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I have to be honest and go completely against the crowd here - but I think the UI updates are very good. They make the two OSes look cohesive but in a tasteful

by dimmke 6y ago

I have to be honest and go completely against the crowd here - but I think the UI updates are very good. They make the two OSes look cohesive but in a tasteful way. The extra padding in all of the UI is the only thing that I chafe at a little bit, it feels unnecessary. I really don't think they're going to put out touch screen Macs. So I'm not sure what there is to get upset about. I don't see any big functional changes in the OS aside from reworking the notification center UI a little- and I like this new version more. It's already been confirmed that they aren't locking down apps to the app store or anything like that. It seems like people think that because they're taking design cues from iOS they intend to lock it down like iOS and they're transferring that fear into dislike of the new UI itself. Apple knows that a large percentage of the people who buy its computers are software engineers and if they ever do fully lock their computers down in that way they'd be ceding that marketshare entirely, along with catching quite a bit of heat for it in the press. Maybe eventually that calculus is worth it to them but I don't think that's what this is a step towards. I think they just want users who are fully plugged into their ecosystem to feel like it's a cohesive experience across platforms and this achieves that.

loughnane 6y ago
>Apple knows that a large percentage of the people who buy its computers are software engineers I suspect a large percentage of software engineers buy their computers, but I'm skeptical at the assertion that a large percentage of people who buy their computers are software engineers.
- hyperpape 6y ago
  Looks like they've been selling around 18 million macs a year (https://www.statista.com/statistics/263444/sales-of-apple-mac-computers-since-first-quarter-2006/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/263444/sales-of-apple-ma...). If you ignore individuals having multiple computers, and assume the average lifetime of a machine is 5 years, you get 90 million people with a Mac. I don't know how many developers there are, but saw 20-25 million in some estimates.
  - oblio 6y ago
    The vast majority of developed worldwide are using crummy Windows laptops and developing internal enterprise software :-) At best Macs probably have a marketshare of 30% among developers. The US and big tech companies are outliers regarding Mac usage.
    - jevgeni 6y ago
      Win10 developer experience is far better than Mac OS. And way more versatile. Not to mention the brain dead design of UX when somebody FaceTimes you while you are developing in full screen mode...
  - pier25 6y ago
    IIRC Tim said in today's keynote there are 23M Apple developers. Very roughly, 20% of macOS users are developers.
    - lokedhs 6y ago
      20% of users are Apple developers. There are plenty of developers who use their hardware but don't develop for Apple products (a web developer wouldn't be an Apple developer). Or have things changed since I left the Apple ecosystem? I'm assuming you don't need to be a registered developer to use things like "make" or download IntelliJ IDEA?
      - pier25 6y ago
        Yes you're right, that's what I meant. If you're doing web dev you don't need to be a registered Apple developer.
- breakfastduck 6y ago
  That's probably true - although there are a LOT of iOS developers out there who can now essentially program for macOS because of catalyst. Either way, software engineers build the applications that drive your platforms popularity, meaning developer adoption of a platform is incredibly important and thus they probably have a larger influence on Apples decision making than other demographics would with similar percentages.
- lwhi 6y ago
  There are more 'normies' than engineers out there. They need to continue sell more to keep share holders happy. It's a calculated shift.
- spideymans 6y ago
  At the last WWDC, Apple mentioned that of all of the so called "creative professionals" on the Mac, software developers were the largest group. I don't know how large the percentage is exactly, but its clearly significant.
  - madhadron 6y ago
    Considering they intentionally got rid of, say, video editors as a professional group that used Macs, it may be more of a case of "who is left." One of these days I'll write a todo list manager to replace OmniFocus and then be able to switch platforms.
    - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
      I'm sure the only reason we buy Macs is so that we can still target iOS.
      - madhadron 6y ago
        I honestly find MacOS to be a more usable environment than Windows. I haven't run Linux as my desktop for many years, though, so maybe I just need to go back and try it again.
breakfastduck 6y ago
I agree, I think the new UI looks great. People are taking the UI / ARM change as apple taking away more control, but macOS is THE development platform of the entire apple ecosystem. So yeah, the ecosystem may be tighter knitted, but they sure as hell will not lock down macOS like they do iOS, they have so many mac users who are developers and apple are absolutely aware of that. People complain about features in catalina and other recent versions of macOS 'locking things down' - it's incredibly easy to bypass the stuff that makes a difference using the terminal. In a world where every company in the world wants to track and harvest your data, we've somehow got to the point where people bash apple for actually taking privacy and security seriously.
