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Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

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Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#171

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

ricokatayama wrote: post #141

When Apple introduced the whole skeuomorphic analogy, they did it because they needed to make a new way of interacting with touch-based apps feel tangible. That seemed totally fair. When Apple brought a spatial analogy to the Vision Pro, it also felt fair they were thinking in terms of volume and dimensions, after all, they were teaching people how to interact with a new reality. I can even understand Apple wanting t…

> Apple introduced the whole skeuomorphic analogy

IBM was doing it 10 years earlier.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#173

Post by whytaka »

CleverLikeAnOx wrote: post #161
whytaka wrote: post #134

I only caught a glimpse but what I saw for iOS Safari concerns me. The browser navigation overlaps the viewport. I wonder if this'll break websites/apps that anchor a menu to the bottom.

I think iOS safari already breaks bottom bars by having phone controls show up when a user taps near the bottom.

This is mitigated by wrapping the main scrollable content in a container that has height: 100dvh and overflow: auto. It means that phone controls are always showing but it made a bottom anchored menu reliably static.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#174

Post by jrmg »

seanalltogether wrote: post #165
dougbrochill wrote: post #72

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.

I noticed the same thing while watching their youtube promo video. I grabbed this screenshot that shows exactly how problematic this design is. https://imgur.com/a/AEEj5w1

There are definitely compression artifacts in there that are making it look significantly less crisp than it would in reality.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#175

Post by moralestapia »

dimal wrote: post #148

Oh no. It looks like every button and menu is now a translucent layer, so that any noise from the background shows through and muddles the text. This seems like an accessibility nightmare. Translucent layers generally make software unusable for me. In the video, I saw several instances that would be really really bad for me, where I’d be straining to understand the text. Looks really cool and futuristic though. Just…

I'm not autistic and I don't like this upgrade, at all.

It looks so tacky.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#176

Post by glkindlmann »

ricokatayama wrote: post #141

When Apple introduced the whole skeuomorphic analogy, they did it because they needed to make a new way of interacting with touch-based apps feel tangible. That seemed totally fair. When Apple brought a spatial analogy to the Vision Pro, it also felt fair they were thinking in terms of volume and dimensions, after all, they were teaching people how to interact with a new reality. I can even understand Apple wanting t…

It does indeed feel like a step backward - I was also weirdly reminded of the Forstall skeuomorphism era of UIs.

The video says: "It beautifully refracts light, and dynamically reacts to your movement, with specular highlights"; ugh, why? Why add dynamic==distracting high-frequency details that supply zero information?

The recent super flat UI aesthetic bugged me for awhile for its apparent lack of affordances, but when used consistently it made sense. Now it seems we still get zero affordances, but also visual noise.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#177

Post by Someone1234 »

ricokatayama wrote: post #141

When Apple introduced the whole skeuomorphic analogy, they did it because they needed to make a new way of interacting with touch-based apps feel tangible. That seemed totally fair. When Apple brought a spatial analogy to the Vision Pro, it also felt fair they were thinking in terms of volume and dimensions, after all, they were teaching people how to interact with a new reality. I can even understand Apple wanting t…

> When Apple introduced the whole skeuomorphic analogy, they did it because they needed to make a new way of interacting with touch-based apps feel tangible.

Skeuomorphism was on the Apple Lisa in 1983, and they didn't invent it. Apple's first touch device wasn't until ten years later in 1993 in the Newton MessagePad. The MessagePad didn't really have "apps," that wasn't until like 2008 when it was added to the iPhone, but now we're twenty-five years after Apple's first usage of Skeuomorphism. The Xerox Star was in 1981 and had Skeuomorphic elements.

So I'm not really following what you're trying to say in that sentance.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#178

Post by satvikpendem »

This is essentially Microsoft's Fluent UI [0], right down to the translucent glass rectangular prisms (not to say that there haven't been glassmorphic UI systems since forever, including Apple's own Aqua).

[0] https://www.youtube.com/@microsoftdesign/videos

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#179

Post by coastalpuma »

dimal wrote: post #148

Oh no. It looks like every button and menu is now a translucent layer, so that any noise from the background shows through and muddles the text. This seems like an accessibility nightmare. Translucent layers generally make software unusable for me. In the video, I saw several instances that would be really really bad for me, where I’d be straining to understand the text. Looks really cool and futuristic though. Just…

I agree, I think it extends to anybody who wants a calmer experience or has vision trouble or strain. I guess you can turn those options off but if the aesthetic appeal of the design is based on them then I assume we'll be getting a second-class version of it. I was already leaning towards switching to Linux for other reasons but I think this is the thing that finally pushes me there. I think optimizing for VisionOS is quite a bad idea from a UX POV, since they're two entirely different usecases. With augmented reality you need and want to see things in the background, whereas on other devices you don't. It's a fairly fundamental difference, and it's sad that they chose to go this way in my opinion.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#180

Post by n42 »

grishka wrote: post #58
kej wrote: 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.

They've already started ruining the desktop experience with the macOS 11 redesign and there's no sign of them stopping. For example, the recent settings app redesign that no one asked for broke the fundamental desktop UI design rule that controls never scroll, only content does.

one of my favorite examples of how bad the System Settings app is: find where the Default Browser setting is, without using search.
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