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Sweet Jeebus, macOS 27 Golden Gate Removes the Dumb Icons from Menu Items

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71–80 of 173 posts

Re: Sweet Jeebus, macOS 27 Golden Gate Removes the Dumb Icons from Menu Items

#71

I'm happy to see the HIG (Human Interface Guidelines) referenced in the post. I was unaware Apple still maintained such a document? There was a time when TOG's HIG [1] was the Bible for the Mac interface. UI nerds at Apple (and likely elsewhere) would enjoy debating/interpreting them for some project or another. (I don't recall anyone being burned at the stake but there were definitely discussions that could reach a…

> I was unaware Apple still maintained such a document?

They kinda do. For a long time HIGs were well researched documents with great examples and explanations.

For the past few years they've been used as post-hoc justifications (or just examples with no justifications) for whatever designs vomits out.

Re: Sweet Jeebus, macOS 27 Golden Gate Removes the Dumb Icons from Menu Items

#72

Glad for the change, but a lot of the criticism overlooks that at some point we won't be the target audience of UI/UX anymore. Flyouts, dropdowns, and other text menus make sense to me, but I could see how they might be alien and uncomfortable to someone that has only ever experienced mobile interfaces. The reverse is true for sure, nowhere do I feel more frustrated and old-brained then trying to make sense of a new…

> but I could see how they might be alien and uncomfortable to someone that has only ever experienced mobile interfaces They are different devices. Just because you can drive a sedan does not means you can drive a bulldozer. Or playing piano qualifies you to play the organ. So going from touch and a small screen to keyboard/mouse and a bigger screen, you should expect that the interactions will change.

true, but ~all new users have a stronger mental model of how their phone works vs. big-screen devices.

Re: Sweet Jeebus, macOS 27 Golden Gate Removes the Dumb Icons from Menu Items

#73
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm upset that Apple is wasting my shader transistors on it.

They're trying to waste it less. For example, it's now very common for me to see it simply not update when I move a window that's behind another window. Which kinda ruins part of the magic for me.

Tahoe can't ramp up the GPU frequency fast enough, and many animation like the QuickLook one often run at less than 30 fps. So much fun.

Re: Sweet Jeebus, macOS 27 Golden Gate Removes the Dumb Icons from Menu Items

#74

I'm happy to see the HIG (Human Interface Guidelines) referenced in the post. I was unaware Apple still maintained such a document? There was a time when TOG's HIG [1] was the Bible for the Mac interface. UI nerds at Apple (and likely elsewhere) would enjoy debating/interpreting them for some project or another. (I don't recall anyone being burned at the stake but there were definitely discussions that could reach a…

Page 12 (PDF p36) seems almost written for the people who did the Tahoe menus

Re: Sweet Jeebus, macOS 27 Golden Gate Removes the Dumb Icons from Menu Items

#75

Probably no one caused more damage than John Ive to Apple (post-Jobs period). Removal of skeuomorphism, removal of essential ports, making MacBooks so thin that they wouldn’t work without overheating to name a few. I am so glad he is gone now, it’s not all bells and whistles for Apple now, but at least it’s way more pleasing to own Apple devices any more.

I agree with you on everything but Skeuomorphism - seeing that leather address book made me genuinely repulsed every time, it felt like I was using a child's computer.

Taste is subjective indeed, but for me they were more expressive and visually appealing than ironed out icons.

Re: Sweet Jeebus, macOS 27 Golden Gate Removes the Dumb Icons from Menu Items

#76
MacOS 27 Beta seems to actually fix a lot of my complaints with Tahoe. I had cynically been believing Apple was simply going to let macOS rot and not fix these major annoyances.

(Rather interestingly, menus still have icons if a menu option will simply launch another app, a specific folder that has an icon, or will perform a specific action like a window resize or category sort change that already has an icon you could click elsewhere.)

They also have cleaned up the mess of differently rounded borders (not complete yet but progress is being made). The OS also feels a lot less sluggish. I had gone back to Sequoia simply because performance was so bad.

Re: Sweet Jeebus, macOS 27 Golden Gate Removes the Dumb Icons from Menu Items

#77

Probably no one caused more damage than John Ive to Apple (post-Jobs period). Removal of skeuomorphism, removal of essential ports, making MacBooks so thin that they wouldn’t work without overheating to name a few. I am so glad he is gone now, it’s not all bells and whistles for Apple now, but at least it’s way more pleasing to own Apple devices any more.

I hated - hated - skeuomorphism. It’s not just the appearance, which I can take or leave, but also the idea of making software model the behavior of physical items. Frankly, the old Mac first party apps sucked for it. For example, for the longest time Calendar didn’t have an event list view, only a day or week or month view (IIRC; it’s been a while). Why? Because desk calendars don’t have an event list view, so neither should this. Or remember the old QuickTime Player where you had to adjust the volume by clicking the edge of a volume wheel and dragging it because that’s how an old portable TV worked.

Skeuomorphic icons can be pretty. Skeuomorphic UX sucks because it inherently brings physical world limitations to software where it’s unnecessary.

Re: Sweet Jeebus, macOS 27 Golden Gate Removes the Dumb Icons from Menu Items

#78
post #52

I'm just sad that Intel MacBooks will be stuck with Tahoe, which is essentialy a botched beta for Golden Gate. Bad customer experience for a company like Apple.

Considering that Intel Macs will still be more than functional and provide a great user experience for many years afterwards even with Tahoe, not something that can be said for Win/PC machines, strikes me as being rather good customer support even if the breakpoint does seem like a bit of a short EOL.

But I now plenty of people who bought Win machines and with the next update they basically turned into molasses, all while dealing with horrible trackpads and bad performance.

Just get a new Mac Neo for ~$500

Re: Sweet Jeebus, macOS 27 Golden Gate Removes the Dumb Icons from Menu Items

#79

Is this a case of "removing the duck"? https://bwiggs.com/notebook/queens-duck/

I'd guess no because in this case the whole system is the duck.

I'd think it's like, the whole Tahoe version had a lot to complain about, but enough people focused on the menu icons that they didn't focus on other things. Look how relieved they are the icons are gone!

Re: Sweet Jeebus, macOS 27 Golden Gate Removes the Dumb Icons from Menu Items

#80
Good grief, hopefully in v28 Lemay will also throw away the absolute crap that is Liquid glass. Aesthetically it looks horrible, it slows my iPhone 13 — which never before lagged in all its life since iOS 15 – to a maddening crawl.

Liquid glass should be taught in design school as an example of what not to do when you design UX. And also in business school as a case of how middle management can fudge up something that is working normally in the illusion of progress.

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