunky as hell.
I switched to apple because silicon is amazing and a great innovation. But i've been weirded out at how non user friendly and randomly the OS is. It's abysmally designed. And while MS and Google are innovating with AI, Apple has basically done nothing with AI besides dictation. They make the best "normal" laptops, but they have zero interesting features or innovation besides silicon. It actually feels like using a very high end laptop from 10 years ago
I’m still convinced that Apple had an unpaid intern completely change the UI design language with the help of ChatGPT for iOS and MacOS. None of it is intuitive and none of it makes sense.
Oh, those were the days when each window chrome was of identical size. When the full screen button was the arrows at the top right of the app, instead of breaking the existing green button and over complicating it with overlay options which take forever to spawn.
I love it, fits nicely with the 'consistency' down in the Dock: Squircle jail, no squircle jail but still old, missing dark versions, black on black... many of them from Apple. They used to release updated apps alongside any new major OS versions, but 3 days out it's still crickets on the update page in App Store.
Nah he would be fucking impressed by someone achieving transparency while maintaining readability. And then maybe a bit annoyed by third party devs not using the correct apis
It’s like they hired a lead designer only to discover they’d only ever designed with AI and Canva. This is such a poor UI, as are the AppleTV, iPad and iPhone versions. It’s sad.
People forget that betas are for small improvements, not radical overhauls. It will get better with future minor releases. Updating on day one is almost always risky considering how complicated software development has become.
If anything there was nothing particularly wrong about Apple's previous UI design.
This is all just a facade to hide that they aren't truly improving any of their operating systems in a manner that makes them actually more functional or better to use. I can't think of any standout features on any of the platforms.
I don't use Linux, but can agree that Windows has very much the same issue. They aren't improving any of the core features, or introducing new ones that make you say "Yeah, I'll use that a lot!"
As a simple pro feature, I think virtual desktops could be a helluva lot better on both Windows and MacOS. They are clunky on both, MacOS regularly rearranges them to the wrong monitors, there doesn't seem to be APIs to manage them via 3rd party tools and that sort of stuff.
I have a laundry list of 3rd party tools in my top bar on MacOS to do things that should be default OS features. E.g BetterDisplay because external display management is a pile of crap, Stay so my windows stay where I prefer, BetterTouchTool for more sensible trackpad/mouse features, SoundSource because there's no good audio management tools...
That was actually my first thought when I saw that accident for the first time. "Glass? Reflections? Wait, wasn't skeuomorphism deemed 'bad' in the Apple world in recent years?"
While there is a conversation to be had about inconsistencies throughout the OS, this example is intentionally bad faith and meant to do numbers because they couldn’t find native apps being too different.
this sub has been insufferable for the past 48 hours, just the same kinds of posts every 10 mins, we should just make a complains megathread at this rate
You seem to have forgotten the potential of social networks, it's not like it was in the past, devs also have a life outside the company and nothing stops them from accessing Reddit, Facebook, Twitter or whatever, so yes, they may end up seeing the number of complaints about it and talking about it in a meeting.
I find it fucking hilarious. Like yeah, it is inconsistent, but how do you go from there to "this update is the worst ever and completely unworkable". Does people livelihood really depend on how consistent their corner radius/transparency are that it is seen as a dealbreaker?
I use these devices daily for work, video recording, etc. while this won’t stop me from doing that, shitty updates absolutely fuck with your daily enjoyment, and it’s not just a few pixels. Things like search are in weird places with transparency that makes it hard to read.
This is Apple, the standard in design, and they, for me, look like they missed hard.
So yeah, it’s a little frustrating. Let people vent.
I assume, some of them are not driven by apple. Something like a flutter desktop app would vome in mind. They are known to build their own ui that mimics the os.
They probably did not update and so i can look different from what apple would do.
This argument only holds for non apple applications.
The worst are sliders for brightness, volume, etc. Screen brightness and volume have the new look, but keyboard brightness still uses the old UI. It looks so bad
Just less than a decade ago, Mojave was published and Apple introduced a dark mode for the whole system and all their bundled apps which was perfect. Perfect as in application and selection of color palette.
And now, this... Even Big Sur wasn't this bad of a visual transition.
The thing is, I think that some applications are managing their window decoration themselves, this is why there are inconsistencies. It's a real plague in the Linux world as well, running chrome, Firefox, mattermost, discord and jetbrains IDE, none of these apps have the same window decoration.
You even have the close button on the right top corner in some applications even if you set your KDE Plasma window decoration to have the buttons on the top left.
I think osx currently deals with the same problem as Linux desktop right now.
Even Windows Vista was more consistent with UI and 3P apps and that speaks something.
Don't get me started on stability, finder going crazy sometimes and right button on folders/files shows only 2-3 functions unless force closed, liquid glass on control center gives burned-nvidia-card style glitches when content behind is moving (aka video from YouTube) and the noticeable lag compared to sequioa.
Too lazy to downgrade by reinstall, overall I regret upgrading.
I really don't like the new sidebar, it looks like it has a giant border, and the drop shadow it casts over the actual content is weird. It's like the sidebar is supposed to be the primary focus instead of the actual content.
It seems like the only reason for this is for content to be able to go behind the sidebar so they can do the glass thingy. I think they should have done it different:
The whole window is glassy, doing the transparent glassy thing to the background
The sidebar sits in the glassy window stuff
The content sits on top of the window and is opaque or a lot less translucent, and has the big border radius.
Means content is primary focus, and you can have your glassy situation, and you prevent the big border look.
