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Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

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Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#151

This looks tailor made to be hard to recreate easily in CSS. Which is just going to make people try even harder.

Similar thing happened in iOS7(?) where they released glassy panels. Not far from that `-webkit-backdrop-filter` was added that allowed similar effect, I expect similar will happen. For new glassy effect it seems you need a separate filter for border, or maybe it's just gradient + blend mode.

The lighting is depending on the devices' orientation to which a web site running in safari on iOS has no access to due to fingerprinting protection. Maybe you need to request permissions to the gyroscope, but doing that for a reflection in the UI is a bit overkill.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#152
post #54

This feels suspiciously like the goals of Microsoft's "Metro" design from the Windows 8 era. It will be interesting to see if Apple can do a better job of keeping the same design without damaging the desktop experience than Microsoft did.

Metro on phones worked so well but MS failed to translate it to desktops. As for the second part, Apple does a remarkable job at updating all of the OS to a new design language. Unlike Windows, which last time I used it, had three different settings panels and UI controls resembling archaeological layers going back to pre XP.

You can still get the Windows 3/NT 3.5 directory picker if you dig around enough.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#153
post #57
post #54

This feels suspiciously like the goals of Microsoft's "Metro" design from the Windows 8 era. It will be interesting to see if Apple can do a better job of keeping the same design without damaging the desktop experience than Microsoft did.

Definitely in the minority here but I liked Metro, I always felt it was just a decade ahead of it's time (as was Windows 8 generally)

The esthetic wasn't bad, the problem is that it was a massive reduction in functionality. For example, the fact that Metro apps included on windows could only be use in fullscreen mode and only one copy of it could be used at the same time. The new Metro settings they included to replace the ones from the control panel had only like 10% of the functionality of the old one and they actively tried to prevent you from finding the old one. The content density was significantly lower and dialogbox/dropdownmenus couldn't be resized to display more items (eg. list of keyboard layouts that can only display 3 items at the same time)

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#154
post #60

Every Electron app is going to feel incredibly out of place. And for the few that aren’t okay with feeling out of place, the devs of those apps will now have to contend with shipping more macOS specific styles and workarounds. I’m not looking to discuss Electron performance/etc so please ditch that discussion before it starts. I just find it interesting how comparatively tricky this particular UI styling might end up…

Ever since the death of WinForms and Cocoa we've moved away from apps having a unified visual experience on an OS to apps pushing their own consistent theme across platforms. A big contrast between app and OS theme in recent times was when apps offered Dark Mode before it became an OS wide setting.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#155

We have these brilliant high resolution displays, and these powerful, energy efficient GPUs that are always running and compositing frames like a game engine 120 times a second. It's about time we start seeing more physicality in our user interfaces! We can make things look convincingly like glass, or metal, or even materials that don't exist in reality. One reason for flat design is because it was the lowest common…

so what you're saying is that we need to resurrect skeuomorphism?

I would be happy with that. After years of using iOS with the current design it still takes me a few moments before I’ve found the Photos app with its meaningless icon that looks way too much like some other icons.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#156

> iOS 26, iPadOS 26, macOS Tahoe 26, watchOS 26, and tvOS 26 Bumping from iOS 18 / macOS 15 etc. towards year-based naming, nice. I wish more projects followed this.

I liked it too with Windows 95, Windows 98 etc. Not sure why Microsoft dropped it tbh!

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#157

We have these brilliant high resolution displays, and these powerful, energy efficient GPUs that are always running and compositing frames like a game engine 120 times a second. It's about time we start seeing more physicality in our user interfaces! We can make things look convincingly like glass, or metal, or even materials that don't exist in reality. One reason for flat design is because it was the lowest common…

Just because we can doesn't mean we should. Using this new design language as an example, things are now harder to read, identify, and understand. That's a huge loss to productivity and ease of use.

Agreed. That should be the focus of any user interface.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#158

It looks cool, but I'm worried about readability on the phone. The text in some of those menu bars and notifications really blended in with the wallpaper in a few of those screenshots.

Can’t wait to be told, “You’re viewing it wrong.” /s

But yes, terrible visual usability. Otherwise it looks nice, better than flat.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#160

We have these brilliant high resolution displays, and these powerful, energy efficient GPUs that are always running and compositing frames like a game engine 120 times a second. It's about time we start seeing more physicality in our user interfaces! We can make things look convincingly like glass, or metal, or even materials that don't exist in reality. One reason for flat design is because it was the lowest common…

> It's about time we start seeing more physicality in our user interfaces!

It's actually quite resource intensive to have translucency, in many implementations across the web and mobile.

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