It's hard to justify Tahoe icons • Hacker News Board

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#111

Post by tonyedgecombe » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 1:02 PM UTC

Zealotux wrote: post #81

Tahoe and Liquid Glass™ solidified for me the idea that Apple completely dropped the ball when it comes to design. Clearly they needed an a-hole in charge, Jobs would've crucified a few people. It's painful to see the decay, update after update, into a more confusing, cluttered, and tacky experience.

>Jobs would've crucified a few people

Jobs liked to talk this side of the business up because creatives were the substantial part of the business. Now they sell to everybody it doesn't matter so much. The average person won't even notice the complaints in the original article. They aren't sensitive to it in the way that creative people are.

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#112

Post by gingersnap » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 1:02 PM UTC

A few days ago there was a post on year of the Linux desktop due to Windows getting worse. The sense is that MacOS isn't degrading as fast, but it still also is looking its lead to linux in usability.

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#113

Post by quietsegfault » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 1:03 PM UTC

Most of the people I work with use Macs and never talk about the UI being good or bad. And boy, do we talk about insignificant crap that pisses us off. They just don’t care about menu icon alignment or whether the design follows 1992 guidelines.

This thread feels like classic HN bikeshedding. The article itself is nearly 5,000 words about menu icons. Menu icons! Yes, the inconsistencies exist. Yes, they could be better. But the level of outrage here doesn’t match reality. People are acting like Apple has completely lost their way over… inconsistent icon styling in dropdown menus that most users don’t even notice.

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#114

Post by meyum33 » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 1:03 PM UTC

Over the years it feels like Federighi’s pleasantness and enthusiasm in those fun videos just don’t translate into the work he oversees. The software mostly work fine but they don’t make me feel “aha” or “this is how it should be done” anymore.

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#115

Post by rane » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 1:03 PM UTC

flumpcakes wrote: post #65

It seems like Apple's hardware design is universally loved with much acclaim, why is their software getting progressively worse? It's not Microsoft-add-all-the-bloatware-and-adverts-we-can worse, but it's 20-year-old-operating-systems-were-better-designed worse. We're getting to a point where I think Linux windowing systems like KDE are better designed. And it seems that all they had to do was not change much over th…

Hardware improvements are easier to quantify and progress naturally comes in incremental steps.

Software however especially from UX point of view, is more likely to be more or less ready at some point. Any improvements are marginal and subjective. What are the large UX teams at Apple going to do if not redesigns for the sake of redesigning? I wish it would happen, but it’s hard to imagine Apple shipping an annual OS release without noticeable visual changes.

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#116

Post by whynotmaybe » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 1:03 PM UTC

flumpcakes wrote: post #65

It seems like Apple's hardware design is universally loved with much acclaim, why is their software getting progressively worse? It's not Microsoft-add-all-the-bloatware-and-adverts-we-can worse, but it's 20-year-old-operating-systems-were-better-designed worse. We're getting to a point where I think Linux windowing systems like KDE are better designed. And it seems that all they had to do was not change much over th…

I'm feeling they're veering towards a "common ui" where every action is an icon like on a phone where every app is an icon.

Maybe someday they'll completely remove the text to just keep the icons like the Office ribbon did, and I'm still confused with it.

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#117

Post by afandian » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 1:03 PM UTC

matwood wrote: post #84

afandian wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been 16 years since Snow Leopard. I think we're ready for another one.

I agree, but I'm pointing out why UI changes happen. Apple could certainly do UI changes as part of a cleanup release though. Basically start with getting back to consistency pointed out in the article. But, having worked with users I've seen first hand out tons of internal improvements are ignored while one small UI change makes 'everything seem new'.

Don't you feel that the circumstances are similar though? There was a pressure (expectation and competition) for new features. There were rapid changes in the UI and UX. But also bugs. And IIRC Mac OS X upgrades were still paid-for.

It was a brave move to spend a major release without adding feature. And people were grateful for it, once it happened.

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#118

Post by bonesss » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 1:03 PM UTC

safety1st wrote: post #15

It's pretty wild how the best screenshot of a usable menu is from, like, Office 2000. What the hell have we been doing for the past 25 years?

Web technologies took off, web giants emerged, and the desktop monopoly maintaining rough standardization and being forced into steady ease of use improvements was hobbled.

Microsoft’s desktop dominance was challenged by Google Docs and Facebook apps in parallel, Microsoft had to jump to web tech late, and the last few decades have been them reconciling their stack to the fact they missed the web and mobile despite pioneering key user-facing tech for both. Then they entered catchup-mode for client and search tech, only to later realize maybe they don’t care because the cloud catchup efforts blossoming into MS-consultant orthodoxy for every-darned-thing made their cloud offerings the most profitable bit… Ads and desktop stagnation pulled Windows into a weird OSX-at-home territory everyone kinda hates. And then LLMania took off, entrenching MS cloud and AI strategies into all of it, all the time. Pushing so hard that they’re gonna spend billions distancing their semi-Enterprise office brand from the term‘Microslop’.

TLDR: the rush to the web/mobile moved the focus off thick clients and desktop affordances, the money is elsewhere, a universal GUI toolkit isn’t obvious for anyone, and SaaS feels better online

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#119

Post by JaggerJo » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 1:04 PM UTC

Good that Alan Dye is no longer at apple. Liquid Glass on macOS is a mass. The icons, the floating side menus, the inconsistent corners, the new tabs in Safari..

On iOS it's totally fine, but on macOS it's a disaster. I've only updated one machine so far and will keep all others on Sequoia until this mess is resolved.

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#120

Post by Maxion » Mon, Jan 05, 2026, 1:04 PM UTC

teddy-smith wrote: post #89

flumpcakes wrote: post #65

It seems like Apple's hardware design is universally loved with much acclaim, why is their software getting progressively worse? It's not Microsoft-add-all-the-bloatware-and-adverts-we-can worse, but it's 20-year-old-operating-systems-were-better-designed worse. We're getting to a point where I think Linux windowing systems like KDE are better designed. And it seems that all they had to do was not change much over th…

It's just enshittification. Going to continue to get worse as time goes on. Even the hardware will go at some point I'm betting.

It's just entropy. It takes a special kind of person to be able to fight it in a big org. Jobs, Musk et. al. are assholes but they do manage to push their vision through. Probably because they are assholes.