6 ms·

I find the 2025 versions to be a nicer looking than pre-2025 variants, so it’s overall an improvement. But I also find the 2014 to be usually a lot better (clea

I find the 2025 versions to be a nicer looking than pre-2025 variants, so it’s overall an improvement. But I also find the 2014 to be usually a lot better (clearer and more obvious). So incrementally it’s an improvement, but historically still worse.

mrweasel 1y ago
Game Center is probably the only one I can honestly say is worse. Generally speaking most the other examples are iterations done to keep up with design trends, but Game Center have lost meaning after the first iteration. Without context it's impossible to tell what the four bubbles are suppose to be.
- hnlmorg 1y ago
  > Generally speaking most the other examples are iterations done to keep up with design trends And that is what I believe to be the crux of the problem. The trends have been regressions rather than improvements. I have a few theories as to why this happens too but none of them are particularly complimentary towards Apple, et al. And to be clear, Apple are far from the worst offenders here. Pretty much every company that releases new software or hardware feels the need to change things so it looks “fresh” and people keep buying their stuff. It doesn’t matter if it results in design regressions because by the time people realise they don’t like it, they’ve already bought that shiny new thing.
- cyberax 1y ago
  "Notes" are now indistinguishable from the "Calendar" at the first glance. "Game Center" is ridiculous, I have no idea what it even symbolizes. "Dictionary" looks more like spell checking settings? And "Photo Booth" looks like a mouth with a strange tongue sticking out.
ashvardanian 1y ago
Yes, macOS/iOS aesthetics reached their peak around 2013-14. Hardware-wise, the story is similar; the 2012 MacBook Pro was the most marvelous piece of hardware I've ever bought. I miss that feeling. No part of me would agree that Apple is a more impressive company today than it was 13 years ago, despite its market cap.
- rekenaut 1y ago
  Perhaps it’s just nostalgia on my part, but I really don’t understand imposing the constraint of making every Mac app look like the rounded iPhone app buttons. To me, it makes it harder at a glance to distinguish one app from another compared to the older designs.
- microtonal 1y ago
  I started using MacBooks in 2007. The generations from around that time until 2012 or so we're marvelous. - With some models you could open the battery with a simple handle. - Some models had a small LED bar that you could check the battery status with, without opening the lid. - Replaceable RAM and disk. In one Pro I replaced the hard drive with an SSD (almost nobody had an SSD yet) and it would fly. I could open all Creative Suite apps (which were still optimized for spinning rust) in three seconds. After that started the dark ages. Soldered RAM, soldered SSD, no more MagSafe, only USB-C ports, keyboards that could be destroyed with specs of dust. And the overheating Intel CPUs. In 2019-2021 there was a rebound. First the scissor keyboard returned, then Apple Silicon, and good amounts of ports again. It was really hard to be a Mac user ~2016-2020.
  - mikestew 1y ago
    Some models had a small LED bar that you could check the battery status with, without opening the lid. On older Mac’s (2009-10?), the LEDs were built into the battery. Very handy to quickly check if your spare has more charge than the one you’re using.
    - p_ing 1y ago
      PowerBook G4 (and iBook, I think) has LED-in-battery.
- JoRyGu 1y ago
  Hardware-wise the peak is obviously the M-series. Ditching x86 while simultaneously nearly flawlessly emulating x86 apps via Rosetta - making the transition to ARM64 completely painless - was a landmark achievement.
jug 1y ago
Yes, I like how they're striking a balance between minimalism and skeumorphism. They often try to do more with less. The Photo Booth one is a good example. Away with that camera: Let's focus on the strip from a photo booth (and don't use actual photos because that's too messy at smaller sizes). It looks like sometimes this approach has led to more details or an entirely different design, and sometimes less details. Almost like a normalization of sorts to better standardize around a level of details and amount of contrast and brightness.
- Kwpolska 1y ago
  It was weird to have a real person’s photo as an icon. But the new versions are much less clear. The 2025 icon is especially difficult if you don’t know the macOS camera application is called Photo Booth.
sheepybloke 1y ago
I agree. Honestly, looking at the most recent icons, they look like what I remember the icons from 2024 looking like. I weas surprised to see that they were not the icons I remembered.