- henriquez 6y ago
  Apple locks down MacOS more and more with each major release. Some of it seems well justified but the totality of it is concerning to me. Being able to defeat some of it in the console doesn’t change what is an increasingly abusive relationship. I feel like we’re rapidly approaching a point where Apple enforces the same strict control over MacOS that they do over the iOS App Store and they’re softening people up towards that in baby steps with each incremental restriction they implement. Maybe I’m just paranoid, but I personally decided to stop buying their computers because of it.
  - breakfastduck 6y ago
    I disagree, I don't think they're anywhere near locking down to the iOS level. Could you explain some of these incremental lock downs? I honestly can't think of any that are genuine restrictions, but that might just be because I don't encounter them with what I do.
    - lwhi 6y ago
      Every new release of OS X has been an increasing disappointment for years now. Security issues, bugs, incompatibilities. It's almost as if they've been actively devesting in OS X. At least we now understand why. Mac's are no longer machines fit for professional development. It's a damn shame, but it's true in my mind.
jacurtis 6y ago
I agree completely. The only real gripe I feel is that excessive padding. It is sort of like scrolling through Dribbble app mockups. The layouts look amazing as a mockup, but when you actually go to make or use the app it isn't as practical as you want. On a desktop, with a mouse, I have near-perfect precision. I don't need overly-padded icons and windows because I have the precision of a mouse. The extra padding just wastes screen real-estate and makes me move the mouse more to get between tools or options in the menu. I would much rather have less padding, which might not look as beautiful, and use the extra space for the content of my application as opposed to the toolbars.
- WillPostForFood 6y ago
  Might be good for laptops with a touchpad though. I don't know the sales split, but I assume Apple sells many more laptops than desktops.
  - _bxg1 6y ago
    I actually feel like I have even more precision on a touchpad because I'm not sliding around a weighted object
- derefr 6y ago
  > On a desktop, with a mouse, I have near-perfect precision. I don't need overly-padded icons and windows because I have the precision of a mouse. You do, but not everyone does. Consider the accessibility needs of people with motor-degenerative diseases like Parkinson's or Huntington's. Won't they be better-served by larger click-targets?
  - dlivingston 6y ago
    That is why Apple provides an accessibility panel in system settings.
    - derefr 6y ago
      Normally, yes; but sometimes the change required to help one group doesn't hinder anyone else, and also is very hard to automatically derive the "accessible" version of the UX in a way that doesn't cause more harm than help (by e.g. accidentally pushing critical buttons out of visibility into a slide menu; or breaking a menu onto two lines such that there's less viewport left than originally designed for at minimum height.) In such cases, it makes a lot of sense to just give the change to everybody, so that you can design the UX once, with the change in place. See also: modern TV shows and films that make sure to not put anything important where closed-captions would appear—they're designing once, assuming captioning.
lwhi 6y ago
The problem is, Apple have chosen consumers above professionals. It's been fairly obvious that this was their plan. Now it's been categorically confirmed.
- lwhi 6y ago
  To the downvoters .. hope that koolaid tastes good!
seumars 6y ago
Even judging by that first screenshot, you can see that white text with very smooth shadow on a semi-transparent menubar is not at all pleasant or readable. For all the talk about "human interface" you'd think they would at least get the whole black-text-on-white-background principle.
mxcrossb 6y ago
Well that and the fact that tech website users basically complain about every UI change. Hacker News is full of people who think XFCE is the height of desktop experience. This is fundamentally different than apple’s core fan base who seem to like any change just for the sake of change.
- dimmke 6y ago
  I agree, any change will be frowned upon. It just annoys me that I feel like they're drawing the completely wrong conclusions. Apple was the company that dropped the headphone jack from their phone, shipped a laptop with only USB-C ports etc... they don't shy away from making big controversial decisions if they feel like it's good for them. If Apple was going to do this to MacOS, they'd have already done it. They wouldn't be spending years tip toeing towards it like people seem to think. Instead, they've rolled back some really unpopular changes like the crappy keyboard in their laptop, they just shipped a new Mac Pro that is clearly designed for professionals. This chip transition will result in Apple's laptops having better battery life, specs and heating than any other laptops available on the market. It won't even be close. Additionally, they're actively trying to bring a huge swath of developers who currently only develop for their mobile devices into developing for the Mac. If they were trying to turn Macs into something for college students to watch Netflix on they wouldn't be doing any of this. It's insane to me that people can see a UI refresh as a sign of doom while ignoring that Apple has actually been investing in the platform quite a bit more than they were a few years ago.
