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Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

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Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#601

Post by andrekandre »

RollingRo11 wrote: post #430
austinl wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is also likely a performance nightmare. Funny that they mention that "new hardware has enabled us to..." which means that this will perform poorly on old devices. At a previous company, we were forbidden from using translucency (with a few exceptions) because of the performance cost of blending. There are debugging tools we'd use fairly often to confirm that all layers were opaque.

Currently replying from my iPhone 16 pro (granted, not old by any means) on the iOS 26 dev beta. MOST things actually feel smoother/snappier than iOS 18. Safari is a joy to use from a performance perspective. It’s in beta so ofc I’m getting a ton of frame hitches, overheating, etc. but my summarized initial thoughts are “it’ll take some getting used to, but it feels pretty fast”

  > It’s in beta so ofc I’m getting a ton of frame hitches, overheating
how is battery-life?

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#602

Post by laweijfmvo »

laweijfmvo wrote: post #599

the most usable UIs are, i guess “not attractive” anymore. but they are productive, and a joy to use when you need to get something done. these new UIs are a pain to use, but they trick our depressed ADHD brains to keep flipping through the screens and menus with fancy colors and animations. AND THAT IS THE GOAL. screen time. because you are nothing but a target for ads and subscriptions.

for those who doubt me, use the Accessibility settings on your current device to disable all the eye candy and switch to gray scale. it will rarely impact your ability to make a call, send a message, look up some details (OK, photos will be semi unusable). but once the task is done, you’ll have no desire to keep fiddling with your shiny toy. try it.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#603

Post by sgarland »

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…

Accessibility aside, I don't see the appeal in this design. I find the current design quite pleasant and usable. Translucent 3D text sounds like teenage-me messing around in Photoshop in the early 2000s.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#605

Post by MetaMonk »

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…

Haven't been able to turn it off yet. It's so awful looking and distracting, even with "reduce transparency" and "reduce motion" enabled. I actually think these settings are making it stutter more. It's definitely slower than iOS 18.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#606

Post by Groxx »

laweijfmvo wrote: post #602
laweijfmvo wrote: post #599

the most usable UIs are, i guess “not attractive” anymore. but they are productive, and a joy to use when you need to get something done. these new UIs are a pain to use, but they trick our depressed ADHD brains to keep flipping through the screens and menus with fancy colors and animations. AND THAT IS THE GOAL. screen time. because you are nothing but a target for ads and subscriptions.

for those who doubt me, use the Accessibility settings on your current device to disable all the eye candy and switch to gray scale. it will rarely impact your ability to make a call, send a message, look up some details (OK, photos will be semi unusable). but once the task is done, you’ll have no desire to keep fiddling with your shiny toy. try it.

Disabling animations is also the quickest way to remind yourself that computers are in fact pretty fast. No more waiting a half second after every action for things to stop moving, it responds instantly.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#607

Post by david-gpu »

austinl wrote: post #265
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…

This is also likely a performance nightmare. Funny that they mention that "new hardware has enabled us to..." which means that this will perform poorly on old devices. At a previous company, we were forbidden from using translucency (with a few exceptions) because of the performance cost of blending. There are debugging tools we'd use fairly often to confirm that all layers were opaque.

> At a previous company, we were forbidden from using translucency (with a few exceptions) because of the performance cost of blending.

I imagine this was on mobile devices.

Blending was relatively expensive on GPUs from Imagination Technologies and their derivatives, including all Apple GPUs. This is because these GPUs had relatively weak shader processors and relied instead on dedicated hardware to sort geometry so that the shader processor had to do less work than on a traditional GPU.

Other GPUs vendors rely more on beefier shader processors and less on sorting geometry (e.g. Hierarchical-Z). This turned out to be a better approach in the long term, especially once game engines started relying on deferred shading anyway, which is in essence a software-based approach that sorts geometry first before computing the final pixel colors.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#608

Post by the_other »

nlarew wrote: post #275
cosmotic wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because we can doesn't mean we should. Using this new design language as an example, things are now harder to read, identify, and understand. That's a huge loss to productivity and ease of use.

> things are now harder to read, identify, and understand What makes you think that? Do you have a specific example from the keynote in mind? There must be something since you've never actually used this design system yourself. Or is this just your pre-judgement?

> What makes you think that? Do you have a specific example from the keynote in mind?

Almost every button and menu they showed was harder for me to read than the ones on my current generation Apple gear. The icons on buttons are indistinct, the text is hard to read. The buttons themselves seem to sink into the content "below" making both the buttons and the content hard to see.

Some examples:

- the tabs at the bottom left of the photos app

- the address bar in Safari (what a complete mess... you can't see the content beneath because the address bar blurs it, but you also can't read the address bar because the glass effect destroys contrast

- in the colourless "translucent" colour way, all the icons look the same

- the (admittedly cute) "squish" effect when tapping menus and some of the buttons looked like it would slow down all interactions

- the highlights and light/colour bending effects are utterly distracting, catching your eye when you really want to be skimming the content or overview to orient yourself in the UI

True, I've not used it... but I was watching along with the launch video with rapt Apple fan-boi attention and I was surprised by how uncomfortable the new UI seemed to be. I've never felt that before.

This new design style is certainly "fun", but it looks like it'll get in the way of fast use of the tools.

I want my OS to promote clarity of affordances, and then to recede away from my attention so I can get on with doing what I was trying to do. This new design style looks like it's trying to hold on to my attention all the time I'm using the devices. (Admittedly today's keynote was an ad for the new design, so that sense of attention grabbing was hopefully accentuated over day to day use... but I'm skeptical.)

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#609

Post by rubslopes »

seemaze wrote: post #525
Vegenoid wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. That is really bad. Apple already does the transparency thing with the control center menu, but it blurs the background so much that you don’t notice it. Why they’d want to lessen the blur and make it more transparent is beyond me.

oomph, looks like this might finally be (my) year of the linux desktop..

Not yet for me, still waiting for a 8-hour battery...

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#610

Post by pseudalopex »

landl0rd wrote: post #292
rpgbr wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet there will be, but let not dismiss that good accessibility is when the UI is readable/accessible by default. Anyway, I also bet they will tone this transparency stuff down a lot in the betas leading to the stable version in September. iOS 7 all over again…

Let's also not ignore that, whether apple has actually achieved this or not, the highly-accessible version of something necessarily excludes many design idioms and either looks worse or relegates one to a limited range of creative expression. As such, most designers will not want to design for that by default.

''Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like,'' says Steve Jobs, Apple's C.E.O. ''People think it's this veneer -- that the designers are handed this box and told, 'Make it look good!' That's not what we think design is. It's not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.''[1]

Interface design is not a place for unlimited creative expression. But recent user interface trends exclude many design idioms and relegate one to a limited range of creative expression also. Some people think they look better. Some do not.

Accessible interfaces have become uglier in ways which did not improve accessibility. And recent trends have made them less accessible in some ways also. Choose not enough contrast or too much. Choose contrast or color where both were before.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/magazine/the-guts-of-a-ne...

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