Apple has been poisoning the design space the last 5-10 years, they're not just doing it to themselves.
It's hard to justify Tahoe icons
571–580 of 984 posts
Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons
#572[dead]
Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons
#573Earlier quoted context omitted.
MacOS 26 highlights were... and this was _Apple's_ opening modal... "Icons that look like shit!" and "Notification summaries that may not be correct!" In general I feel as if Apple's software feels buggier and less solid lately across my iPhone and my computers. Won't be upgrading the personal computer for as long as possible
Apple has been crashing with increasing frequency for me. Luckily all minor but I’m waiting for the big crapout. Also what happened to their filters? I get daily spam from Apple email addresses now.
What I love is how their own features don't even play well together anymore...
For instance you can "hide your e-mail" by using Apple's relay, but if you do so... your payments using Apple Pay will fail unless you fill all the information in manually because the e-mail addresses don't match
It's ridiculous how poorly tested everything is, and that combined with their newly entered foray into the world of politics has nearly destroyed three decades of steady Apple use for me. I'll be actively considering other options, not upgrading, and looking elsewhere for products in spaces they're in
Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons
#574Earlier quoted context omitted.
design for design's sake is bad, and that's what Liquid Glass is. There was no thought behind it. It is 2026 and UIs are still abysmally slow in many cases. How is that even remotely possible? Now, with that in mind, consider (just for a moment) why people might think that UX people don't know what they're doing.
> It is 2026 and UIs are still abysmally slow in many cases. How is that even remotely possible? Because UI/X teams were separated from engineering. (Same thing happened with modern building architecture) It's fundamentally impossible to optimize if you're unaware of physical constraints. We need to get rid of the "It's okay to be a UI/UX designer who doesn't code" cult. (Looking at you, Adobe and Figma...)
> Same thing happened with modern building architecture
Yes. Yes, it has. I'm currently in the midst of a building project that's ten months behind schedule (and I do not know how many millions of dollars over budget), and I'd blame every one of the problems on that. I - the IT guy - was involved in the design stage, and now in construction (as in, actually doing physical labor on-site), and I'm the only person who straddles the divide.
It's utterly bizarre, because everyone gets things wrong - architects and engineers don't appreciate physical constraints; construction crews don't understand functional or design considerations - so the only way to get things right is for someone to understand both, but (apart from me, in my area - which is why I make sure to participate at both stages) literally no one on the project does.
Seen from a perspective of incentives I guess I can understand how we got here: the architects and engineers don't have to leave their offices, and are more "productive" in that they can work on more projects per year, and the construction crews can keep on cashing their sweet overtime checks. Holy shit, though, is it dispiriting to watch from a somewhat detached perspective.
Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons
#575Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It is 2026 and UIs are still abysmally slow in many cases. How is that even remotely possible? Because UI/X teams were separated from engineering. (Same thing happened with modern building architecture) It's fundamentally impossible to optimize if you're unaware of physical constraints. We need to get rid of the "It's okay to be a UI/UX designer who doesn't code" cult. (Looking at you, Adobe and Figma...)
> We need to get rid of the "It's okay to be a UI/UX designer who doesn't code" cult. I don’t think designers who don’t code are really a problem. They just need to dogfood, and be lead by someone who cares (and dogfoods as well).
In the case of Apple, I really doubt its designers don't dogfood. Do you expect them to have Android phones and linux desktops?
Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons
#576I suspect the icons have to do with a non-english or reading disabilities accessibility requirement.
I'd argue it's not comparable to the 1992 standards because there's not clutter on the right due to dimming for the hotkey labels. These guidelines were written only slightly through Mac OS's colour era, with an extensive install base of monochrome Macintoshes where you could only depict dimming with hard-to-read dithering. Now that colour is ubiquitous, this gives designers the option to fade or tint UI items to make them look less distracting or to deemphasise them.
Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons
#577It's been a few years since I last used a Mac and the careful design I had known no longer exists. This made me realize the situation even worse than I imagined it to be based on Tahoe's reviews.
Even without a designer's detail-aware eyes, I couldn't stop facepalming with what I saw. I'd be embarrassed to ship that and call it an improvement! Apple icons may look cool and consistent when browsing them all together as part of SF Symbols, but all that disappears when used incorrectly.
Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons
#578It's hard to justify Liquid Glass in general. The wastefulness of flat design (in terms of space) married with the visual excess of skeuomorphism, but without even providing any affordances (does the sidebar being raised give you any new information on how to use a sidebar? No). If you're a designer at a top 10 S&P 500 company making 6 figures, you owe it to yourself to have some love for your craft. If a PM tells yo…
Dont worry, there are thousands of aspiring artists that will gladly do it for a 6 figure salary. The person that manages your salary, they determine what you work on. Dont like the work, walk away …
Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons
#579Earlier quoted context omitted.
Uber, Airbnb, Robinhood all took off because they created easy to use beautiful apps (compared to their predecessors). The anti-design bias in this forum is genuinely unhinged. I see some saying the entire destruction of the natural world stems from design lol.
No they took of because they used illegal practices and VC money to undercut competitors.
I think we can pretty safely assume that every large and successful company has done horrible and illegal things to get themselves there. That being said I think design and ease of use still play a significant part in Uber’s success.
Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons
#580It's hard to justify Liquid Glass in general. The wastefulness of flat design (in terms of space) married with the visual excess of skeuomorphism, but without even providing any affordances (does the sidebar being raised give you any new information on how to use a sidebar? No). If you're a designer at a top 10 S&P 500 company making 6 figures, you owe it to yourself to have some love for your craft. If a PM tells yo…
> If a PM tells you to shove a UI style More than likely designers are making up work to justify their jobs. Not good for your career if you admit the desktop interface was perfected in ~1995.
This is the howling insanity that drove Microsoft to kill the start button, then reanimate it, then move it to the center of the task bar.