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It's time we acknowledge that the purpose of most UI "progress" or "change" is sales. An entity like Apple introduces UI "enhancement" to attract prospective

It's time we acknowledge that the purpose of most UI "progress" or "change" is sales. An entity like Apple introduces UI "enhancement" to attract prospective users and persuade existing users that the functionality of the product is new, efficient, or otherwise "good." UI is generally fashion and trend that seeks the "new" at great cost. This is why there is a lack of internal consistency or rigor with respect to some UI direction: consistency, functionality, etc. are not the point.

wtallis 1y ago
I think "sales" is just one of the post-hoc rationalizations. The real purpose very often is simply to justify the money you spent on UI designers; there's a kind of sunk cost fallacy where spending resources exploring design changes leaves management feeling like they must ship some kind of design change, and the UI designers are strongly in favor of leaving their mark on the product and securing a big accomplishment on their resume. The incentives simply aren't aligned to support a long-term strategy of not constantly messing with your UI.
- esafak 1y ago
  > The real purpose very often is simply to justify the money you spent on UI designers It's backwards. It's for the UI designers to justify the money spent on them. They can't just sit there and do nothing. Designing is their job! It's the same with every position.
  - wtallis 1y ago
    It's a management failure. Either management is directly approving gratuitous UI redesigns, or they're making the mistake of giving designers unrestrained freedom to decide what UI changes ship.
    - TheOtherHobbes 1y ago
      Or they needed some kind of glossy faux-development to headline the marketing year when Apple AI tanked, and this was the best they could cobble together at relatively short notice. Meanwhile I get regular connection issues on Facetime on my iPhone 15 Pro Max, even though bandwidth isn't a problem here.
  - diegof79 1y ago
    Do you dress with a hat and shirt like someone in the 50s? I see many angry comments because it's a change without a practical reason, and it's meant to make things more "new" or "fresh" at the cost of CPU and GPU resources. That's a valid complaint since making old devices obsolete is a design choice. However, it's good to see it from a humane perspective. Fashion trends change because they are associated with identity, novelty, status, self-expression, etc. Companies make fashion changes to appeal to those things. For example, nobody complains if Nike changes a model just for fashion; however, everybody uses the same phone every day, just as they do with a pair of shoes. For us, working on programming or software design, the phone is just a tool, but for most people, the phone is a form of self-expression (like using single or double quotes in code, or tabs vs spaces). And every few years, tech companies undergo a fashion refresh. So, even if Apple fires all the visual designers and keeps the same design for many years, people will likely grow bored with their UIs, which will push them toward competitors offering more stylish options.
    - esafak 1y ago
      I agree! The problem is that in software users don't have to option of retaining the old UI while updating the rest of the product, so there's always a fuss when some people prefer the old UI but are unwillingly forced to use the new one.
    - wtallis 1y ago
      The problem is this mindset that constant UI churn chasing "fashion" could ever be purely superficial and harmless. You say people would grow bored with a UI that never changes, but on the other hand, people learn to use a UI that doesn't constantly change. Changing UI layout obviously breaks muscle memory, but even just reskinning the same layout with a new color scheme that changes the relative visual prominence of different UI elements brings usability penalties. It's rare that any UI change is purely beneficial or has no effect on usability. Unless proven otherwise, any UI change should be assumed to impose some usability harm on existing users, and the potential usability benefits of the change need to be weighed against that harm. Don't pretend that the downsides of messing with an existing UI aren't real.
