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Last Year on My Mac: Look Back in Disbelief

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Re: Last Year on My Mac: Look Back in Disbelief

#181

Post by Y-bar »

kibwen wrote: post #123
DonHopkins wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple employees should have kidnapped Alan Dye from his office and deposited him on Facebook's doorstep wrapped up in a straightjacket with ribbons and a bow years ago before he finally left voluntarily.

Using Dye as a scapegoat feels like cope. The rest of the executives were fully content with this effort, and in the end he wasn't even forced out. There's no evidence that Apple will correct its course without him.

Sort of in agreement here.

In-between not paying attention to general software quality and not voicing concern, Craig Federigi should not get a free pass.

In-between kissing the boots of Kings, and dining with Murderers, and posting AI slop on Twitter, Tim Cook ought to have been more involved.

There is enough blame to pass around at Apple today among the leadership, but the specific shitty UI buck stops with Dye. Dye is putting his signature on it and is the face of the Liquid Glass demo, if he wants the primary fame, he can have the primary blame.

Re: Last Year on My Mac: Look Back in Disbelief

#182

Post by egypturnash »

adolph wrote: post #34
egypturnash wrote: post #10

I just hope that my current Mac keeps being usable long enough that Liquid Glass has been fixed or replaced entirely by the time I'm forced to upgrade to whatever's shipping on my next computer.

Eventually it will go away just like brushed metal, lickable, green felt, and woodgrain. Unfortunately for that to happen they will need to invent something so heinous you will wish for liquid glass.

Personally I would be down for a return to woodgrain or brushed metal.

Re: Last Year on My Mac: Look Back in Disbelief

#183

Post by nothrabannosir »

MagicMoonlight wrote: post #44
emchammer wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t want to wear one of those things on my face. I want a high-quality computer and phone. Apple executives are out to lunch.

[flagged]

Grandparents also said it about a lot of technologies that actually were worse and didn’t survive. Those are just not around anymore to be the subject of survivorship bias.

I’m not sure when we’re started dismissing the elderly’s advice as “just complaining because they’re old” but it seems we’re hell bent on reinventing the wheel of misfortune with every generation.

If old people complain about something, maybe they have a point?

Re: Last Year on My Mac: Look Back in Disbelief

#184

Post by LucidLynx »

Not gonna lie, this year has been exceptionnaly disappointing for every product and every OS (more generally: software) from Apple.

The battery life first: I lost 6 to 8h of battery life EVERY DAY because of iOS 26. The battery life of my macbook is worst too, even after all the updates and a fresh install of macOS 26.2. The interface is very ugly, and not easy to use at all. I am oftenly loston both systems (iOS 26 and macOS 26) because of all those glass interfaces on top of each other. The performance did not improved either, and the gaming ecosystem that I was very optimistic is becoming a mess. Again. To finish, an exceptional high number of annoying bugs that are not solved yet, despite my feedbacks since the first Beta versions. It seems nobody care.

It’s infuriating that I can’t downgrade the OS on both devices. Especially on my mac.

This pushed me to re-try a Linux distro on my old laptop, and re-try Android on an old Google Pixel phone. Both are great for my needs, and the phone has way more battery life than the iPhone (despite the phone has already 5yo).

I did not expected at all that 2025 would be the year of Apple pushing me out of it ecosystem... Very nice job guys.

Re: Last Year on My Mac: Look Back in Disbelief

#186

Post by rootusrootus »

teaearlgraycold wrote: post #79
mort96 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think parts of Liquid Glass on macOS looks pretty bad. But I don't care that much about how things look, so it doesn't offend me. What does offend me are all the bugs, as you say. It's still utterly broken all these months after the public release. Spotlight is a mess; I've seen it take DAYS before it has made an app in '/Applications' findable through search (even as the app shows up in Spotlight's long scrollable…

This year I've had to perform many hard resets on my MacBook, iPhone and even Apple Watch because they've locked up. And they're all relatively new devices. Apple needs to get its shit together. I already expect to move away from their mobile ecosystem when it comes time to upgrade.

