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Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

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Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#931

Post by garyrob »

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…

I find transparency annoying enough that if it becomes more prevalent on MacOS in a way I can't turn off, I may switch to Linux for that reason alone.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#932

Post by mdasen »

garyrob wrote: post #931
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…

I find transparency annoying enough that if it becomes more prevalent on MacOS in a way I can't turn off, I may switch to Linux for that reason alone.

You can turn off the current transparency (just search for transparency in settings)

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#933

Post by illiac786 »

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.

Interestingly, in iOS 18, suppressing transparency (there’s a setting for it) makes performance worse, not better. The UI lags significantly more with transparency disabled. I expect it will be the same with iOS 26: there will be setting to reduce the transparency (which I find highly distracting) but it will make performance actually worse…

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#934

Post by reaperducer »

debo_ wrote: post #884
adastra22 wrote: post #766

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That screenshot is utterly unreadable. It makes my eyes hurt. For the young people out there, I'm not exaggerating or being metaphorical. Literally pain in my eyes as they try (and fail) to focus on the appropriate UI elements. I was going to upgrade to an iPhone 16 this week. I might be checking out Google or Samsung devices instead.

You might want to look at the new design language that Android is going for: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43975352

You might want to look at the new design language that Android is going for:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43975352

Feels very much like a fruit-colored version of late 1960's early 1970's pop culture design.

Change it to browns and oranges and golds, and it'll be perfectly groovy.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#935

Post by butlike »

Gigachad wrote: post #633
sgarland wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The new glass design feels fresh and playful. Like a more refined luxury version of Frutiger Aero. The current design is functional, but it feels pretty stale and mundane after years.

It's Aqua 2.0, or at least, I hope it's going to be like that.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#936

Post by cosmotic »

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?

Looking at Apple's curated headline hero image on https://www.apple.com/os/ios/

Every single example of the five are hard to read, especially the second.

At least half of the example screenshots and videos I've seen in the keynote and on various Apple website pages are hard to read. The lense effects, only visible in the animations/videos, are technically impressive, visually stimulating, but terrible from a utilitarian perspective (unless you consider convincing people to buy iPhones using attractive visuals in a cinematic sort of way but not actually trying to use the devices as some sort of utility to Apple).

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#937

Post by cosmotic »

paulcole wrote: post #343
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.

> That's a huge loss to productivity and ease of use Have you used it yet?

I have looked at the screenshots and videos. I can tell from those that text is hard to read and icons are hard to differentiate. iOS has a long history of these gaffes.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#938

Post by krferriter »

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #395
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.

Windows Vista introduced this same concept. Performance was awful unless you had compatible graphics acceleration. 20 years later, I think most devices should be fine, especially Apple devices.

Yeah one of the easiest ways to make windows vista+7 perform better was to simply disable all the fancy UI graphics that add nothing. I don't care if my window title bars have a gradient and animated transparency. It's actually a bit distracting and makes the system perform worse, so I just turned it off.

Even on modern devices though which have more computation and graphics power to the point that they aren't going to actually lag or anything while rendering it, why waste cycles and battery animating these useless and distracting things? There's no good justification.

Re: Apple introduces a universal design across platforms

#939

Post by krferriter »

illiac786 wrote: post #933
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.

Interestingly, in iOS 18, suppressing transparency (there’s a setting for it) makes performance worse, not better. The UI lags significantly more with transparency disabled. I expect it will be the same with iOS 26: there will be setting to reduce the transparency (which I find highly distracting) but it will make performance actually worse…

Did suppressing transparency also turn on processor throttling or something too? Like putting the device in a power saver mode?
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