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Free the Icons

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Re: Free the Icons

#231

Post by FireBeyond »

TylerE wrote: post #108
FireBeyond wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All my devices are Apple: laptop, Studio, display, phone, iPad, watch... I will say that Apple has solidified on the design and reliability "recently". But let's not pretend that the MBP line, to pick on one, didn't go through some rough rough days. I've had laptops that had the delaminating screen, the 'single grain of sand can ruin it' butterfly keyboard, hell, I've had two models that had recalled logic boards. Ea…

Even the worst MBP is light years better than the plasticky crap on the Windows side.

If you're comparing an MBP to a $500 Acer (the Neo changes that nexus a bit, though I don't know much about it), then yes, of course it is, and for a reason (or 600-1000 reasons).

I don't use anything, but it's not like Windows is AWOL - my partner's Dell is quality construction, and the Yoga Pro my stepdaughter uses for college. You could still say (and I'd agree) that the MBP is still better designed (for me: "except the edges" - I hate the sharpness) but it's not like "there's Macs and there's dogshit".

Re: Free the Icons

#233

Post by busymom0 »

matsemann wrote: post #142
_0xdd wrote: post #59

It's still a bit jarring to me to see how far Apple embraced form over function with iOS and subsequently macOS. I remember reading the Human Interface Guidelines from the late Mac OS 9/early Mac OS X days and being taken aback by the level of detail and thought that went into those interfaces. Don't get me wrong, some things made no sense (brushed metal was... a choice) but there was a certain level of polish that I…

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.

For me, the swipe to go to home gesture on iOS very often conflicts with my swipe to go to all tabs in Safari.

Re: Free the Icons

#234

Post by graypegg »

_0xdd wrote: post #59

It's still a bit jarring to me to see how far Apple embraced form over function with iOS and subsequently macOS. I remember reading the Human Interface Guidelines from the late Mac OS 9/early Mac OS X days and being taken aback by the level of detail and thought that went into those interfaces. Don't get me wrong, some things made no sense (brushed metal was... a choice) but there was a certain level of polish that I…

> brushed metal was... a choice

Man... I stand by it being an interesting idea that they fumbled by not following their own HIG.

Even if it is a bit of a silly line of reasoning, there was (at least originally) a purpose to the brushed metal UI. Anything that was capable of external IO (quicktime for ingesting firewire feed from camera, itunes for syncing with an iPod, finder for disks) was supposed to have a brushed metal interface. There's a world where 2 different classes of windows stuck around (one for things INSIDE the computer, one for things OUTSIDE of the computer) and I bet we would've gotten a lot more afforadances for real-life devices. Maybe a predictable device status UI in those sorts of windows or something. Maybe they'd just be those white panes with fancy animated product shots that show up when you get an Apple-blessed bluetooth device near an iPhone. There's at least some reasoning to treat external IO windows as sharing some sort of common UX. (Answering pretty common gadget questions like: is it connected, is it charging, is it lost, etc etc etc)

But then the waters get muddied with the calculator being brushed metal because it's trying to look like a calculator. And safari... because I guess the network is external but...?

I think a little after John wrote this blog post I'm using to jog my memory, all pinstripe windows were gone except maybe the preferences panes... so it was definitely arbitrary form over function at that point.

(Jogging my memory from: https://daringfireball.net/2004/10/brushed-metal)

Re: Free the Icons

#235

Post by throw4847285 »

andrepd wrote: post #119
wpm wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Haha yeah! Mac users just buy them to look cool while they write their whatever in the coffee shop! This is definitely not a preposterous and outdated observation/joke!

Sounds like it hit a nerve to be honest

I have both a Windows and a Mac. What triggers me isn't people insulting Apple products, but immature, gaming-forum ass, console warring. People need to grow up.

Re: Free the Icons

#236

Post by wingerlang »

spragl wrote: post #164
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.

Im an iPhone user. I want it to take as little space as possible physically and mentally, and try to use it as little as possible. My experience has been that it was easy learning to use it by just bumbling around. That is, until two weeks ago when I got my new iPhone. I had to, the old one couldnt upgrade to the newest iOS. I feel ashamed to admit, that I had one or two days of extreme frustration just learning to d…

This seems exaggerated. I recently moved to iOS 26 from iOS 16. They work exactly the same in my experience.

Except for the fact that you can’t scrub on the native video player by swiping anywhere, you now have to use the time-bar. Drives me nuts.

Re: Free the Icons

#237

Post by bigyabai »

ksec wrote: post #225
hecifato wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It was a weal-and-woe situation. The lockdown was tolerable with such a weak device, but portended a lot of the App Store issues that Apple grapples with today.

Back then, the coolest way to use an iPhone or iPod was to put Cydia on it. You could run emulators, live wallpapers, sideloaded apps, pretty much anything that Android had was at the tip of your fingers. Once Apple pushed for a return to the locked-down software distribution philosophy, I gave up on iOS and started dailying Android instead.

Re: Free the Icons

#238

Post by rolymath »

TylerE wrote: post #108
FireBeyond wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All my devices are Apple: laptop, Studio, display, phone, iPad, watch... I will say that Apple has solidified on the design and reliability "recently". But let's not pretend that the MBP line, to pick on one, didn't go through some rough rough days. I've had laptops that had the delaminating screen, the 'single grain of sand can ruin it' butterfly keyboard, hell, I've had two models that had recalled logic boards. Ea…

Even the worst MBP is light years better than the plasticky crap on the Windows side.

"Plasticky crap" like the x1 carbon? I daily drive a mac, but I would drop it in an instant once I can get linux on arm on thinkpad.

Re: Free the Icons

#239

Post by lunar_rover »

schappim wrote: post #5
altern8 wrote: post #3

Tahoe was such a huge mess, but I'm hopeful that the new CEO will turn things around and bring things back to normal. If they do, I'll consider upgrading both OS and laptop, but right now I'm holding on to Sequoia

It really was Mac OS X's Vista moment. Edit: It'll always be Mac OS X to me, not macOS.

Windows Vista primarily suffers from technical issues. Aero is virtually unchanged in 7.

Re: Free the Icons

#240

Post by lunar_rover »

geraldcombs wrote: post #7
colesantiago wrote: post #4

It might be better to make Linux have these gorgeous icons now that Apple locked them up. Make the icons be Free on Free OSes like Linux.

What's been keeping Linux from having gorgeous icons up to this point?

It's part of "What's been keeping Linux from having good UX up to this point?"

Making good products means lots and lots of drudgery, just for fun volunteers aren't going to touch that, and the stereotypical FOSS contributor is the type that's clueless about UX and puts stability above everything else.

Have fun convincing someone feature x is too overengineered to be usable by anyone who's not an alpha geek and should be simplified to a single switch. Not to mention proper large scale usability testing likely being unaffordable.

So designers stayed far, far away.

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