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It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

tonsky.me

481–490 of 984 posts

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#481
post #98

I’ve always respected macOS for being the 'stable' choice for not-as-techy people. But recent versions feel like a mess. Running Tahoe on my 2019 Mac Pro (Yes the cheese grater one) has been surprisingly frustrating. Simple things are broken: Ableton couldn't even trigger a microphone permission prompt, forcing me to meddle with a SQLite database, which is definitely not meant for end users to touch, just to get it w…

I know someone who works on the macOS permission system. If you submit a bug report and share the feedback number, I will send it their way https://bugreport.apple.com/

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#482
post #476
post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a PM tells you to shove a UI style More than likely designers are making up work to justify their jobs. Not good for your career if you admit the desktop interface was perfected in ~1995.

100% this. I recall watching their launch video about Liquid Glass. It was filled with ego-driven "we're changing the world here" nonsense. They were designing in a bubble and wanted to do something different so they could justify the work. It was never about the user.

You’re not looking far enough ahead. Liquid glass isn’t about Mac. It’s about VisionPro and wearables. This is a strategic play by Apple.

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I finally talked my company into letting me swap out my MacBook pro for some little Dell. After the last year of updates, my Mac has stopped resuming from sleep reliably, everything is ugly, they took the already barely usable (imo) finder and system settings and found exciting new ways to make them worse. Sadly corporate security means os updates were not optional. I've never really liked macOS but it feels like som…

> already barely usable (imo) finder been using a Mac for years, and to this day I don't know how it's possible to navigate directories using Finder. It only has shortcuts for a few folders by default (photos, documents...) and doesn't have a button to navigate to the parent folder. I have literally no idea how to get to my home directory, I need to use the CLI

I’ve said many times before that I think Finder is the worst default file manager of any popular desktop environment.

I get it’s supposed to be easy to use but so much functionality is hidden behind non-obvious shortcuts. The end result is you either need to memorise a dozen secret handshakes just to perform basic operations, or you give up and revert to 70s technology in the command line.

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#484
I personally enjoy changes of scenery, but my parents struggle to relearn how to use their computer every time there is a major OS update that revamps the UI. It's seldom better, it's just change for change's sake, resulting in a lot of time lost to relearning. Sticking to the old OS is only viable as long as security updates continue.

I wish that OS developers would provide the option to retain the bulk of the old UI when a new one comes out, implementing the UI like a swappable "theme." People who prefer consistency could keep most of their old UI, and those who prefer the newer UI can have it.

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#485
post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iPads are great devices for non-tech savvy people who need a computer for stuff like writing and reading documents and e-mails, planning travel and making reservations, keeping in touch with people on messaging and social media. That's a gigantic market segment, and Apple has to be very careful to not make those devices complicated or vulnerable.

Exactly. I tend not to use my iPad that much except when traveling--partly because I have an old MacBook that lives on my dining room table. If I didn't have that I would certainly use my iPad more (and would doubtless get more comfortable using it for more purposes).

I struggle to find any use case at all for my iPad. Even when traveling, I use my phone most of the time and when I want something bigger, I have the MacBook Air in my bag, which doesn't feel any more cumbersome to have with me than an iPad.

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#486
post #198

It's hard to justify snowflake animations on your website...

The audacity to critique Apple's use of icons (which is objectively justified critique, IMO) while having animated snowflakes falling over the text and images on the site is something on an entirely different level. Thank goodness for Firefox reader mode. That animation is so incredibly distracting.

It is a personal blog. I would not apply the same kind of criticism to a personal blog, even though it does sound ironic. Moreover, turning off JS was an easy solution. There is no solution right now for apple's UI mess (except not updating).

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is what happens when the people issuing the orders (assign an icon for every task) are not the ones doing the task. No, this is what happens when the people in charge of UI design have no clue what they're doing.

In theory, the problems highlighted in the article would have become apparent shortly into the process of assigning an icon to every menu item. Forging ahead despite the impossibility of doing a good job on the task is a sign of orders being issued from top to bottom without feedback working its way from the bottom to the top.

Top down micromanaging of design is how Apple has always worked. It's not what's different now.

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#490
post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% this. I recall watching their launch video about Liquid Glass. It was filled with ego-driven "we're changing the world here" nonsense. They were designing in a bubble and wanted to do something different so they could justify the work. It was never about the user.

You’re not looking far enough ahead. Liquid glass isn’t about Mac. It’s about VisionPro and wearables. This is a strategic play by Apple.

. . . so other devices are required to have the same interface? No, they're not. Just because you want to share enough design cues to make people understand they're dealing with the same brand doesn't mean you have to hammer square pegs into round holes.

Not to mention the fact that first, you have to get to a point where AR wearables are commercially viable, and we don't seem to have hit that point yet.

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