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The UI looks so good. Why can’t we have good looking things anymore? I spent hours each month looking for a way to bring back Aqua on Mac or Linux through them

The UI looks so good. Why can’t we have good looking things anymore? I spent hours each month looking for a way to bring back Aqua on Mac or Linux through theming or alternative DE but nothing comes close to the real thing. If one day I have enough money I’ll just start work on a new DE to faithfully recreate Aqua. One can dream.

jofzar 8mo ago
https://youtu.be/ejPqAJ0dHwY https://youtu.be/ejPqAJ0dHwY I saw this video recently, it's crazy how apple lost the tactility of its button.
- pwthornton 8mo ago
  The flat area and now liquid glass are all post-Jobs creations. Apple needs a true product person back in charge with taste to get this ship back into a better place. Jobs acted as an editor and sounding board. You can't just let designers (or engineers) run wild.
  - steveBK123 8mo ago
    The thing killing me with Apple design now is not just the look of UIs but the UX of how they actually work. I swear they move buttons every year for no reason other to move them. Workflows randomly take an extra click that didn't before. I'm not sure if the phone or the Mac OS changes are worse, maybe its a tie. One pet peeve is on the iPhone messages app if you accidentally tap into the search bar they inserted at the bottom, it clears the list of messages (rather than waiting for you to type and start filtering based on context). First time it happened I thought sync failed and the phone didn't have a copy of any of my texts.
    - nandomrumber 8mo ago
      Peak UI / UX was some years ago, exactly when depends on any given persons particular preference. What we have now is akin to a Sheperd tone[1], where the design has to get intentionally worse so that corps. can then go on to boast about how the new design in following years is better than ever, but on the whole no real progress is made. 1. A Shepard tone, named after Roger Shepard, is a sound consisting of a superposition of sine waves separated by octaves. When played with the bass pitch of the tone moving upward or downward, it is referred to as the Shepard scale. This creates the auditory illusion of a tone that seems to continually ascend or descend in pitch, yet which ultimately gets no higher or lower. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepard_tone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepard_tone
  - overfeed 8mo ago
    > Jobs acted as an editor and sounding board. You can't just let designers (or engineers) run wild. Apple went way too far with the skeuomorphism, and Ives & co. may have over-corrected. Speaking of running wild: I'd consider painstakingly reproducing the stitching on the seats in Job's jet in the icon for an Apple app (Notes, IIRC) to be going overboard. Apple was rightly mocked for taking skeuomorphism too far, and as a result making onscreen, virtual objects mimick real objects became outdated, and people are now nostalgic for it because the backlash has been forgotten.
    - sunaookami 8mo ago
      Apple had an internal clash over which design direction they should go after the release of Windows 8 but every user rightfully hated Windows 8 flat design. The resonance to skeuomorphism was very positive back then.
      - overfeed 8mo ago
        I don't know when Windows 8 was released, but by 2012-2013, skeuomorphic design had become very unpopular, tacky even. See the links I included in response to sibling comment.
    - kasabali 8mo ago
      > people are now nostalgic for it because the backlash has been forgotten. What backslash? Only backslash I remember is when flat design was introduced. The only people complaining about skeumorphism was designers chasing latest fad.