  - rahkiin 6y ago
    I am mostly upset about the low contrast. I hope that gets improved before release. And sad about the change in sheets and alerts... I’ll probably get over that.
    - the_other 6y ago
      The contrast changes seem varied. For some features they've increased contrast: "windows" are now white with black-ish icons. You can't get a higher contrast ratio. Other features have received the translucency treatment, and seem to have lower contrast. I'm excited to try it all out, but also unsure how comfortable I'm gonna find it. The large white expanses seem glaringly over-bright to me, at first glance.
rzzzt 6y ago
It's interesting that this comment makes the same sentiment as the top comment on the CPU announcement thread - contrary to the (perceived) public opinion, things are good, it's going to be great. Can you both be really against the crowd if so many people agree with you? (To be clear, I'm not insinuating anything, just interested in the dynamic.)
- dimmke 6y ago
  Agree - I think there's a silent majority thing going on here. Because I only saw negative comments on any thread I looked at about this. That's what prompted me to comment in the first place. Clearly, a lot of people do agree (or I'm just super persuasive :P)
- spideymans 6y ago
  People that disagree are usually the loudest when it comes to any issue. Those that agree probably just upvote and move on.
Lammy 6y ago
I liked it as soon as I saw the Accent Colors — feels like Appearance Manager in Mac OS 8 all over again :)
thought_alarm 6y ago
I won't know until I actually use it, but based on looks alone I think it's the cleanest and most cohesive Mac UI since the peak Aqua era (OS X 10.4-10.6).
jayd16 6y ago
>I really don't think they're going to put out touch screen Macs. Why not? I think its a distinct possibility.
- dimmke 6y ago
  If they were going to do this, they would have done it when they needed a big new feature and instead they put out the touch bar. Apple's answer to people who want something like this is the iPad Pro with the adaptive cursor and the keyboard case with the touch pad. I could be wrong, it's just my instinct.
- mkozlows 6y ago
  I think the "you can run iOS apps on your Mac now" announcement basically guaranteed touchscreen Macs. It might be possible to use many iOS apps with a trackpad, but it's not going to be a pleasant experience. Put together a touch-friendly new OS UI with the ability to run a zillion apps designed-for-touch in a context where all your competition has touch-enabled devices and it's hard to believe they'd hold out any longer.
  - dimmke 6y ago
    That's an interesting point, I didn't think about that. Plus, the extra padding would make more sense then. Maybe they are planning on adding it.
  - robterrell 6y ago
    Touchscreen Macs running iOS apps... At that point, what exactly is the difference between the product lines?
    - fabiospampinato 6y ago
      Would you like to go around with a laptop in your pocket?
  - kace91 6y ago
    That's assuming that ios apps on the Mac are a big feature. They might just be some novelty to sell the move to arm, or a first step towards some sort of universal apps that just switch their ui according to the device they're used in.
EamonnMR 6y ago
I don't care what they do with the UI (unless they fixed it somehow.[1]) The reason I'm always disappointed to see a new version is the breakage that every MacOS update brings, both to developer tools and apps. I have to choose between keeping my various environments functioning and getting the latest MacOS so I can run Jira Desktop. 1) Delete spotlight, Siri and 'look up,' make alt-tab handle multiple windows of the same app, fix searching within folders and also separately fix whole-filesystem search.
- _bxg1 6y ago
  Tip: Cmd + backtick cycles through windows within the current app. Once I learned this I much preferred the Mac's way of grouping windows by app.
RivieraKid 6y ago
Yep, I agree. Hacker News is a very conservative place (in terms of technology and UI changes). I think in general Apple does a phenomenal job at UI design. That said, the user experience of Mac OS still has plenty of low hanging fruit: - Window management and app switching could be much better. The "app switching system" I liked the most was in Gnome 2 / MATE - I could just quickly move the cursor to the bottom task bar and scroll. It was so effortless, fast and easy. - When I download an app (.dmg) and click it, it shows up as a new disk. WTF? - The file manager could be made much better. Again, MATE had (probably still has) the best file manager I've ever used in terms of UX.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  > When I download an app (.dmg) and click it, it shows up as a new disk. How do you think it should show up?
  - RivieraKid 6y ago
    As an installer program, like on Windows. Or as an installable package (Mac OS should have an integrated package management system like Homebrew).