- toss1 1y ago
  And messing with the UI is the single most salient thing that makes regular people hate using computers, and do so only when it is required. It doesn't matter what is their justification about making something "better". The industry has reached saturation; there no longer exists any justification for making a UI somehow "better" to invite in more users. Changes ONLY create frustration and anger among existing users, which is essentially everyone at this point. Changing the way a UI operates is like in an automobile swapping the position of the accelerator and braking pedals and moving the windshield wiper controls to the center console, heater controls to a steering-wheel stalk, and then claiming it is a "New Fresh User Interface!!". Of course people CAN adapt, but they will not like it. And automakers are already discovering how moving features from tactile knobs & buttons to a center touchscreen is hated and are going back to what people know and like. It is past time for the software industry to get the message.
reedlaw 1y ago
Does it drive sales though? Windows XP remained popular long after Vista was introduced. It was seen as stable and familiar. I guess the difference is that in the Apple ecosystem, you don't have much choice over which OS version you use. Apple tends to keep users on the latest version that the hardware supports.
- duped 1y ago
  People stuck with XP because Vista was slow and buggy.
- eigen 1y ago
  Looks like the currently 3 versions of mac OS are supported. current is macos 15, macos 13-14 are supported. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_os#Timeline_of_releases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_os#Timeline_of_releases macos 13 supports hardware back to 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS_Ventura#Supported_hardware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS_Ventura#Supported_hardwa... looks like only 2 versions of Windows is supported. current is windows 11 and windows 10 support ends in October. of course, windows 10 was released in 2015 so comparing version support isnt a fair comparison.
_benton 1y ago
UI change is similar to fashion. Things can't remain stagnant, they must change.
- ch4s3 1y ago
  I don't see that as a bad thing. Nominally superficial change can a nice way to have a fresh look at something you've stopped noticing. I can be enjoyable simply because its new.
  - _benton 1y ago
    Yeah I agree. I think it's the same way as fashion - it's often not new styles, just new takes on the past. But it keeps things fresh and interesting.
tempodox 1y ago
> … the purpose of most UI "progress" or "change" is sales. If only! I wouldn't install macOS or iOS with that GUI if they payed me for it.
- hermitcrab 1y ago
  Pity those of us with commercial Mac apps.
  - tempodox 1y ago
    I do. My condolences.
eviks 1y ago
This doesn't explain much since there is no sound proof that worse design improves sales but real progress /change/enhancements wouldn't
coldtea 1y ago
>It's time we acknowledge that the purpose of most UI "progress" or "change" is sales. It's time we separate sales from UI progress. If they want to "attract prospective users and persuade existing users that the functionality of the product is new, efficient, or otherwise "good." they can make substantial changes, of which there are numerous areas currently lacking. Which is what they did in the first 10 or so years of OS X.
whartung 1y ago
I think this UI update is designed to distinguish native applications on iOS from non-native. Folks aren't going to be able to simply pound out a bunch of new icons to make their non-apple toolkit apps look "native". There's far too much compositing and such going on here. I doubt Google is going to rush out and try to mimic the L&F either. This MAY give native iOS apps a leg up over web and other "portable" toolkit apps.
- bergfest 1y ago
  Yes, I believe this is the reason. But it might backfire if people start to prefer Electron or Flutter apps over the native ones.
0x457 1y ago
> It's time we acknowledge that the purpose of most UI "progress" or "change" is sales. It's such a stupid argument. Also wrong, because the purpose for everything that company does is profit.

