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What’s New in macOS Big Sur: Human Interface Guidelines

developer.apple.com

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Re: What’s New in macOS Big Sur: Human Interface Guidelines

#21
post #2

Wait macOS 11, not 10.16. I assume this is a breaking change then?

It could be they are moving to the major version number being the one that is now incremented in each major release, in line with iPadOS and all the apple OSs. Eg. it will be iPadOS 14, not 10.14.

Re: What’s New in macOS Big Sur: Human Interface Guidelines

#23
post #13

Virtually all of these changes reduce contrast and differentiation between controls while simultaneously decreasing information density. All bad news for people who work on their computers for a living.

I like borders on my buttons to know what is a button and what isn't, this feels.. backwards...

So much has to be inferred from the way things used to be, makes it harder to argue that it's the "simpler" operating system designed for Humans with a keen eye on UX design..

FWIW I also think the flat UI on iPhone (which has been prevelant for >6y now) is a horror show.

Steve Jobs famously once said (while working at NeXt): "There are two kinds of people at Apple: Those that want to push computing forward, and those that want to be the Sony of computers.. and the Sony guys are winning"

Re: What’s New in macOS Big Sur: Human Interface Guidelines

#24
post #18

I have to be honest and go completely against the crowd here - but I think the UI updates are very good. They make the two OSes look cohesive but in a tasteful way. The extra padding in all of the UI is the only thing that I chafe at a little bit, it feels unnecessary. I really don't think they're going to put out touch screen Macs. So I'm not sure what there is to get upset about. I don't see any big functional chan…

>Apple knows that a large percentage of the people who buy its computers are software engineers

I suspect a large percentage of software engineers buy their computers, but I'm skeptical at the assertion that a large percentage of people who buy their computers are software engineers.

Re: What’s New in macOS Big Sur: Human Interface Guidelines

#29
post #18

I have to be honest and go completely against the crowd here - but I think the UI updates are very good. They make the two OSes look cohesive but in a tasteful way. The extra padding in all of the UI is the only thing that I chafe at a little bit, it feels unnecessary. I really don't think they're going to put out touch screen Macs. So I'm not sure what there is to get upset about. I don't see any big functional chan…

I agree, I think the new UI looks great.

People are taking the UI / ARM change as apple taking away more control, but macOS is THE development platform of the entire apple ecosystem.

So yeah, the ecosystem may be tighter knitted, but they sure as hell will not lock down macOS like they do iOS, they have so many mac users who are developers and apple are absolutely aware of that.

People complain about features in catalina and other recent versions of macOS 'locking things down' - it's incredibly easy to bypass the stuff that makes a difference using the terminal.

In a world where every company in the world wants to track and harvest your data, we've somehow got to the point where people bash apple for actually taking privacy and security seriously.

Re: What’s New in macOS Big Sur: Human Interface Guidelines

#30
post #19

The integration of tall title bars with toolbars is really reminding me of Gnome 3 here.

Yep, getting real gnome 3 vibes from it. Compare their mailing app image to geary[1]. Even though they're browner I kind of prefer gnome's toolbar because they're more obviously interactive. I guess it's not such a big problem is you use iOS maybe, but I don't.

https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Geary

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