    - _bxg1 6y ago
      macOS installers exist; I think they were used more commonly before the .app format, but that's how you get the Windows situation where the "uninstall" operation is a crapshoot because relevant files are scattered across your system. I don't know the exact purpose behind the "mount a virtual drive to install an app" model, but it seems far too deliberate to not have a purpose.
      - RivieraKid 6y ago
        I'm sure there's some rationale behind it. But it's simply a UX fail.
        6y ago
spike021 6y ago
>It seems like people think that because they're taking design cues from iOS they intend to lock it down like iOS and they're transferring that fear into dislike of the new UI itself. This has been the fear for the last 10 or so years, maybe longer. It hasn't strictly happened yet. Maybe someday, but this definitely isn't it.
- _bxg1 6y ago
  It just wouldn't make a shred of sense. iPads have real keyboards now. A crippled macOS wouldn't have a purpose in today's world. It would make more sense to drop the category entirely than to dumb it down, and if they made anything clear today it was that the Mac is here to stay.
MR4D 6y ago
My huge beef (yeah, I'm nitpicking, but it bugs me) is the camera icon. The new one looks like a broken stop/play button (the play is backwards). I know the old one was "skeuomorphic", but it was useful. This one burns brain calories just trying to figure out if it's a stop/play button or not. </rant>
pcr910303 6y ago
Well, I'm usually the person to quickly point out that HN is very conservative, and advocate the modern UI/tech stack that HN thinks is too flat or too bloated, etc... But as a long time macOS user, I can't say that the UI is good. If I can fix one thing from the new UI, I think it should have borders or at least a different background color, like pre-iOS 13 with button shapes. The current iOS buttons (and the new macOS design) doesn't give any visual cue for the user to know whether this is an icon label or a button. That's a problem, and one that macOS has solved elegantly by having different textures (like the toolbar). It's now... more like Windows 10 where everything is on a flat surface without any differences.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  macOS buttons do give you cues…when you hover on them :/
dionian 6y ago
ive been using Mac OS X since 10.0 betas, I like every time they refine it. And this feels a step in the right direction. Simpler. I suspect everyone will get used to it and cringe at going back to the old one, just like always as a UI geek these kinds of updates in Mac OS updates are some of my favorite - they impact everything you do in a small but substantial way
sudosysgen 6y ago
iOS and macOS should not look or act similarly, though. A UI should look the way it does in order to optimize efficiency and enjoyment. iOS has a touch UI for devices ~6 inches wide, and no keyboard. macOS has a KB/M UI for devices 13-34 inches wide with a keyboard and mouse, or worse even, a trackpad. You cannot make one more like the other without making it worse. Levelling your UI to the lowest common denominator is a sure fire way of making it worse and reduces the efficiency and ability of everyone in the long run. macOS and iOS should be entirely distinct UI wise.
- dimmke 6y ago
  I agree with you in principle - but these UI updates were basically just refreshing the UX that already existed with a similar aesthetic look. They didn't disable the windowing system or make any other big changes in how the interface actually works. Just visual refreshes to bring them in sync. That's the thing I don't understand. Even the padding is a bit overstated by people, it's not that extreme.
addicted 6y ago
I’m finding the cohesive OS arguments a little ridiculous. For one thing, it’s not like cohesion was achieved by bringing in the best parts of OSX and the best parts of iOS. Cohesion has been achieved by transforming the OSX UI into iOS’s to the extent possible. Apple has been clever to do it bit by bit but using OSX from 10 years ago to today, you can feel the alienation. The other part is that until a few years ago Apple was the biggest proponent of the idea that a Mac, with its pixel perfect input mechanism, and a keyboard, and iOS whose input was fingers, should not have a similar UI. Their execs scoffed at Microsoft’s attempts to make a device which when in laptop mode ran traditional windows but in tablet mode ran a version of windows optimized for touch. Somehow those UI concerns have evaporated for no good reason.
brailsafe 6y ago
I like that the new UI changes. More white space and improvements to controls are welcome. I'm a bit partial to the lack of buttons that don't look clickable, but I'll reserve my judgement until I've tried it.
johnisgood 6y ago
> The extra padding in all of the UI is the only thing that I chafe at a little bit This, and increased font sizes. Do any of you know how to change the font size of the window title bar in macOS 11?
erwinh 6y ago
Good points. Indeed this probably really helps with getting the 90% of iphone users who don’t own or use a mac yet to make it more familiar immediately. More cohesive brand experience is not to be undervalued either both in terms of cost to produce assets and perception by users.
Mindwipe 6y ago
The loss of information density caused by the extra padding is a big functional change - a loss of functionality.

