5 ms·

It's been 23 years (to the day!) since the release of the OS X public beta, and it's a mature product. I'm not sure it's getting "shittier and shittier," I thin

It's been 23 years (to the day!) since the release of the OS X public beta, and it's a mature product. I'm not sure it's getting "shittier and shittier," I think there are still refinements and improvements, they just aren't as big as they used to be.

sumuyuda 3y ago
The UI has definitely gotten shittier and shittier.
- heyoni 3y ago
  And system settings panel is so unresponsive! I think it’s written in react or something?
- whyenot 3y ago
  I don't know about that. Aqua with it's pin stripes jewel-like buttons and other quirks was significantly worse than what we have today.
  - can16358p 3y ago
    Yup. I absolutely hated that skeuomorphic blurry 3D-like design. Flat design looks much, much cleaner. Same for iOS. iOS 7 was the first version that I actually liked looking at.
  - BizarreByte 3y ago
    I strongly disagree. Tiger was the best Mac OS ever looked in my opinion, but this is of course subjective.
    - sbuk 3y ago
      Tiger was brushed steel, though it still had the 'lickable' buttons.
  - saltminer 3y ago
    I will confess I miss skeuomorphism, but even if Apple never embraced flatness, Ventura's System Preferences.app is horrendous. I've become reliant upon the search bar to find most things in there, which I rarely had to do before.
  - Angostura 3y ago
    Strongly disagree. Apple’s obsession with making things like scroll bars and window chrome harder to see has been a usability nightmare for me over the last few releases. Frequently these days, with lots of overlapping windows I try to click the top of a window only to find out I’ve clicked on part of the window behind. Yes having everything one colour is lovely and ‘clean’ but horrible to use
    - andrekandre 3y ago
      also all the icons now being the same shape (like ios) i find myself scanning over and over missing apps i used to find so easily before... such a usability regression (though it does look pretty)
  - astrange 3y ago
    Remember that displays were worse then. One reason we have flat lower-contrast designs now is that we have much higher contrast LCD/OLED panels.
Hammershaft 3y ago
For me, it certainly is getting less stable & more frustrating to use with each update. even elements of the ux, such as the settings app, has degraded over the years
- BizarreByte 3y ago
  That's just modern software in a nutshell, nothing is ever "good enough" for designers/companies and they must change it no matter what. The settings app for example was perfectly fine, it worked well for what...near 20 years with only slight tweaks. Now I have to use the search bar for settings, because it's not obvious at all where to find a lot of them. And yet things that would be useful like a volume mixer are still nowhere to be found.
  - Hammershaft 3y ago
    I mean, there were definitely iterative improvements I think could have been made to the settings app, as with nearly all software. Instead, apple threw out the design for a ux that was clearly optimized for palm sized screens that you operate by touch in order to unify the interface between two entirely disparate forms of interaction.
deergomoo 3y ago
Apple no longer appears to be able to keep a consistent focus on the Mac. They have some really great fits and spurts in particular areas (e.g. hardware, they’re absolutely nailing it with Apple Silicon at the minute) but it’s far too common for widely-reviled issues to linger unaddressed for literally years. The new System Settings is an obvious one; Sonoma hasn’t really touched that at all despite its glaring issues. But Notification Centre has been borderline useless ever since they redesigned it back in what, Big Sur? I saw a Mastodon post recently [0] that highlighted how bad it is today compared to the old design, yet it’s barely been touched in 3 years. macOS is stable and established and unlike iOS a lot of people rely on it to do actual work, I would rather them not mess with stuff than half-ass it and leave it unfinished. [0] https://mastodon.social/@marioguzman/110997716755684188 https://mastodon.social/@marioguzman/110997716755684188
SoftTalker 3y ago
If you count NeXTStep, the OS is closer to 35 years old.
glhaynes 3y ago
Every time anything breaks in macOS, people come out to claim that the Mac is dying and Snow Leopard [which shipped with a bug that deleted lots of users' home folders] was the one true version. This wouldn't have happened if Steve Jobs were still alive. Netcraft now confirms that the BSD-based macOS is dying.
wasyl 3y ago
Feels like this is true only for Apple Silicon macs. Intels are getting more are more terrible with each upgrade, most noticeable is insane UI latency when doing literally anything — opening an app or a window can take seconds. Changing the tab in Settings app takes a second before the new one is rendered! And that's with a fresh system installation and no resource-hungry apps opened. And it's definitely not just me — colleagues have the same issues and internet is full of such reports.

