Hide macOS Tahoe's Menu Icons • Hacker News Board

Re: Hide macOS Tahoe's Menu Icons

#91

Post by latexr » Sun, Mar 22, 2026, 12:11 PM UTC

Synaesthesia wrote: post #28

andy_ppp wrote: post #6

Usually I like Apple’s OS updates but Tahoe is absolutely awful from the glass to the noddy sizing of everything. MacOS does not have to harmonise with VisionOS at all and it’s been a disaster for macOS to try.

I don't know, I always see this pattern with iOS or MacOS releases. Everyone piles on at the time. I've actually quite enjoyed some design changes in Tahoe, and looking at older versions of MacOS just looks old fashioned once you're used to them.

> Everyone piles on at the time.

Not this much, they don’t.

> looking at older versions of MacOS just looks old fashioned

It’s an operating system, not a dress to parade around on a catwalk. I don’t want it to be fashionable and change with the seasons, I want it to be usable and intuitive. And yes, it should look good (which Tahoe doesn’t) but to the extent that it makes usability better, never in detriment of it.

Re: Hide macOS Tahoe's Menu Icons

#92

Post by ProllyInfamous » Sun, Mar 22, 2026, 12:34 PM UTC

Does anybody know a good solution of bringing "file labels" (color coding files) back to being more than just adjacent circular dabs — i.e. the previous behavior where the selected-color would illuminate behind the entirety of filename.text?

Re: Hide macOS Tahoe's Menu Icons

#93

Post by isametry » Sun, Mar 22, 2026, 12:41 PM UTC

tomalbrc wrote: post #82

radicaldreamer wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They will likely tweak it but very unlikely that they’ll remove it altogether, especially with the upcoming touch screen MacBook Pro. Companies like Apple typically don’t make reversals quickly (the butterfly keyboard took years to remedy).

Your "upcoming" touch MacBook Pro has been a pipe dream of apple consumers for 2 decades now

I’d even say pipe dream of just Apple commentators and pundits. I’ve yet to hear from a normal, real-life Mac user who legitimately wishes for a touchscreen MacBook.

Re: Hide macOS Tahoe's Menu Icons

#94

Post by layer8 » Sun, Mar 22, 2026, 12:42 PM UTC

reddalo wrote: post #12

andy_ppp wrote: post #6

Usually I like Apple’s OS updates but Tahoe is absolutely awful from the glass to the noddy sizing of everything. MacOS does not have to harmonise with VisionOS at all and it’s been a disaster for macOS to try.

I agree. Tahoe is disgustingly unusable; I'm happy that Alan Dye left Apple. I hope Apple will backtrack on Liquid Glass after Tahoe. Otherwise, I'll just switch to Linux.

Steve Lemay, who now replaced Alan Dye as the design lead, allegedly was a driving force behind Liquid Glass and deeply involved in its development, so I wouldn’t expect any reversal. (https://www.macrumors.com/2026/03/15/ios-27-macos-27-no-majo...)

Re: Hide macOS Tahoe's Menu Icons

#95

Post by fragmede » Sun, Mar 22, 2026, 12:46 PM UTC

isametry wrote: post #93

tomalbrc wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your "upcoming" touch MacBook Pro has been a pipe dream of apple consumers for 2 decades now

I’d even say pipe dream of just Apple commentators and pundits. I’ve yet to hear from a normal, real-life Mac user who legitimately wishes for a touchscreen MacBook.

Kids raised on iPads totally try and touch three laptop screen, ah it's not all Internet pundits who want one.

Re: Hide macOS Tahoe's Menu Icons

#96

Post by inatreecrown2 » Sun, Mar 22, 2026, 12:48 PM UTC

OJFord wrote: post #26

LeoPanthera wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you provide some examples of this? In my experience, they're quite consistent.

https://tonsky.me/blog/tahoe-icons/ (second section on consistency)

This guy is doing free design work/critique for Apple

Re: Hide macOS Tahoe's Menu Icons

#97

Post by layer8 » Sun, Mar 22, 2026, 12:55 PM UTC

Gagarin1917 wrote: post #57

neom wrote: post #18

I was really happy when they added the pictures! Dyslexia, the icons are 100% faster for me, I don't use those menus often enough to know what is in there word wise, but I can read the icons super fast.

It shouldn’t even be just you and others with dyslexia either. Processing images is always faster than processing text for everyone.

It depends on the images. Processing a dozen of very similar-looking small gray blobs isn’t fast. Recognizing the text labels is faster for many people. The text labels also have visual structure within a menu by their different lengths that the icons don’t.

Re: Hide macOS Tahoe's Menu Icons

#98

Post by jtagen » Sun, Mar 22, 2026, 1:02 PM UTC

Spectacular! I haven't played minesweeper in many many years.... learned that the Mac trackpad has very inconsistent right-click detection. Frustrating!

Re: Hide macOS Tahoe's Menu Icons

#99

Post by microtonal » Sun, Mar 22, 2026, 1:03 PM UTC

bestham wrote: post #85

microtonal wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only missing thing are wobbly windows and a cube desktop switcher. (Yes, I know, don’t give them ideas.)

Like the cube user switcher in MacOS?

Oh, yeah, I completely forgot about that. No multi-user Macs in the house anymore.

Re: Hide macOS Tahoe's Menu Icons

#100

Post by drfloyd51 » Sun, Mar 22, 2026, 1:25 PM UTC

isoprophlex wrote: post #90

andy_ppp wrote: post #6

Usually I like Apple’s OS updates but Tahoe is absolutely awful from the glass to the noddy sizing of everything. MacOS does not have to harmonise with VisionOS at all and it’s been a disaster for macOS to try.

I kinda want a new mac because the hardware looks so ... performant. But I can't bear this tahoe glass bullshit, every screenshot I see of it looks terrible. I just don't get what Apple's play is here.

Apple fired the head of UX after Tahoe. Apple didn’t know what Apple’s play was.

The new guy is very well respected and hopefully back off of glass.