by dimmke 6y ago

loughnane 6y ago

>Apple knows that a large percentage of the people who buy its computers are software engineers I suspect a large percentage of software engineers buy their computers, but I'm skeptical at the assertion that a large percentage of people who buy their computers are software engineers.

hyperpape 6y ago
Looks like they've been selling around 18 million macs a year (https://www.statista.com/statistics/263444/sales-of-apple-mac-computers-since-first-quarter-2006/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/263444/sales-of-apple-ma...). If you ignore individuals having multiple computers, and assume the average lifetime of a machine is 5 years, you get 90 million people with a Mac. I don't know how many developers there are, but saw 20-25 million in some estimates.
- oblio 6y ago
  The vast majority of developed worldwide are using crummy Windows laptops and developing internal enterprise software :-) At best Macs probably have a marketshare of 30% among developers. The US and big tech companies are outliers regarding Mac usage.
  - jevgeni 6y ago
    Win10 developer experience is far better than Mac OS. And way more versatile. Not to mention the brain dead design of UX when somebody FaceTimes you while you are developing in full screen mode...
- pier25 6y ago
  IIRC Tim said in today's keynote there are 23M Apple developers. Very roughly, 20% of macOS users are developers.
  - lokedhs 6y ago
    20% of users are Apple developers. There are plenty of developers who use their hardware but don't develop for Apple products (a web developer wouldn't be an Apple developer). Or have things changed since I left the Apple ecosystem? I'm assuming you don't need to be a registered developer to use things like "make" or download IntelliJ IDEA?
    - pier25 6y ago
      Yes you're right, that's what I meant. If you're doing web dev you don't need to be a registered Apple developer.
breakfastduck 6y ago
That's probably true - although there are a LOT of iOS developers out there who can now essentially program for macOS because of catalyst. Either way, software engineers build the applications that drive your platforms popularity, meaning developer adoption of a platform is incredibly important and thus they probably have a larger influence on Apples decision making than other demographics would with similar percentages.
lwhi 6y ago
There are more 'normies' than engineers out there. They need to continue sell more to keep share holders happy. It's a calculated shift.
spideymans 6y ago
At the last WWDC, Apple mentioned that of all of the so called "creative professionals" on the Mac, software developers were the largest group. I don't know how large the percentage is exactly, but its clearly significant.
- madhadron 6y ago
  Considering they intentionally got rid of, say, video editors as a professional group that used Macs, it may be more of a case of "who is left." One of these days I'll write a todo list manager to replace OmniFocus and then be able to switch platforms.
  - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
    I'm sure the only reason we buy Macs is so that we can still target iOS.
    - madhadron 6y ago
      I honestly find MacOS to be a more usable environment than Windows. I haven't run Linux as my desktop for many years, though, so maybe I just need to go back and try it again.

breakfastduck 6y ago

I agree, I think the new UI looks great. People are taking the UI / ARM change as apple taking away more control, but macOS is THE development platform of the entire apple ecosystem. So yeah, the ecosystem may be tighter knitted, but they sure as hell will not lock down macOS like they do iOS, they have so many mac users who are developers and apple are absolutely aware of that. People complain about features in catalina and other recent versions of macOS 'locking things down' - it's incredibly easy to bypass the stuff that makes a difference using the terminal. In a world where every company in the world wants to track and harvest your data, we've somehow got to the point where people bash apple for actually taking privacy and security seriously.