      - overfeed 8mo ago
        > What backslash? https://www.macrumors.com/2012/09/11/apples-designers-clashing-over-tacky-software-skeuomorphisms/ https://www.macrumors.com/2012/09/11/apples-designers-clashi... https://techcrunch.com/2013/06/10/skueomorphism-red-headed-step-child/ https://techcrunch.com/2013/06/10/skueomorphism-red-headed-s... https://gizmodo.com/apples-podcasts-app-no-longer-has-horrible-reel-to-reel-5991798 https://gizmodo.com/apples-podcasts-app-no-longer-has-horrib... https://www.theverge.com/2012/11/22/3680320/skeuomorphic-design-christopher-downer https://www.theverge.com/2012/11/22/3680320/skeuomorphic-des... https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/09/death-to-textures-ios-6-and-ios-7-compared-in-pictures/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/09/death-to-textures-io... https://www.theverge.com/2012/9/21/3367270/yves-behar-apple-behind-software-design-skeuomorphism https://www.theverge.com/2012/9/21/3367270/yves-behar-apple-... https://techcrunch.com/2013/06/09/skeuomorphism-isnt-ioss-biggest-problem/ https://techcrunch.com/2013/06/09/skeuomorphism-isnt-ioss-bi... https://daringfireball.net/2013/01/the_trend_against_skeuomorphism https://daringfireball.net/2013/01/the_trend_against_skeuomo... Edit: FYI: you typoed 'backlash' twice
- ksec 8mo ago
  Huge Huge Thank You for posting this video. Literally word for word quote some of the thing I have been saying for years. Even the same quote on Craig Federighi and Jony Ive. Would have been better if there was another quote about Jony Ive fall out with Apple User Interface Head in 2015 and destroyed everything great about Apple Store. And again the Microsoft Video about Windows Metro and removing as much Chrome. ( There are still plenty of people on HN who will defend Windows 8 being peak UI and Metro was a right design choice ) And the quote about bringing order to Chaos. Along with Scott Forstall Video basically saying they destroyed everything Steve left behind. With Jony Ive gone and most of the exec on their way out, may be it is time to think about bringing back Scott Forstall.
jeroenhd 8mo ago
Recreating Aqua is the easy part. Recreating all the applications you would use day-to-day to fit the design language specified by Aqua is another. Apple's visual OS design was never that far ahead of the curve, but they managed to convince developers for their platform to stick to their guidelines rather than reinvent the wheel, making the entire computer feel more like one integrated system than a toolbox filled with differently branded tools. This is also why most "windows style" themes fall flat: you can copy the window decorations, button backgrounds, and icons, but unless your applications are designed to look and work like the OS your mimicking, it'll all just look weird and off. At this point "operating systems" in a commercial sense are so large that only relatively new entries can afford to rebuild their stock applications to fit the current UI theme (ChromeOS comes pretty close but you'd need to appreciate Google's design to enjoy that). macOS, Windows, and even Linux to some extent all have decades of old software to support so they can't redesign their core GUI stack without breaking everything. In the days that an internet browser wasn't considered a core part of the operating system, there just weren't as many places to get the design wrong or off-template without Q&A noticing.
- overfeed 8mo ago