I recently upgraded (downgraded?) from an iPhone 15PM to a smaller iPhone 17P, and I have found myself wondering if I got a glitchy piece of hardware or if it's just iOS 26 bugs. I hardly had any problems with the previous phone, but on the 17 it's pretty routine that I have to close apps (including native Apple ones) which have become non-responsive. Frustrating, for sure.

Re: Last Year on My Mac: Look Back in Disbelief

#187

Post by tambourine_man »

analogpixel wrote: post #126
7e wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switch to what? Windows is horrible and Linux is just as bad (but in different ways).

I think a lot of people on HN don't realize that some people require software outside of a terminal and a web browser. Can I run Ableton on linux? can I run all the audio plugins that only ship windows/mac versions? is there a decent graphics editor? (gimp is not it.) If all I did was play in the terminal and a web browser, I'd have switched to Linux by now.

Exactly. There’s nothing that comes close to the Adobe suite. Maybe someday an investment similar to what was made in Proton will happen to Wine in general.

Re: Last Year on My Mac: Look Back in Disbelief

#188

Post by rootusrootus »

beezlebroxxxxxx wrote: post #70
SkyeCA wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've recently been using an Android phone a family member gave me after they upgraded and to my shock it's...fantastic? It's not at all like I remember Android from back in the early Android days.

Android has frequently been ahead of Apple in terms of features for years at this point. But Apple's overall "ecosystem" is (or was) much more cohesive, so everything felt very Apple, while Android's has (for better or worse) been something of a wild west situation; and iPhone's have excellent cameras. If you go with a flagship Android phone, though, you're now getting an equally good camera (if not better in some ca…

> NA seems to really fixate on the luxury and social significer aspect of having an iPhone though

I have yet to experience that. The biggest reason I have mostly stayed with iPhones over the years was because the tight integration with my MBP was useful, and iMessage is way better than SMS.

RCS helps even out the playing field a bunch, but just about the time that went mainstream I hear that it's a regular source of trouble for everyone (Android an iPhone both) because the carriers suck. And Apple did at least finally add some equivalence for one of the Android features I had wanted (call screening).

Re: Last Year on My Mac: Look Back in Disbelief

#189

Post by rootusrootus »

swiftcoder wrote: post #138
andy99 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had (the same) Samsung android phone from 2017-2025. I bought an iPhone, mainly because of privacy concerns (for which I consider apple to be the least bad mainstream option, not good). But I couldn’t get over how bad the ux is compared to my 7 year old phone. Things like highlighting, autocorrect, placing the cursor where you want “just don’t work”, the setup is unintuitive, the hotspot doesn’t work half the time,…

> Things like highlighting, autocorrect, placing the cursor where you want “just don’t work” Hilariously, those things actually did work back in 2017, and Apple has since broken all of them in various OS updates

Yeah that's the joke. 10 years ago all of this basic stuff was working well. Now, autocorrect and cursor placement regularly make me want to chuck the phone into a chipper shredder.

Re: Last Year on My Mac: Look Back in Disbelief

#190

Post by cosmic_cheese »

lapcat wrote: post #157
kruuuder wrote: post #147

Funny to see the last screenshot of OS X from 2014 in the article. I would love to use a system with such a high contrast and information density. But I also remember very well how many users were upset with the most recent design changes at that time: The all caps section titles in the sidebar, and the gray icons that were previously colored.

Yes, IMO Tiger was actually peak Mac UI. As soon as Apple released iPhone, the Mac took a back seat.

Tiger with 10.5/10.6-style 2D grid virtual desktops and Mavericks traffic light buttons, or alternatively Mavericks with aqua scrollbars and 10.5/10.6-style 2D grid virtual desktops is very close to my ideal desktop environment.
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