henriquez 6y ago
Apple locks down MacOS more and more with each major release. Some of it seems well justified but the totality of it is concerning to me. Being able to defeat some of it in the console doesn’t change what is an increasingly abusive relationship. I feel like we’re rapidly approaching a point where Apple enforces the same strict control over MacOS that they do over the iOS App Store and they’re softening people up towards that in baby steps with each incremental restriction they implement. Maybe I’m just paranoid, but I personally decided to stop buying their computers because of it.
- breakfastduck 6y ago
  I disagree, I don't think they're anywhere near locking down to the iOS level. Could you explain some of these incremental lock downs? I honestly can't think of any that are genuine restrictions, but that might just be because I don't encounter them with what I do.
  - lwhi 6y ago
    Every new release of OS X has been an increasing disappointment for years now. Security issues, bugs, incompatibilities. It's almost as if they've been actively devesting in OS X. At least we now understand why. Mac's are no longer machines fit for professional development. It's a damn shame, but it's true in my mind.

jacurtis 6y ago

I agree completely. The only real gripe I feel is that excessive padding. It is sort of like scrolling through Dribbble app mockups. The layouts look amazing as a mockup, but when you actually go to make or use the app it isn't as practical as you want. On a desktop, with a mouse, I have near-perfect precision. I don't need overly-padded icons and windows because I have the precision of a mouse. The extra padding just wastes screen real-estate and makes me move the mouse more to get between tools or options in the menu. I would much rather have less padding, which might not look as beautiful, and use the extra space for the content of my application as opposed to the toolbars.

WillPostForFood 6y ago
Might be good for laptops with a touchpad though. I don't know the sales split, but I assume Apple sells many more laptops than desktops.
- _bxg1 6y ago
  I actually feel like I have even more precision on a touchpad because I'm not sliding around a weighted object
derefr 6y ago
> On a desktop, with a mouse, I have near-perfect precision. I don't need overly-padded icons and windows because I have the precision of a mouse. You do, but not everyone does. Consider the accessibility needs of people with motor-degenerative diseases like Parkinson's or Huntington's. Won't they be better-served by larger click-targets?
- dlivingston 6y ago
  That is why Apple provides an accessibility panel in system settings.
  - derefr 6y ago
    Normally, yes; but sometimes the change required to help one group doesn't hinder anyone else, and also is very hard to automatically derive the "accessible" version of the UX in a way that doesn't cause more harm than help (by e.g. accidentally pushing critical buttons out of visibility into a slide menu; or breaking a menu onto two lines such that there's less viewport left than originally designed for at minimum height.) In such cases, it makes a lot of sense to just give the change to everybody, so that you can design the UX once, with the change in place. See also: modern TV shows and films that make sure to not put anything important where closed-captions would appear—they're designing once, assuming captioning.

lwhi 6y ago

The problem is, Apple have chosen consumers above professionals. It's been fairly obvious that this was their plan. Now it's been categorically confirmed.

lwhi 6y ago
To the downvoters .. hope that koolaid tastes good!

seumars 6y ago

Even judging by that first screenshot, you can see that white text with very smooth shadow on a semi-transparent menubar is not at all pleasant or readable. For all the talk about "human interface" you'd think they would at least get the whole black-text-on-white-background principle.

mxcrossb 6y ago

Well that and the fact that tech website users basically complain about every UI change. Hacker News is full of people who think XFCE is the height of desktop experience. This is fundamentally different than apple’s core fan base who seem to like any change just for the sake of change.

dimmke 6y ago
I agree, any change will be frowned upon. It just annoys me that I feel like they're drawing the completely wrong conclusions. Apple was the company that dropped the headphone jack from their phone, shipped a laptop with only USB-C ports etc... they don't shy away from making big controversial decisions if they feel like it's good for them. If Apple was going to do this to MacOS, they'd have already done it. They wouldn't be spending years tip toeing towards it like people seem to think. Instead, they've rolled back some really unpopular changes like the crappy keyboard in their laptop, they just shipped a new Mac Pro that is clearly designed for professionals. This chip transition will result in Apple's laptops having better battery life, specs and heating than any other laptops available on the market. It won't even be close. Additionally, they're actively trying to bring a huge swath of developers who currently only develop for their mobile devices into developing for the Mac. If they were trying to turn Macs into something for college students to watch Netflix on they wouldn't be doing any of this. It's insane to me that people can see a UI refresh as a sign of doom while ignoring that Apple has actually been investing in the platform quite a bit more than they were a few years ago.
- rahkiin 6y ago
  I am mostly upset about the low contrast. I hope that gets improved before release. And sad about the change in sheets and alerts... I’ll probably get over that.
  - the_other 6y ago
    The contrast changes seem varied. For some features they've increased contrast: "windows" are now white with black-ish icons. You can't get a higher contrast ratio. Other features have received the translucency treatment, and seem to have lower contrast. I'm excited to try it all out, but also unsure how comfortable I'm gonna find it. The large white expanses seem glaringly over-bright to me, at first glance.