  > they managed to convince developers for their platform to stick to their guidelines rather than reinvent the wheel, making the entire computer feel more like one integrated system than a toolbox filled with differently branded tools. Browsing the web on non-Apple platforms was annoying for a few years, with web designers aping the skeuomorphic design-language of whatever the then-current MacOS X release was. Besides cargo-culting, there was no justifiable reason for brushed aluminum or linen web page backgrounds, though I'm sure it looked really great on the designers Apple computer. If you, dear reader, did this when you were younger, I hope you have grown as a person and a designer. > [...] unless your applications are designed to look and work like the OS your mimicking, it'll all just look weird and off. Exactly!
  - nekooooo 8mo ago
    i no longer use luxurious wood, linen, and metal textures. these did serve a purpose at the time, though. skeumorphic design was a guidepost for a far less digital-literate user.
pndy 8mo ago
The UI was so attractive it was back then even "ported" into KDE, not mention the countless OSX-themed visual styles for XP and Dock-like applications (later Launchpads arrived as well). There were even theming packages which were patching everything from icons to bitmaps in Windows somewhere before Vista arrival. Aqua "era" ended with 10.10 when Apple decided to join flatness craze.
- kccqzy 8mo ago
  The early flatness craze, Yosemite, still looked better than the current Liquid Glass appearance. The Yosemite app icons in particular looked even more refined than Mavericks, and much more sophisticated than Tahoe.
- paradox460 8mo ago
  I remember installing flyakite to get things looking good on Windows, and then growing tired of it all and just buying windowblinds and desktop x
  - pndy 8mo ago
    The early packages could really mess up Windows - especially on non-English versions. Later on there were some really good ones around like XPize or Vize for XP and Vista respectively. Theming Windows was something I always appreciated but that ended by the time I've got 7. Instead I've opted for making workflow bit more smoother with some additional programs like Launchpad and small GKrellM-like sidebar.
- solstice 8mo ago
  Oh yeah I remember that. I use to hang around the customize.org forums a lot in 2003 trying out a lot of the visual styles for XP and winamp themes.
adolph 8mo ago
> The UI looks so good. Why can’t we have good looking things anymore? From the perspective of a Macintosh System 6 appreciator, OSX is kind of fussy with gratuitous details. https://aaron.cc/opening-screenshots-from-a-vintage-macintosh/ https://aaron.cc/opening-screenshots-from-a-vintage-macintos...
jama211 8mo ago
Because your opinion is in the minority
ErroneousBosh 8mo ago
There used to be a really nice Aqua theme for Gtk back in the day, but like everything else it's gone out of fashion and succumbed to bitrot. I don't even know where you'd find a copy of it any more, even if it could be ported to modern toolkit libraries. I wish freshmeat.net was still on the go, that was full of things like that.
ZpJuUuNaQ5 8mo ago
>The UI looks so good. Why can’t we have good looking things anymore? Because "good looking UI" is a completely subjective metric.
- oneeyedpigeon 8mo ago
  True, but: a) We can evaluate UIs on ('more') objective metrics too, like clarity, accessibility, etc. I think that, on most objective measures, the older UI would 'win' too. b) Subjective doesn't mean 'useless'. If 99% of people prefer one thing over another, even for subjective reasons, it's probably a good idea.
eleveriven 8mo ago
Modern UI trends seem to optimize for neutrality and content-first minimalism, which is nice in theory but often ends up feeling generic
- jagged-chisel 8mo ago
  “Content-first minimalism” I disagree. Unless the ‘content’ is “corners are sooo round, and isn’t this glass-like distortion just so neat?”
bromuro 8mo ago
Please no, that Lucida font is unreadable and ugly. Let’s not talk about the childish “aqua” design.

