Live data from Hacker News

It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

tonsky.me

891–900 of 984 posts

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#891

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’ve said many times before that I think Finder is the worst default file manager of any popular desktop environment. [GNOME enters the chat]: "That's nothing, I'm way worse!"

Is it actually though? It’s cool to criticise Nautilus but, at worst, it’s just equally as bad as Finder. Which shouldn’t be surprising given how much it’s styled to look like Finder. However in my personal opinion Nautilus’s breadcrumb picker does edge it against Finder. So I stand by my comment that Finder is the worst.

Nautilus opens a new window for every folder you enter. Finder does not.

That used to be a preference, and last I used it, it was not. It is forced on because that’s how the GNOME developers thought you should use it… “Our way or the highway!” — GNOME devs.

Finder wins based on that alone. Finder wins so completely because of that one single thing that I’ll never voluntarily use GNOME again.

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#892
post #853
post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% this. I recall watching their launch video about Liquid Glass. It was filled with ego-driven "we're changing the world here" nonsense. They were designing in a bubble and wanted to do something different so they could justify the work. It was never about the user.

A design system I am required to use made a recent "major" update announcement: "Styles have been converted to variables. Styles are out and Figma variables are in". Where what we really needed was a stable release version (now a year late from the original promised date) so we can build out UI components for the content editors to use that don't require constant design tweaks. You know the designers are: a) Just fuc…

Material Design?

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#893

Sorry, even though I agree with your piece, the incredible irony of writing about bad design decisions while having fucking snow flying past the text I'm trying to read is just too much... [edit] I just discovered the snow icon, which does turn off the snow but turns the background into bright yellow. Oh and the other icon which turns your cursor into a ...spotlight? On an otherwise black page? Do I have that right?…

It is called "making fun of" not "irony".

It's ironic if it's unintentional. If the grotesque design was intended as sarcasm, I guess it went over my head.

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#894
post #62

Sorry, even though I agree with your piece, the incredible irony of writing about bad design decisions while having fucking snow flying past the text I'm trying to read is just too much... [edit] I just discovered the snow icon, which does turn off the snow but turns the background into bright yellow. Oh and the other icon which turns your cursor into a ...spotlight? On an otherwise black page? Do I have that right?…

I find the snowflakes equally irritating, but believe there is a huge distinction. This is an individual's blog page, their own corner of the internet, where they can share their opinion and present them in any way they'd like, whereas Apple is designing an Operating System for premium devices used by millions of people that depend on its usability.

They can do whatever they like with their blog, and that's great! But why would I give any weight to the design arguments of someone who designed that thing? It's like if someone comes up to you in a clown costume and starts giving you fashion advice.

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#895

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it weren’t $3500+ I’d love one. The world isn’t ready for that price point.

Apple can afford to improve and cheapify this thing for a decade.

That’s sort of what they did with the Watch.

It has incrementally improved, and gotten cheaper, to the point that I now see them everywhere. When they first came out, they were pretty expensive. Remember the $17,000 gold Watch (which is now obsolete)? The ceramic ones were over a couple of grand.

But the dream of selling Watch apps seems to have died. I think most folks just use the built-in apps.

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#896
post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fashion is a very appropriate place for style. Tools, less so.

Corollary: the extent of fashion-driven variability those "tools" support over generations tells us just how little utility those tools provide. In actual tools, the form and function are strongly connected. Tools of competing brands look pretty much the same, except for color accents, because they can't look any different without sacrificing functionality, performance and safety characteristics. You don't see power…

I do see tool vendors often adding their own logos to the tools. They choose non-functional colors for styling. They'll make something more rounded or more squared for aesthetic reasons. For consumer-facing tools there are lots of little non-functional changes they'll choose to do for their own stylistic and branding purposes. They do want to ultimately differentiate their products from competitors, not just be the exact same as all the others on the shelf.

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#897

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> outside of headphones, have a decade-long dismal sales record Outside of headphones and watches

Do they sell many Apple Watches? Maybe it is an euro thing but I only very rarely see people wearing one. I would see 9 garmins for 1 Apple Watch for instance and many more people wearing cheap casios or no watch at all.

I'm in India and the Xiaomi watches are everywhere (they probably don't sell those in the States/EU?) But also Apple and Samsung.

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#899
post #33

It is incredible just how widely held the view is that Win2k (or XP in classic mode) was close to peak desktop UI. (Contenders also being Tiger to Snow Leopard and Windows 7). A key problem is that big US corps have always had a product design mentality that can produce monstrosities like your average cable TV remote and think it is in any way a good solution. That was clearly already an influence on things like XP.

Classic Mac OS' Platinum is also a contender for pre-2000 peaks. I actually never grew up with a Mac, my first one ran Tiger when I was in high school. But over the years I have collected rare or interesting Macs of yore, from before my time and come to adore Platinum and the classic Finder.

Re: It's hard to justify Tahoe icons

#900

Good that Alan Dye is no longer at apple. Liquid Glass on macOS is a mass. The icons, the floating side menus, the inconsistent corners, the new tabs in Safari.. On iOS it's totally fine, but on macOS it's a disaster. I've only updated one machine so far and will keep all others on Sequoia until this mess is resolved.

> Good that Alan Dye is no longer at apple. Yeah, but I doubt that would change much; the amount of damage done would be difficult to roll back. What do you think Apple is going to do for the next macOS: "Look we told you to design all these extra icons last year. Guess what, this year we want you to remove them." I just can't imagine that happening. This is the fundamental thing that is wrong with this. They had the…

Same here. I think my next upgrade cycle is going to be

- framework laptop or similar Linux machine

- graphene os phone

- ditch the apple watch, go back to a watch-watch

Post reply on HN