wtallis 1y ago

I think "sales" is just one of the post-hoc rationalizations. The real purpose very often is simply to justify the money you spent on UI designers; there's a kind of sunk cost fallacy where spending resources exploring design changes leaves management feeling like they must ship some kind of design change, and the UI designers are strongly in favor of leaving their mark on the product and securing a big accomplishment on their resume. The incentives simply aren't aligned to support a long-term strategy of not constantly messing with your UI.

esafak 1y ago
> The real purpose very often is simply to justify the money you spent on UI designers It's backwards. It's for the UI designers to justify the money spent on them. They can't just sit there and do nothing. Designing is their job! It's the same with every position.
- wtallis 1y ago
  It's a management failure. Either management is directly approving gratuitous UI redesigns, or they're making the mistake of giving designers unrestrained freedom to decide what UI changes ship.
  - TheOtherHobbes 1y ago
    Or they needed some kind of glossy faux-development to headline the marketing year when Apple AI tanked, and this was the best they could cobble together at relatively short notice. Meanwhile I get regular connection issues on Facetime on my iPhone 15 Pro Max, even though bandwidth isn't a problem here.
- diegof79 1y ago
  Do you dress with a hat and shirt like someone in the 50s? I see many angry comments because it's a change without a practical reason, and it's meant to make things more "new" or "fresh" at the cost of CPU and GPU resources. That's a valid complaint since making old devices obsolete is a design choice. However, it's good to see it from a humane perspective. Fashion trends change because they are associated with identity, novelty, status, self-expression, etc. Companies make fashion changes to appeal to those things. For example, nobody complains if Nike changes a model just for fashion; however, everybody uses the same phone every day, just as they do with a pair of shoes. For us, working on programming or software design, the phone is just a tool, but for most people, the phone is a form of self-expression (like using single or double quotes in code, or tabs vs spaces). And every few years, tech companies undergo a fashion refresh. So, even if Apple fires all the visual designers and keeps the same design for many years, people will likely grow bored with their UIs, which will push them toward competitors offering more stylish options.
  - esafak 1y ago
    I agree! The problem is that in software users don't have to option of retaining the old UI while updating the rest of the product, so there's always a fuss when some people prefer the old UI but are unwillingly forced to use the new one.
  - wtallis 1y ago
    The problem is this mindset that constant UI churn chasing "fashion" could ever be purely superficial and harmless. You say people would grow bored with a UI that never changes, but on the other hand, people learn to use a UI that doesn't constantly change. Changing UI layout obviously breaks muscle memory, but even just reskinning the same layout with a new color scheme that changes the relative visual prominence of different UI elements brings usability penalties. It's rare that any UI change is purely beneficial or has no effect on usability. Unless proven otherwise, any UI change should be assumed to impose some usability harm on existing users, and the potential usability benefits of the change need to be weighed against that harm. Don't pretend that the downsides of messing with an existing UI aren't real.
toss1 1y ago
And messing with the UI is the single most salient thing that makes regular people hate using computers, and do so only when it is required. It doesn't matter what is their justification about making something "better". The industry has reached saturation; there no longer exists any justification for making a UI somehow "better" to invite in more users. Changes ONLY create frustration and anger among existing users, which is essentially everyone at this point. Changing the way a UI operates is like in an automobile swapping the position of the accelerator and braking pedals and moving the windshield wiper controls to the center console, heater controls to a steering-wheel stalk, and then claiming it is a "New Fresh User Interface!!". Of course people CAN adapt, but they will not like it. And automakers are already discovering how moving features from tactile knobs & buttons to a center touchscreen is hated and are going back to what people know and like. It is past time for the software industry to get the message.

reedlaw 1y ago

Does it drive sales though? Windows XP remained popular long after Vista was introduced. It was seen as stable and familiar. I guess the difference is that in the Apple ecosystem, you don't have much choice over which OS version you use. Apple tends to keep users on the latest version that the hardware supports.

duped 1y ago
People stuck with XP because Vista was slow and buggy.
eigen 1y ago
Looks like the currently 3 versions of mac OS are supported. current is macos 15, macos 13-14 are supported. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_os#Timeline_of_releases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_os#Timeline_of_releases macos 13 supports hardware back to 2017. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS_Ventura#Supported_hardware https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS_Ventura#Supported_hardwa... looks like only 2 versions of Windows is supported. current is windows 11 and windows 10 support ends in October. of course, windows 10 was released in 2015 so comparing version support isnt a fair comparison.

_benton 1y ago

UI change is similar to fashion. Things can't remain stagnant, they must change.

ch4s3 1y ago
I don't see that as a bad thing. Nominally superficial change can a nice way to have a fresh look at something you've stopped noticing. I can be enjoyable simply because its new.
- _benton 1y ago
  Yeah I agree. I think it's the same way as fashion - it's often not new styles, just new takes on the past. But it keeps things fresh and interesting.

tempodox 1y ago

> … the purpose of most UI "progress" or "change" is sales. If only! I wouldn't install macOS or iOS with that GUI if they payed me for it.

hermitcrab 1y ago
Pity those of us with commercial Mac apps.
- tempodox 1y ago
  I do. My condolences.

eviks 1y ago

This doesn't explain much since there is no sound proof that worse design improves sales but real progress /change/enhancements wouldn't

coldtea 1y ago

>It's time we acknowledge that the purpose of most UI "progress" or "change" is sales. It's time we separate sales from UI progress. If they want to "attract prospective users and persuade existing users that the functionality of the product is new, efficient, or otherwise "good." they can make substantial changes, of which there are numerous areas currently lacking. Which is what they did in the first 10 or so years of OS X.

whartung 1y ago

I think this UI update is designed to distinguish native applications on iOS from non-native. Folks aren't going to be able to simply pound out a bunch of new icons to make their non-apple toolkit apps look "native". There's far too much compositing and such going on here. I doubt Google is going to rush out and try to mimic the L&F either. This MAY give native iOS apps a leg up over web and other "portable" toolkit apps.

bergfest 1y ago
Yes, I believe this is the reason. But it might backfire if people start to prefer Electron or Flutter apps over the native ones.

0x457 1y ago

> It's time we acknowledge that the purpose of most UI "progress" or "change" is sales. It's such a stupid argument. Also wrong, because the purpose for everything that company does is profit.