jofzar 8mo ago

https://youtu.be/ejPqAJ0dHwY https://youtu.be/ejPqAJ0dHwY I saw this video recently, it's crazy how apple lost the tactility of its button.

pwthornton 8mo ago
The flat area and now liquid glass are all post-Jobs creations. Apple needs a true product person back in charge with taste to get this ship back into a better place. Jobs acted as an editor and sounding board. You can't just let designers (or engineers) run wild.
- steveBK123 8mo ago
  The thing killing me with Apple design now is not just the look of UIs but the UX of how they actually work. I swear they move buttons every year for no reason other to move them. Workflows randomly take an extra click that didn't before. I'm not sure if the phone or the Mac OS changes are worse, maybe its a tie. One pet peeve is on the iPhone messages app if you accidentally tap into the search bar they inserted at the bottom, it clears the list of messages (rather than waiting for you to type and start filtering based on context). First time it happened I thought sync failed and the phone didn't have a copy of any of my texts.
  - nandomrumber 8mo ago
    Peak UI / UX was some years ago, exactly when depends on any given persons particular preference. What we have now is akin to a Sheperd tone[1], where the design has to get intentionally worse so that corps. can then go on to boast about how the new design in following years is better than ever, but on the whole no real progress is made. 1. A Shepard tone, named after Roger Shepard, is a sound consisting of a superposition of sine waves separated by octaves. When played with the bass pitch of the tone moving upward or downward, it is referred to as the Shepard scale. This creates the auditory illusion of a tone that seems to continually ascend or descend in pitch, yet which ultimately gets no higher or lower. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepard_tone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shepard_tone
- overfeed 8mo ago
  > Jobs acted as an editor and sounding board. You can't just let designers (or engineers) run wild. Apple went way too far with the skeuomorphism, and Ives & co. may have over-corrected. Speaking of running wild: I'd consider painstakingly reproducing the stitching on the seats in Job's jet in the icon for an Apple app (Notes, IIRC) to be going overboard. Apple was rightly mocked for taking skeuomorphism too far, and as a result making onscreen, virtual objects mimick real objects became outdated, and people are now nostalgic for it because the backlash has been forgotten.
  - sunaookami 8mo ago
    Apple had an internal clash over which design direction they should go after the release of Windows 8 but every user rightfully hated Windows 8 flat design. The resonance to skeuomorphism was very positive back then.
    - overfeed 8mo ago
      I don't know when Windows 8 was released, but by 2012-2013, skeuomorphic design had become very unpopular, tacky even. See the links I included in response to sibling comment.
  - kasabali 8mo ago
    > people are now nostalgic for it because the backlash has been forgotten. What backslash? Only backslash I remember is when flat design was introduced. The only people complaining about skeumorphism was designers chasing latest fad.
    - overfeed 8mo ago
      > What backslash? https://www.macrumors.com/2012/09/11/apples-designers-clashing-over-tacky-software-skeuomorphisms/ https://www.macrumors.com/2012/09/11/apples-designers-clashi... https://techcrunch.com/2013/06/10/skueomorphism-red-headed-step-child/ https://techcrunch.com/2013/06/10/skueomorphism-red-headed-s... https://gizmodo.com/apples-podcasts-app-no-longer-has-horrible-reel-to-reel-5991798 https://gizmodo.com/apples-podcasts-app-no-longer-has-horrib... https://www.theverge.com/2012/11/22/3680320/skeuomorphic-design-christopher-downer https://www.theverge.com/2012/11/22/3680320/skeuomorphic-des... https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/09/death-to-textures-ios-6-and-ios-7-compared-in-pictures/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/09/death-to-textures-io... https://www.theverge.com/2012/9/21/3367270/yves-behar-apple-behind-software-design-skeuomorphism https://www.theverge.com/2012/9/21/3367270/yves-behar-apple-... https://techcrunch.com/2013/06/09/skeuomorphism-isnt-ioss-biggest-problem/ https://techcrunch.com/2013/06/09/skeuomorphism-isnt-ioss-bi... https://daringfireball.net/2013/01/the_trend_against_skeuomorphism https://daringfireball.net/2013/01/the_trend_against_skeuomo... Edit: FYI: you typoed 'backlash' twice
ksec 8mo ago
Huge Huge Thank You for posting this video. Literally word for word quote some of the thing I have been saying for years. Even the same quote on Craig Federighi and Jony Ive. Would have been better if there was another quote about Jony Ive fall out with Apple User Interface Head in 2015 and destroyed everything great about Apple Store. And again the Microsoft Video about Windows Metro and removing as much Chrome. ( There are still plenty of people on HN who will defend Windows 8 being peak UI and Metro was a right design choice ) And the quote about bringing order to Chaos. Along with Scott Forstall Video basically saying they destroyed everything Steve left behind. With Jony Ive gone and most of the exec on their way out, may be it is time to think about bringing back Scott Forstall.

jeroenhd 8mo ago

Recreating Aqua is the easy part. Recreating all the applications you would use day-to-day to fit the design language specified by Aqua is another. Apple's visual OS design was never that far ahead of the curve, but they managed to convince developers for their platform to stick to their guidelines rather than reinvent the wheel, making the entire computer feel more like one integrated system than a toolbox filled with differently branded tools. This is also why most "windows style" themes fall flat: you can copy the window decorations, button backgrounds, and icons, but unless your applications are designed to look and work like the OS your mimicking, it'll all just look weird and off. At this point "operating systems" in a commercial sense are so large that only relatively new entries can afford to rebuild their stock applications to fit the current UI theme (ChromeOS comes pretty close but you'd need to appreciate Google's design to enjoy that). macOS, Windows, and even Linux to some extent all have decades of old software to support so they can't redesign their core GUI stack without breaking everything. In the days that an internet browser wasn't considered a core part of the operating system, there just weren't as many places to get the design wrong or off-template without Q&A noticing.