mrweasel 1y ago

Game Center is probably the only one I can honestly say is worse. Generally speaking most the other examples are iterations done to keep up with design trends, but Game Center have lost meaning after the first iteration. Without context it's impossible to tell what the four bubbles are suppose to be.

hnlmorg 1y ago
> Generally speaking most the other examples are iterations done to keep up with design trends And that is what I believe to be the crux of the problem. The trends have been regressions rather than improvements. I have a few theories as to why this happens too but none of them are particularly complimentary towards Apple, et al. And to be clear, Apple are far from the worst offenders here. Pretty much every company that releases new software or hardware feels the need to change things so it looks “fresh” and people keep buying their stuff. It doesn’t matter if it results in design regressions because by the time people realise they don’t like it, they’ve already bought that shiny new thing.
cyberax 1y ago
"Notes" are now indistinguishable from the "Calendar" at the first glance. "Game Center" is ridiculous, I have no idea what it even symbolizes. "Dictionary" looks more like spell checking settings? And "Photo Booth" looks like a mouth with a strange tongue sticking out.

ashvardanian 1y ago

Yes, macOS/iOS aesthetics reached their peak around 2013-14. Hardware-wise, the story is similar; the 2012 MacBook Pro was the most marvelous piece of hardware I've ever bought. I miss that feeling. No part of me would agree that Apple is a more impressive company today than it was 13 years ago, despite its market cap.

rekenaut 1y ago
Perhaps it’s just nostalgia on my part, but I really don’t understand imposing the constraint of making every Mac app look like the rounded iPhone app buttons. To me, it makes it harder at a glance to distinguish one app from another compared to the older designs.
microtonal 1y ago
I started using MacBooks in 2007. The generations from around that time until 2012 or so we're marvelous. - With some models you could open the battery with a simple handle. - Some models had a small LED bar that you could check the battery status with, without opening the lid. - Replaceable RAM and disk. In one Pro I replaced the hard drive with an SSD (almost nobody had an SSD yet) and it would fly. I could open all Creative Suite apps (which were still optimized for spinning rust) in three seconds. After that started the dark ages. Soldered RAM, soldered SSD, no more MagSafe, only USB-C ports, keyboards that could be destroyed with specs of dust. And the overheating Intel CPUs. In 2019-2021 there was a rebound. First the scissor keyboard returned, then Apple Silicon, and good amounts of ports again. It was really hard to be a Mac user ~2016-2020.
- mikestew 1y ago
  Some models had a small LED bar that you could check the battery status with, without opening the lid. On older Mac’s (2009-10?), the LEDs were built into the battery. Very handy to quickly check if your spare has more charge than the one you’re using.
  - p_ing 1y ago
    PowerBook G4 (and iBook, I think) has LED-in-battery.
JoRyGu 1y ago
Hardware-wise the peak is obviously the M-series. Ditching x86 while simultaneously nearly flawlessly emulating x86 apps via Rosetta - making the transition to ARM64 completely painless - was a landmark achievement.

jug 1y ago

Yes, I like how they're striking a balance between minimalism and skeumorphism. They often try to do more with less. The Photo Booth one is a good example. Away with that camera: Let's focus on the strip from a photo booth (and don't use actual photos because that's too messy at smaller sizes). It looks like sometimes this approach has led to more details or an entirely different design, and sometimes less details. Almost like a normalization of sorts to better standardize around a level of details and amount of contrast and brightness.

Kwpolska 1y ago
It was weird to have a real person’s photo as an icon. But the new versions are much less clear. The 2025 icon is especially difficult if you don’t know the macOS camera application is called Photo Booth.

sheepybloke 1y ago

I agree. Honestly, looking at the most recent icons, they look like what I remember the icons from 2024 looking like. I weas surprised to see that they were not the icons I remembered.