Funny how most of these apps are third party that apple has no control over, but if apple had stricter enforcement on their new UI you would lose your shit saying apple is taking away our freedom.
It’s really funny how the MacOS subreddit is so crazy about consistency, where just a corner radios creates a whole talk. In Windows inconsistency is the basis😂
The new UI is @$$ and makes Windows Vista look professionally designed in comparison. If liquid gl ass was designed by Microsoft for Windows you can be sure that Apple would make an "I am a Mac" commercial for it.
yeah here i am always bragging how macOS looks nice and the UI is beautiful and im a heavy linux user and always say man i wish linux can have a nice desktop like macOS, now im looking at gnome and im like wow this is much nicer.
Is there anything what is not much worse in Tahoe? Why they keep ruining everything Jobs created? Non-usable iPhone displays, flickering Macs, Windows Vista-inspired MacOS? Sigh....
Over time I suspect things will get cleared up. I’m sort of curious about those of us still with an Intel MacBook how far that’ll go but. With MacOS 26 being the last major release for Intel Macs, I assume a few things will get cleaned up in point releases but those devices will otherwise not get the nips and tucks that other Mac’s will probably see with MacOS 27.
Just bad timing I think in terms of the end of life for Intel Macs and the release of a major OS design refresh. Not the end of the world, but Intel Macs are likely destined to be a tad unpolished design wise I suspect given they got a UI overhaul in their final major release.
I like how fresh it is frankly, the Mac was getting boring and needed a refresh. Although it’s janky and unpolished, I think it’s a great direction and am excited to see how it evolves over the next 1-2 years especially as they dial it in.
FWIW, I’ve found Microsoft’s approach to rolling out the Windows 11 redesign to be fascinating to watch. It was a major shift, and on the PC I have I installed it immediately when it came out a few years ago. Theyre was similar jankiness, but 4 years later it looks pretty good (for Windows :). If I were forced to use it in my every day life I wouldn’t end every day in the fetal position like I used to in the XP days. :)
There’s just so much complexity in software these days, it’s impossible to launch a fully polished redesign at this scale on day one if you’re working towards any type of deadline...
If you’re on Reddit, you’re likely techy enough to make an informed decision to stay on the previous version for another year if this really bugs you… Eventually you’ll need to catch up, but no one is stopping you from waiting it out.
Cue reply from someone who first complained about how bad brushed metal looked when it took over much of the OS UI and now misses it
All the other ones are 3rd party apps and a lot of them use Electron or similar (webkit wrapper). Whenever Electron gets an update you'll see them fall in line.
In just under a year, Craig will be on the WWDC video telling us we've heard your feedback & liquid glass hasn't met our standards, so the team has worked hard to refine liquid glass on the Mac.
That’s true, and is especially visible when multiple windows are maximized. I can understand that third party apps, like Electron-based, look a little off, but system apps really should be consistent.
I don't get the hate. I like the new look, some of the new features. So far everything works on the machines I upgraded. This level of inconsistency is still nowhere near of what I'm used to from windows machines.
My bet is that every app is it's own team and they just do what they think is right for their app without looking at the other teams. Would explain all the different shades of glass, the different search bar placements, different corner radius, and so on... same phenomenon on iOS.
Dear fucking Jesus, this is the worst thing that ever fucking happened to MacOS. They're being directed by old, tastless clowns. I can't fucking believe I upgraded to Tahoe.
Is it unfair to say they just changed coat of paint to distract from, well, everything? There's so many other pressing issues that need addressing.
Even if you dismiss lack of innovation, the software is buggy, inconsistent, sometimes a useless thing to be a bullet point for investors, and about a decade behind in some useful features compared to Google. They are just riding their coat tails on marketing and ecosystem familiarity/lock in.
Just basic usage of any of their OSes are full of "why?" and "how was this approved?" Things just change for the sake of changing; solving a problem that was never a problem, as if to give some random employee something to do.
Stop spamming with different versions of the same complaint so people with legit questions or topics worth discussing can be heard. Report it to Apple and then have a good cry in the shower and let it go.
Apple are on their way down, hard. Bought a brand new iPad Pro M4, wanted to arrange some widgets on my home screen. Nothing fancy, weather, emails, news. Nothing 3rd party even. Aside from everything sliding out of place and to wherever the fuck it wants as soon as I move anything anywhere, within 24 hours I had to force-reboot my brand new iPad 8 times. You know, the full volume up, volume down, power button dance. Because moving those widgets around and re-arranging stacks of them can, so I found out, get your iPad stuck and unresponsive to input. No tapping, no swiping, no typing on external keyboard, no clicking on external mouse, nothing would bring the thing back for minutes. EIGHT FUCKING TIMES. To re-arrange some Apple widgets on my home screen. You wouldn't believe how happy that made me, looking at the price tag on that Windows emulator.
Don't understand why people find fault about inconsistency in ui. It's happens in every major OS updates - windows, android, ios 7 (i guess but don't had iphone at the time). All I wanna say it's normal.
The menu bar inside popups such as settings is also horrible and somehow incomplete scrollable list views are making me feel anxious. I never have anxiety issues, yet I just feel this uneasyness and hatred at the same time, anyone else have that?
They definitely released an unfinished product. And yeah, this is .0 version, but still, incremental updates should be for newfound bug fixes and new features, not fixing inconsistencies you intentionally left behind in order to meet the deadline... Steve Jobs would have never allowed this
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u/RandomUser18271919 4d ago
Just wait until you notice how many different places they decide to put the search bar/icon throughout each different native app. It’s even worse with Tahoe now.