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The Reshaped Mac Experience

morrick.me

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Re: The Reshaped Mac Experience

#21

Post by mrkstu »

skohan wrote: post #12
dkonofalski wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I don't disagree with the fact that the OS and UI team seem a little less focused on the polish of the entire experience but the leaps in hardware are just too great to be able to keep up appropriately in the UI. They really just need to get back to ironing out the every day things. Case in point - not being able to reply to a Message directly from the notification is a huge regression. Fix stuff like that f…

> the leaps in hardware are just too great to be able to keep up appropriately in the UI Why would this be the case? Apple's a massive, well-resourced company and it seems like they should be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.

Microsoft and Windows Control Panel migration to System Settings argue its pretty difficult indeed, even for the most well-resourced companies.

Re: The Reshaped Mac Experience

#22

Post by JKCalhoun »

kome wrote: post #16
raiyu wrote: post #2

The author makes the assertion that if we are all celebrating Apple's latest hardware, it is because the focus on their user interface has faded into the background and they have lost their way. But reading through the piece the only tangible evidence he provides is more spacing between elements that he is pulling up on 5 year old hardware? Screen density and pixels have improved dramatically in that time frame, we h…

> "that he is pulling up on 5 year old hardware?" is a 5 year old computer old?

Well there have been 5 major OS releases on said 5 year old computer.

So in OS-years, yes, the computer is old. ;-)

Re: The Reshaped Mac Experience

#24

Post by mrkstu »

ricg wrote: post #9

I'm not too fond of the extra spacing and padding on Big Sur either. It reduces information density. All in preparation for a MacBook Touch?

Or making room for a device that runs either OS and making the transition less jarring. Though I suppose a MacBook touch (M1x) would already be able to run iOS apps, theoretically, and it would just help the apps themselves, rather than the OS, fit in.

Re: The Reshaped Mac Experience

#25

Post by coldtea »

skohan wrote: post #19
Vuska wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of my minor bugbears with macOS since Yosemite has been changing the green button from zoom to full screen. I just don't use full screen mode much. On my 25" displays the only application that gets kept full screen is my IDE. I don't need a dedicated button that slowly animates the window to fullscreen if I accidentally click it. Speculating here, but given that most people using a mac are looking at a 13" screen…

Yeah I feel like I want fullsreen almost never. Even on a 13" laptop, almost all of my workflows involve having at least two applications open and at least occasionally having both of them visible at the same time

Which is often not the case for a writer, a video editor, an electronic musician, and many other jobs...

Re: The Reshaped Mac Experience

#26

Post by m463 »

raiyu wrote: post #2

The author makes the assertion that if we are all celebrating Apple's latest hardware, it is because the focus on their user interface has faded into the background and they have lost their way. But reading through the piece the only tangible evidence he provides is more spacing between elements that he is pulling up on 5 year old hardware? Screen density and pixels have improved dramatically in that time frame, we h…

I use macos to read mail. They have been chipping away at mail bit by bit.

I have always used it in what's now called "classic layout" - message list above, current message below, sidebar with accounts/mailboxes.

In the message list, I could choose what columns were shown, how wide they were and in what order.

I could just click on the top of a column to sort one way, click again to sort another.

This would let me find all the mail today or last week in order. or group by subject. Or find everything with an attachment. or back to sorting by date with today at the bottom.

What I was waiting for was smarter mail rules. maybe nested rules. Maybe smarter ways to interact (without resorting to applescript)

But they dumbed it down and there's a dropdown to pick what to sort (drop twice if the order they chose was not what you expected). You cannot choose your columns. You cannot choose the order. rules have not gotten smarter and with a name like "classic layout", I figure it is one update away from gone.

Re: The Reshaped Mac Experience

#27

Post by ZacharyPitts »

Vuska wrote: post #17
skohan wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Screen density and pixels have improved dramatically in that time frame, we have larger screens, more resolution, and retina display I'm typing this on a new 13" MacBook Air, and the screen is pretty small! don't know if BigSur is optimized for a 27" iMac display, but on a small laptop, I certainly feel like the decreased UI density feels like a hindrance.

One of my minor bugbears with macOS since Yosemite has been changing the green button from zoom to full screen. I just don't use full screen mode much. On my 25" displays the only application that gets kept full screen is my IDE. I don't need a dedicated button that slowly animates the window to fullscreen if I accidentally click it. Speculating here, but given that most people using a mac are looking at a 13" screen…

I agree with the annoyance at the change.

I would recommend BetterTouchTool (https://folivora.ai/) to get back the ability to maximize windows with a click. Also you can drag windows to the right or left of the screen, and it resizes to half the screen. Wonderful to put two applications side by side.

Re: The Reshaped Mac Experience

#28

Post by coldtea »

kome wrote: post #16
raiyu wrote: post #2

The author makes the assertion that if we are all celebrating Apple's latest hardware, it is because the focus on their user interface has faded into the background and they have lost their way. But reading through the piece the only tangible evidence he provides is more spacing between elements that he is pulling up on 5 year old hardware? Screen density and pixels have improved dramatically in that time frame, we h…

> "that he is pulling up on 5 year old hardware?" is a 5 year old computer old?

Personal computing has existed since say 1977.

Viable personal computing since 1981. GUI personal computing for the masses since 1993 or so.

That's 40 years with a conservative estimate. 5 years is 12.5% of the history of personal computing. So kinda yes.

Re: The Reshaped Mac Experience

#29

Post by JKCalhoun »

rib3ye wrote: post #6

As a Mac cultist and latest iPad Pro owner, it’s pretty obvious the desktop’s time is running out. Most UI innovation is now being poured into how to make iOS a pro-friendly experience. The keyboard/track pad combo was a huge step up, can’t wait to see where it goes from here.

I for one welcome the decline of the desktop. Why, you ask?

Because 35 years ago the desktop was a machine built by nerds, for nerds. iOS has never been that, will never be that. If the desktop Mac goes back to being a machine used primarily by nerds, I'm okay with that.

Developing for the Mac was easy then, your customers were you. You knew that they wanted because it was what you wanted. The same can be said of the engineers working the OS: they had tech-leads, not "marketing". They knew what we wanted because it was what they wanted.

We all got the machine and upgrades we wanted. I would love for it to return to that.

Re: The Reshaped Mac Experience

#30

Post by jbverschoor »

dkonofalski wrote: post #7
raiyu wrote: post #2

The author makes the assertion that if we are all celebrating Apple's latest hardware, it is because the focus on their user interface has faded into the background and they have lost their way. But reading through the piece the only tangible evidence he provides is more spacing between elements that he is pulling up on 5 year old hardware? Screen density and pixels have improved dramatically in that time frame, we h…

I agree. I don't disagree with the fact that the OS and UI team seem a little less focused on the polish of the entire experience but the leaps in hardware are just too great to be able to keep up appropriately in the UI. They really just need to get back to ironing out the every day things. Case in point - not being able to reply to a Message directly from the notification is a huge regression. Fix stuff like that f…

There are many things in macOS that have not been looked at properly. That has nothing to do with hardware. It's plain sloppyness.
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