rzzzt 6y ago

It's interesting that this comment makes the same sentiment as the top comment on the CPU announcement thread - contrary to the (perceived) public opinion, things are good, it's going to be great. Can you both be really against the crowd if so many people agree with you? (To be clear, I'm not insinuating anything, just interested in the dynamic.)

dimmke 6y ago
Agree - I think there's a silent majority thing going on here. Because I only saw negative comments on any thread I looked at about this. That's what prompted me to comment in the first place. Clearly, a lot of people do agree (or I'm just super persuasive :P)
spideymans 6y ago
People that disagree are usually the loudest when it comes to any issue. Those that agree probably just upvote and move on.

Lammy 6y ago

I liked it as soon as I saw the Accent Colors — feels like Appearance Manager in Mac OS 8 all over again :)

thought_alarm 6y ago

I won't know until I actually use it, but based on looks alone I think it's the cleanest and most cohesive Mac UI since the peak Aqua era (OS X 10.4-10.6).

jayd16 6y ago

>I really don't think they're going to put out touch screen Macs. Why not? I think its a distinct possibility.

dimmke 6y ago
If they were going to do this, they would have done it when they needed a big new feature and instead they put out the touch bar. Apple's answer to people who want something like this is the iPad Pro with the adaptive cursor and the keyboard case with the touch pad. I could be wrong, it's just my instinct.
mkozlows 6y ago
I think the "you can run iOS apps on your Mac now" announcement basically guaranteed touchscreen Macs. It might be possible to use many iOS apps with a trackpad, but it's not going to be a pleasant experience. Put together a touch-friendly new OS UI with the ability to run a zillion apps designed-for-touch in a context where all your competition has touch-enabled devices and it's hard to believe they'd hold out any longer.
- dimmke 6y ago
  That's an interesting point, I didn't think about that. Plus, the extra padding would make more sense then. Maybe they are planning on adding it.
- robterrell 6y ago
  Touchscreen Macs running iOS apps... At that point, what exactly is the difference between the product lines?
  - fabiospampinato 6y ago
    Would you like to go around with a laptop in your pocket?
- kace91 6y ago
  That's assuming that ios apps on the Mac are a big feature. They might just be some novelty to sell the move to arm, or a first step towards some sort of universal apps that just switch their ui according to the device they're used in.

EamonnMR 6y ago

I don't care what they do with the UI (unless they fixed it somehow.[1]) The reason I'm always disappointed to see a new version is the breakage that every MacOS update brings, both to developer tools and apps. I have to choose between keeping my various environments functioning and getting the latest MacOS so I can run Jira Desktop. 1) Delete spotlight, Siri and 'look up,' make alt-tab handle multiple windows of the same app, fix searching within folders and also separately fix whole-filesystem search.

_bxg1 6y ago
Tip: Cmd + backtick cycles through windows within the current app. Once I learned this I much preferred the Mac's way of grouping windows by app.

RivieraKid 6y ago

Yep, I agree. Hacker News is a very conservative place (in terms of technology and UI changes). I think in general Apple does a phenomenal job at UI design. That said, the user experience of Mac OS still has plenty of low hanging fruit: - Window management and app switching could be much better. The "app switching system" I liked the most was in Gnome 2 / MATE - I could just quickly move the cursor to the bottom task bar and scroll. It was so effortless, fast and easy. - When I download an app (.dmg) and click it, it shows up as a new disk. WTF? - The file manager could be made much better. Again, MATE had (probably still has) the best file manager I've ever used in terms of UX.

saagarjha 6y ago
> When I download an app (.dmg) and click it, it shows up as a new disk. How do you think it should show up?
- RivieraKid 6y ago
  As an installer program, like on Windows. Or as an installable package (Mac OS should have an integrated package management system like Homebrew).
  - _bxg1 6y ago
    macOS installers exist; I think they were used more commonly before the .app format, but that's how you get the Windows situation where the "uninstall" operation is a crapshoot because relevant files are scattered across your system. I don't know the exact purpose behind the "mount a virtual drive to install an app" model, but it seems far too deliberate to not have a purpose.
    - RivieraKid 6y ago
      I'm sure there's some rationale behind it. But it's simply a UX fail.
      - 6y ago

spike021 6y ago

>It seems like people think that because they're taking design cues from iOS they intend to lock it down like iOS and they're transferring that fear into dislike of the new UI itself. This has been the fear for the last 10 or so years, maybe longer. It hasn't strictly happened yet. Maybe someday, but this definitely isn't it.

