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I’m eternally conflicted by personal stories like this, with part of me going do we have to do this again? and another part responding with surely you don’t thi

I’m eternally conflicted by personal stories like this, with part of me going do we have to do this again? and another part responding with surely you don’t think Apple is above criticism. No. Of course I don’t. Apple has made criticism-worthy decisions for years and they still regularly make them. But at times it seems like there’s just a…reach. I’m using macOS Monterey right now, and while I don’t think the Big Sur UI refresh is a substantial improvement over its predecessor Catalina and it made a few aesthetic choices I’d charitably describe as dubious, it’s hardly a catastrophic regression. Yeah, people are nostalgic about OS X Snow Leopard, but that’s not a particularly good indication of it being the pinnacle of design. People are also nostalgic about Windows 3.1, AmigaOS, and CP/M. (Snow Leopard is full of the old “metal” UI, glowy candy-colored buttons, and drawers. It’s adorable, but it’s very 2000s.) And, I mean, okay, Mac people are stereotypically (over)sensitive to UX decisions, I get that. So when the author writes, “I’m not saying I’m dumping the Mac and switching to Windows or Linux,” well: no, he’s clearly not, is he. He’s just written a a fair number of words with the clear subtext, I am a Mac person who is stereotypically oversensitive to UX decisions. Apple will undoubtedly make other weird choices next year with macOS Fresno or Oxnard or whatever, but they will probably still on the whole be choices Mac UX nerds will like more than the alternatives. (Also, dumping the Mac and switching to Windows or Linux will deprive people of the opportunity to write about how much they hate the Mac, and you know, where would the fun be in that.)

deleted 4y ago
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derbOac 4y ago
You're correctly pointing to some hypocritical subtext, but to be fair to the author, they explain the reason for their ambivalence: it's because there's such a contrast between hardware and software. This is nothing new really, but then that goes to the heart of why people "love to hate the Mac". It's not that they love to hate it, it's that the hardware is so great, but then you have this kind of increasingly corporate consumer-hostile stuff that gets thrown on top of it (in the past it was just plain bloated inefficiency, like early iTunes). So let's say you are in the author's position: what do you do? Regardless of whether it's Linux or Windows, you're going to go onto other hardware systems. Many of the options are pretty nice and underrated in "Mac faithful" communities. But really, they're probably not quite what Apple offers, if not in quality, than in selling points. Recently this has been exacerbated because Apple is putting out an ARM chip that's pretty powerful but also power-efficient. Add nice trackpads, nice monitors, great battery life, and so forth, and it's hard to leave even if you are frustrated with the software. What other high-performing consumer ARM/RISC power efficient laptop are you going to find? A lot of people (I'm in this boat now) would love to see the ability to buy Apple hardware and slap Linux on it seamlessly, but it's not quite there yet. Asahi Linux is incredibly impressive in how fast its grown but it's not actually ready for primetime: last time I looked at the status notes, you were at risk of literally blowing up your speakers by doing much with them. So then the ambivalence goes around and around.
thatfrenchguy 4y ago
> Yeah, people are nostalgic about OS X Snow Leopard, but that’s not a particularly good indication of it being the pinnacle of design People are just getting old, and lounging those old times by rejecting new stuff.
- xbar 4y ago
  People have been bemoaning Snow Leopard's demise since the first beta of Lion. Snow Leopard was a design that was internally consistent. I don't think it was the pinnacle of design, but I see why it was beloved by developers.
  - chipotle_coyote 4y ago
    > Snow Leopard was a design that was internally consistent. The sort of funny thing is that it really wasn't internally consistent. It was a common criticism back then to note that apps made by Apple didn't always follow the Human Interface Guidelines about when to use the "metal" UI and when not to, and arguably the existence of the metal UI was itself inconsistent in the first place: "Hey, here's this entirely different aesthetic you should probably use in these cases, except when you don't, and hey, we sometimes use it because why the hell not". (I would tentatively argue the Mac's UX was at its most consistent during the El Capitan to Mojave era -- after the introduction of the San Francisco typeface and associated aesthetics, but before Catalyst came along to throw everything into chaos.)

deleted 4y ago

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derbOac 4y ago

You're correctly pointing to some hypocritical subtext, but to be fair to the author, they explain the reason for their ambivalence: it's because there's such a contrast between hardware and software. This is nothing new really, but then that goes to the heart of why people "love to hate the Mac". It's not that they love to hate it, it's that the hardware is so great, but then you have this kind of increasingly corporate consumer-hostile stuff that gets thrown on top of it (in the past it was just plain bloated inefficiency, like early iTunes). So let's say you are in the author's position: what do you do? Regardless of whether it's Linux or Windows, you're going to go onto other hardware systems. Many of the options are pretty nice and underrated in "Mac faithful" communities. But really, they're probably not quite what Apple offers, if not in quality, than in selling points. Recently this has been exacerbated because Apple is putting out an ARM chip that's pretty powerful but also power-efficient. Add nice trackpads, nice monitors, great battery life, and so forth, and it's hard to leave even if you are frustrated with the software. What other high-performing consumer ARM/RISC power efficient laptop are you going to find? A lot of people (I'm in this boat now) would love to see the ability to buy Apple hardware and slap Linux on it seamlessly, but it's not quite there yet. Asahi Linux is incredibly impressive in how fast its grown but it's not actually ready for primetime: last time I looked at the status notes, you were at risk of literally blowing up your speakers by doing much with them. So then the ambivalence goes around and around.

thatfrenchguy 4y ago

> Yeah, people are nostalgic about OS X Snow Leopard, but that’s not a particularly good indication of it being the pinnacle of design People are just getting old, and lounging those old times by rejecting new stuff.

xbar 4y ago
People have been bemoaning Snow Leopard's demise since the first beta of Lion. Snow Leopard was a design that was internally consistent. I don't think it was the pinnacle of design, but I see why it was beloved by developers.
- chipotle_coyote 4y ago
  > Snow Leopard was a design that was internally consistent. The sort of funny thing is that it really wasn't internally consistent. It was a common criticism back then to note that apps made by Apple didn't always follow the Human Interface Guidelines about when to use the "metal" UI and when not to, and arguably the existence of the metal UI was itself inconsistent in the first place: "Hey, here's this entirely different aesthetic you should probably use in these cases, except when you don't, and hey, we sometimes use it because why the hell not". (I would tentatively argue the Mac's UX was at its most consistent during the El Capitan to Mojave era -- after the introduction of the San Francisco typeface and associated aesthetics, but before Catalyst came along to throw everything into chaos.)