sumuyuda 3y ago

The UI has definitely gotten shittier and shittier.

heyoni 3y ago
And system settings panel is so unresponsive! I think it’s written in react or something?
whyenot 3y ago
I don't know about that. Aqua with it's pin stripes jewel-like buttons and other quirks was significantly worse than what we have today.
- can16358p 3y ago
  Yup. I absolutely hated that skeuomorphic blurry 3D-like design. Flat design looks much, much cleaner. Same for iOS. iOS 7 was the first version that I actually liked looking at.
- BizarreByte 3y ago
  I strongly disagree. Tiger was the best Mac OS ever looked in my opinion, but this is of course subjective.
  - sbuk 3y ago
    Tiger was brushed steel, though it still had the 'lickable' buttons.
- saltminer 3y ago
  I will confess I miss skeuomorphism, but even if Apple never embraced flatness, Ventura's System Preferences.app is horrendous. I've become reliant upon the search bar to find most things in there, which I rarely had to do before.
- Angostura 3y ago
  Strongly disagree. Apple’s obsession with making things like scroll bars and window chrome harder to see has been a usability nightmare for me over the last few releases. Frequently these days, with lots of overlapping windows I try to click the top of a window only to find out I’ve clicked on part of the window behind. Yes having everything one colour is lovely and ‘clean’ but horrible to use
  - andrekandre 3y ago
    also all the icons now being the same shape (like ios) i find myself scanning over and over missing apps i used to find so easily before... such a usability regression (though it does look pretty)
- astrange 3y ago
  Remember that displays were worse then. One reason we have flat lower-contrast designs now is that we have much higher contrast LCD/OLED panels.

Hammershaft 3y ago

For me, it certainly is getting less stable & more frustrating to use with each update. even elements of the ux, such as the settings app, has degraded over the years

BizarreByte 3y ago
That's just modern software in a nutshell, nothing is ever "good enough" for designers/companies and they must change it no matter what. The settings app for example was perfectly fine, it worked well for what...near 20 years with only slight tweaks. Now I have to use the search bar for settings, because it's not obvious at all where to find a lot of them. And yet things that would be useful like a volume mixer are still nowhere to be found.
- Hammershaft 3y ago
  I mean, there were definitely iterative improvements I think could have been made to the settings app, as with nearly all software. Instead, apple threw out the design for a ux that was clearly optimized for palm sized screens that you operate by touch in order to unify the interface between two entirely disparate forms of interaction.

deergomoo 3y ago

Apple no longer appears to be able to keep a consistent focus on the Mac. They have some really great fits and spurts in particular areas (e.g. hardware, they’re absolutely nailing it with Apple Silicon at the minute) but it’s far too common for widely-reviled issues to linger unaddressed for literally years. The new System Settings is an obvious one; Sonoma hasn’t really touched that at all despite its glaring issues. But Notification Centre has been borderline useless ever since they redesigned it back in what, Big Sur? I saw a Mastodon post recently [0] that highlighted how bad it is today compared to the old design, yet it’s barely been touched in 3 years. macOS is stable and established and unlike iOS a lot of people rely on it to do actual work, I would rather them not mess with stuff than half-ass it and leave it unfinished. [0] https://mastodon.social/@marioguzman/110997716755684188 https://mastodon.social/@marioguzman/110997716755684188

SoftTalker 3y ago

If you count NeXTStep, the OS is closer to 35 years old.

glhaynes 3y ago

Every time anything breaks in macOS, people come out to claim that the Mac is dying and Snow Leopard [which shipped with a bug that deleted lots of users' home folders] was the one true version. This wouldn't have happened if Steve Jobs were still alive. Netcraft now confirms that the BSD-based macOS is dying.

wasyl 3y ago

Feels like this is true only for Apple Silicon macs. Intels are getting more are more terrible with each upgrade, most noticeable is insane UI latency when doing literally anything — opening an app or a window can take seconds. Changing the tab in Settings app takes a second before the new one is rendered! And that's with a fresh system installation and no resource-hungry apps opened. And it's definitely not just me — colleagues have the same issues and internet is full of such reports.