_bxg1 6y ago
It just wouldn't make a shred of sense. iPads have real keyboards now. A crippled macOS wouldn't have a purpose in today's world. It would make more sense to drop the category entirely than to dumb it down, and if they made anything clear today it was that the Mac is here to stay.

MR4D 6y ago

My huge beef (yeah, I'm nitpicking, but it bugs me) is the camera icon. The new one looks like a broken stop/play button (the play is backwards). I know the old one was "skeuomorphic", but it was useful. This one burns brain calories just trying to figure out if it's a stop/play button or not. </rant>

pcr910303 6y ago

Well, I'm usually the person to quickly point out that HN is very conservative, and advocate the modern UI/tech stack that HN thinks is too flat or too bloated, etc... But as a long time macOS user, I can't say that the UI is good. If I can fix one thing from the new UI, I think it should have borders or at least a different background color, like pre-iOS 13 with button shapes. The current iOS buttons (and the new macOS design) doesn't give any visual cue for the user to know whether this is an icon label or a button. That's a problem, and one that macOS has solved elegantly by having different textures (like the toolbar). It's now... more like Windows 10 where everything is on a flat surface without any differences.

saagarjha 6y ago
macOS buttons do give you cues…when you hover on them :/

dionian 6y ago

ive been using Mac OS X since 10.0 betas, I like every time they refine it. And this feels a step in the right direction. Simpler. I suspect everyone will get used to it and cringe at going back to the old one, just like always as a UI geek these kinds of updates in Mac OS updates are some of my favorite - they impact everything you do in a small but substantial way

sudosysgen 6y ago

iOS and macOS should not look or act similarly, though. A UI should look the way it does in order to optimize efficiency and enjoyment. iOS has a touch UI for devices ~6 inches wide, and no keyboard. macOS has a KB/M UI for devices 13-34 inches wide with a keyboard and mouse, or worse even, a trackpad. You cannot make one more like the other without making it worse. Levelling your UI to the lowest common denominator is a sure fire way of making it worse and reduces the efficiency and ability of everyone in the long run. macOS and iOS should be entirely distinct UI wise.

dimmke 6y ago
I agree with you in principle - but these UI updates were basically just refreshing the UX that already existed with a similar aesthetic look. They didn't disable the windowing system or make any other big changes in how the interface actually works. Just visual refreshes to bring them in sync. That's the thing I don't understand. Even the padding is a bit overstated by people, it's not that extreme.

addicted 6y ago

I’m finding the cohesive OS arguments a little ridiculous. For one thing, it’s not like cohesion was achieved by bringing in the best parts of OSX and the best parts of iOS. Cohesion has been achieved by transforming the OSX UI into iOS’s to the extent possible. Apple has been clever to do it bit by bit but using OSX from 10 years ago to today, you can feel the alienation. The other part is that until a few years ago Apple was the biggest proponent of the idea that a Mac, with its pixel perfect input mechanism, and a keyboard, and iOS whose input was fingers, should not have a similar UI. Their execs scoffed at Microsoft’s attempts to make a device which when in laptop mode ran traditional windows but in tablet mode ran a version of windows optimized for touch. Somehow those UI concerns have evaporated for no good reason.

brailsafe 6y ago

I like that the new UI changes. More white space and improvements to controls are welcome. I'm a bit partial to the lack of buttons that don't look clickable, but I'll reserve my judgement until I've tried it.

johnisgood 6y ago

> The extra padding in all of the UI is the only thing that I chafe at a little bit This, and increased font sizes. Do any of you know how to change the font size of the window title bar in macOS 11?

erwinh 6y ago

Good points. Indeed this probably really helps with getting the 90% of iphone users who don’t own or use a mac yet to make it more familiar immediately. More cohesive brand experience is not to be undervalued either both in terms of cost to produce assets and perception by users.

Mindwipe 6y ago

The loss of information density caused by the extra padding is a big functional change - a loss of functionality.