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macOS Big Sur Preview

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Re: macOS Big Sur Preview

#281

Post by messe »

hollandheese wrote: post #47
kjakm wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> But I absolutely despise them for making iOS apps installable on macOS. That’s... just terrible. Don't use them then? Seems like a useful feature to me for certain utility apps that don't require a proper Mac app/can't afford to develop one.

Might not have a choice. When OS/2 added Windows app support it killed actual OS/2 apps. Why bother supporting the Mac when you could just make an iPad app and get both markets at once.

I think that's the real purpose of Apple introducing catalyst way before this announcement. To make it easier to enhance iPad apps to take full advantage of macOS.

Re: macOS Big Sur Preview

#282

Post by dijit »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #196
protonimitate wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Touch Bar is honestly by least favorite aspect of anything Apple has done in recent memory. My touch bar had dead pixels (twice), effectively wiping out half the function keys. And when it did work, it was hard to use. I've been using my MBP as a desktop for the past 8+ months, and while it's slightly better experience, it still sucks that I'm stuck having to buy 3 USB adapters just to make it usable.

I will say I really like the lock button and the touch ID integration. I hate the lack of physical escape key (especially for vim); however, they are fixing that on many (most? all?) new models. Mostly I'm pretty meh about the touch bar. Not sure how much cost it's adding, but I'd probably rather they reduce the cost.

FWIW, escape is actually slower (both in movement speed and in actual invokation) than ^[.

lit: `CTRL+[`

I know habits die hard, and "you're holding it wrong" is not a valid excuse- and I know that I also dislike massively not having an escape key.

But for vim specifically; there is an escape sequence and the escape key is an alternative method for that. (similar to how the arrows "work" but hjkl is the "real" way of moving).

Re: macOS Big Sur Preview

#283

Post by Spivak »

wtallis wrote: post #150
dave5104 wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I missed it, but did they say they're requiring Mac apps to start standardizing design? If not, then I see no reason why the default OS apps that come pre-installed shouldn't look and feel the same.

> then I see no reason why the default OS apps that come pre-installed shouldn't look and feel the same. The same as each other , or the same as their mobile touchscreen counterparts?

I mean I think they should look the same. If you look at iOS and macOS apps side they should look like they belong to the same family of products and use the same design language.

But they should behave different to take advantage of different devices strengths and limitations. Spotify does a pretty okay job at this.

Re: macOS Big Sur Preview

#284

Post by freetonik »

heavyset_go wrote: post #136
AnonC wrote: post #34

The UI and UX seem to be getting worse on macOS with the “iOSification” of the OS. I thought Jony Ive’s exit would stop that trend. It’ll be interesting to read perspectives from John Gruber, M J Tsai, Marco Arment, etc. I still haven’t upgraded from Mojave to Catalina because of serious bugs reported by other people (including data loss issues in Mail). I’ll see if Big Sur shows improvements (reported by others) and…

Catalina was the primary motivator to move back to Linux for myself, and I don't regret it. If you care about things like this, you can configure Plasma Desktop with macOS features and shortcuts and end up feeling right at home.

Currently contemplating the switch as well. Any recommendations about making the keyboard shortcuts as similar to macOS as possible? I'll be using my MBP, and after years of muscle memory, it'd be nice if I could continue using CMD as the primary modifier key for all things: clipboard, navigation, etc. I know you can configure everything, but maybe there's some easy patch or pre-configured plugin for KDE?

Re: macOS Big Sur Preview

#285

Post by tamarok »

WA9ACE wrote: post #96
frou_dh wrote: post #25

I'm wondering if this is the release where OpenGL goes from deprecated to fully removed. Presumably Apple didn't want to write OpenGL drivers (full, not ES) for their in-house GPUs.

I wonder how this will affect java minecraft on the mac. Does LWJGL have a Metal backend?

LWJGL does appear to support Metal via BGFX. I would be curious to see how to patch the library to use this.

The other question I would have is how this behaves with shaders, such as BSL?

Links:

  - https://github.com/LWJGL/lwjgl3/blob/master/doc/notes/3.1.0.md
  - https://github.com/bkaradzic/bgfx

Re: macOS Big Sur Preview

#287

Post by Keloran »

MikeKusold wrote: post #273
philjohn wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this answer is "buy something else to make your life eaiser" but hear me out - either a USB-C monitor, or a thunderbolt dock. I got a USB-C monitor last time I upgraded (LG 27" 4K) and having a single cable to plug in, which not only carries the display signal, but also charges my MBP, AND carries the USB signal so that I can plug wired keyboard and anything else into the hub in the monitor still feels ridicul…

Any recommendations on a TB3 dock? I recently searched for one, and none of the top rated ones can support a 16" MBP power requirements. One of the manufacturers even went as far as saying "How often do you really use your CPU/GPU at 100%?"[0] Dell and HP have higher powered docks, but there are many conflicting reports on if it can deliver 96W to non-dell/hp laptops. TB3/USB-C is a giant mess that is too confusing f…

Personally I find the razer core x chroma really good

It’s a hub secondary, and an egpu primarily, but it works fine to power my

Personal 2019 mbp 13 (1.7 i7, 16gb)

Personal Lenovo s740

Work 2019 mbp 16 (2.8 i7, 16gb)

Re: macOS Big Sur Preview

#288

Post by ptx »

AlanYx wrote: post #123
addicted wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The XCode icon seems to have the hammer sticking out a bit. So maybe there is still room for custom shapes.

They address that in the new macOS 11 HIG [1], indicating that protrusions from the square look "to combine depictions of the physical objects that best convey the app’s core purpose" are acceptable. TextEdit, Preview and Xcode all have elements sticking out a bit. [1]: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline... That said, I still think overall it's a loss in terms of usability. (I find that with…

Perhaps they were inspired by qBittorrent, where the toolbar icons are all indistinguishable aqua blobs: https://a.fsdn.com/con/app/proj/qbittorrent/screenshots/2416...

Re: macOS Big Sur Preview

#289

Post by saiojd »

rurp wrote: post #272
saiojd wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People on this site always comment negatively on literally anything related to UI except if it looks like it was made in the 90s. Absolutely zero sense of perspective or open-mindedness.

I don't think this is a very charitable take. Many people, myself included, consider change for the sake of change a cost, not a benefit. The less I think about my keyboard layout or system UI widgets the better. I can see why someone might like the novelty of those changing but for me they are just a means to an end. Any time I spend hunting around menus that have changed or fiddling with a novel keyboard means less…

I'll concede that it's not charitable but if anything I think UI needs to change more, and in ways which aren't superficial like switching icons. Compare this to Mac OS 9, is it really that different? Have we really not figured out anything better? For instance, we should not have to search through menus to find what we want. Every app should support something like Blender's operator search (like the Help > Search feature but generalized to every command, not just the menu bar). Instead of discussing stuff that matter people complain about the appearance of things.

Re: macOS Big Sur Preview

#290

Post by reaperducer »

wvenable wrote: post #237
untog wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it need to be compared to any OS? One of the reasons I switched to Mac was the OS X was far more stable than Windows. I still want a stable OS.

> OS X was far more stable than Windows. I'm not sure that was ever true but certainly hasn't been true for over a decade. Neither OS is fully stable (how ever you might define that) and neither OS is a terrible unstable mess either.

I'm not sure that was ever true

I am. Absolutely sure. Stability was the reason I switched to Macintosh two decades ago. I've had to run Windows boxes for work at the same time, and with the exception of the most recent few years, Macs have been 100% more stable than Windows.

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