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Free the Icons

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Re: Free the Icons

#221

Post by jaffa2 »

MayeulC wrote: post #183
jaffa2 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its just as bad. Please define ‘back’

1. Hide virtual keyboard if shown 2. Go to previous app view. This is app-dependent though it will probably, successively with each press: a. Close menus if open (context, sidebar, etc) b. Go to previous (web)page if web/file browser c. Go out of submenus (ex: settings/WiFi -> settings) if not in a browser or if the oldest page has been reached. Keeps walking the tree upwards. 3. Reach the main app view (usually the…

Go to previous (web)page if web/file browser

Keeps walking the tree upwards.

If i switch to my browser and hit back what happens : I go back to my previous app ? I go back in my browser page cache history ? I go back to the page that opened that web page i'm looking at ? something else ?

also mixing Back and Up is just wrong. I've had arguments with people that don't understand the difference.

Re: Free the Icons

#222

Post by al_borland »

Gigachad wrote: post #130
mrweasel wrote: post #123

There's so little joy and happiness left in computing. Reverting to the older style of icons, plus perhaps a few UI tweaks, certainly help bring a bit of whimsical back into the macOS platform. That's something many of us would love.

Liquid Glass was a good step in the right direction imo. A choice to make visual entertainment and beauty a priority over pure function. I feel like what computers really lost was sounds, we used to have so many joyful sounds and background music on computers while now they are all silent. I think it’s a tragedy the Nintendo switch broke the long history of music in the menus and apps.

I wonder if the sound reduction is a result of computers moving into more and more spaces, rather than relegated to a single dedicated area. Beeps and boops going off all the time can be really annoying in public spaces.

Re: Free the Icons

#223

Post by tambourine_man »

troupo wrote: post #196
tambourine_man wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am very, very curious how he reached, stayed that long at the top of the org chart and convinced so many people that this was a good direction to take. If I were at Apple's leadership I'd consider that a major blindspot and focus deeply on fixing it.

Perhaps (any of these can be true, or false): - He wasn't the only one pushing it? Lemay was described in Bloomberg as one of the key people behind Liquid Glass - The vision wasn't as bad as it turned out to be, but it was rushed because of yearly releases and Apple having nothing to present? - None of the senior leadership use the devices beyond occasionally, so they couldn't care less what's happening to the UX?

On your first point, I don't know if Lemay merely agreed to keep his job or was an enthusiast of the vision. But it is a bit worrisome, if Bloomberg is to be believed.

On your second, Liquid Glass is merely the culmination of years of bad direction. Hiding essential feature on hover (notification's close icon, elapsed time on Apple Music, proxy icon, etc), poor contrast, legibility, background/foreground differentiation, was a long running process.

On your third point, I think it's possible and, if that's the case, deeply troubling.

Re: Free the Icons

#224

Post by aethertron »

"A unique, memorable icon expresses your app’s or game’s purpose and personality and helps people recognize it at a glance."

"In iOS, iPadOS, and macOS, icons are square, and the system applies masking to produce rounded corners that precisely match the curvature of other rounded interface elements throughout the system and the bezel of the physical device itself."

Source: Apple https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...

lol

Re: Free the Icons

#225

Post by ksec »

hecifato wrote: post #187
matsemann wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, for a decade now it's been a UX disaster. It "works", because so many people are used to it, but look at a new user trying to navigate iOS, it's bonkers. Swiping from random directions achieves different things (and how would you even know you can?). The home button has like 11 different functions depending on how you press it and when.

Something that I ended up loving about iOS was the relative simplicity it had compared to Android at the time I started using the iPhone in 2017. iOS 10 and 11 were great. People complained about things like all apps needing to be on the homescreen or not being able to place apps arbitrarily, but at the same time that "lack" of function is part of what made iOS easy to use and understand. I find nowadays iOS is as co…

It was even better before 2017.

I used to describe iPhone being an Appliance, with some smart function added to it. Android was a PC trying to made into a Phone form factor and act like an appliance.

It was that simplicity of iPhone that was great.

And you are right now iPhone and Android have converge in many ways it has added complexity. And no one seems to be doing anything about it. And somehow after 15 years of UX Craig Federighi is still popular and gets no blame for it.

Re: Free the Icons

#226

Post by jccalhoun »

What happened to being able to use themes and skins? Is it just corporate control? Why can't Windows or Mac has a CSS-style system where users can use custom style sheets? It doesn't have to go as far as classic Winamp but just going back to what we had in Win85 would be nice. (and I know there are things like Stardock's Windowblinds but why isn't it built in?)

Re: Free the Icons

#227

Post by coldpie »

WillAdams wrote: post #66
saagarjha wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Golden Gate is better but it hasn't fixed your icons unfortunately

The thing which kills me, is that with entirety of the State of California's Gazetteer to pull from, Apple didn't pull a page from Android and use an alphabetically ordered naming scheme so that folks could determine ordering of versions.

You know, someone should invent an infinite sequence of ordinal symbols which we could use to place things in a sequence. It could start with a simple vertical line, something like "1". Maybe someone more clever than me can come up with the next symbol.

Re: Free the Icons

#228

Post by doright »

MayeulC wrote: post #183
jaffa2 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its just as bad. Please define ‘back’

1. Hide virtual keyboard if shown 2. Go to previous app view. This is app-dependent though it will probably, successively with each press: a. Close menus if open (context, sidebar, etc) b. Go to previous (web)page if web/file browser c. Go out of submenus (ex: settings/WiFi -> settings) if not in a browser or if the oldest page has been reached. Keeps walking the tree upwards. 3. Reach the main app view (usually the…

I prefer 3-button navigation, but it seems most of the web has decided that gesture-based navigation has won, and it's an awful experience sometimes. They assume you will always swipe down to close popup modals like full-size images, so pressing back will instead navigate out of the page. And half the time, navigating forward puts you right back on top of the modal again!

It breaks the intuition that one tap == one piece of state on the navigation stack.

Re: Free the Icons

#229

Post by ksec »

MBCook wrote: post #85
al_borland wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were trying to make a unified design language across all their operating systems. If iOS and VisionOS both have their icons sitting on uniformly shaped tiles, macOS would break the convention. I don't like it, but I believe that's the reason why.

Oh I’m sure that’s why they did it. It’s not a good reason. It’s like saying all the food you eat should be beige. Sure it’s more consistent, but at what cost? You lose all the benefits. It’s like Chesterton’s Fence, except it has a big sign on it saying “beware of bull” and there is a guy nearby saying “you don’t want to let that bull out dude, it’s vicious”. But you want to take down the fence because it’s not the…

In the old days, these different OS would have separate teams and all trying to work on what is best for their own products. Be it mac, iPad, iPhone or what hardware it is.

The foundation may share resources, but everything else was tailor made. And that is what used to make Apple so good.

The moment you try to make one size fits all you will start to make compromise. And the good old Apple would try to do things the hard way rather than making unnecessary compromises.

It is sad.

Re: Free the Icons

#230

Post by gwbas1c »

Every time I see criticism of MacOS Tahoe, it just makes me suspect that someone without experience went on an ego trip.

That being said, should I skip Tahoe and wait for whatever comes next? MacOS keeps nagging me to upgrade to Tahoe, but I've been holding off because HN hates it so much.

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