overfeed 8mo ago
> they managed to convince developers for their platform to stick to their guidelines rather than reinvent the wheel, making the entire computer feel more like one integrated system than a toolbox filled with differently branded tools. Browsing the web on non-Apple platforms was annoying for a few years, with web designers aping the skeuomorphic design-language of whatever the then-current MacOS X release was. Besides cargo-culting, there was no justifiable reason for brushed aluminum or linen web page backgrounds, though I'm sure it looked really great on the designers Apple computer. If you, dear reader, did this when you were younger, I hope you have grown as a person and a designer. > [...] unless your applications are designed to look and work like the OS your mimicking, it'll all just look weird and off. Exactly!
- nekooooo 8mo ago
  i no longer use luxurious wood, linen, and metal textures. these did serve a purpose at the time, though. skeumorphic design was a guidepost for a far less digital-literate user.

pndy 8mo ago

The UI was so attractive it was back then even "ported" into KDE, not mention the countless OSX-themed visual styles for XP and Dock-like applications (later Launchpads arrived as well). There were even theming packages which were patching everything from icons to bitmaps in Windows somewhere before Vista arrival. Aqua "era" ended with 10.10 when Apple decided to join flatness craze.

kccqzy 8mo ago
The early flatness craze, Yosemite, still looked better than the current Liquid Glass appearance. The Yosemite app icons in particular looked even more refined than Mavericks, and much more sophisticated than Tahoe.
paradox460 8mo ago
I remember installing flyakite to get things looking good on Windows, and then growing tired of it all and just buying windowblinds and desktop x
- pndy 8mo ago
  The early packages could really mess up Windows - especially on non-English versions. Later on there were some really good ones around like XPize or Vize for XP and Vista respectively. Theming Windows was something I always appreciated but that ended by the time I've got 7. Instead I've opted for making workflow bit more smoother with some additional programs like Launchpad and small GKrellM-like sidebar.
solstice 8mo ago
Oh yeah I remember that. I use to hang around the customize.org forums a lot in 2003 trying out a lot of the visual styles for XP and winamp themes.

adolph 8mo ago

> The UI looks so good. Why can’t we have good looking things anymore? From the perspective of a Macintosh System 6 appreciator, OSX is kind of fussy with gratuitous details. https://aaron.cc/opening-screenshots-from-a-vintage-macintosh/ https://aaron.cc/opening-screenshots-from-a-vintage-macintos...

jama211 8mo ago

Because your opinion is in the minority

ErroneousBosh 8mo ago

There used to be a really nice Aqua theme for Gtk back in the day, but like everything else it's gone out of fashion and succumbed to bitrot. I don't even know where you'd find a copy of it any more, even if it could be ported to modern toolkit libraries. I wish freshmeat.net was still on the go, that was full of things like that.

ZpJuUuNaQ5 8mo ago

>The UI looks so good. Why can’t we have good looking things anymore? Because "good looking UI" is a completely subjective metric.

oneeyedpigeon 8mo ago
True, but: a) We can evaluate UIs on ('more') objective metrics too, like clarity, accessibility, etc. I think that, on most objective measures, the older UI would 'win' too. b) Subjective doesn't mean 'useless'. If 99% of people prefer one thing over another, even for subjective reasons, it's probably a good idea.

eleveriven 8mo ago

Modern UI trends seem to optimize for neutrality and content-first minimalism, which is nice in theory but often ends up feeling generic

jagged-chisel 8mo ago
“Content-first minimalism” I disagree. Unless the ‘content’ is “corners are sooo round, and isn’t this glass-like distortion just so neat?”

bromuro 8mo ago

Please no, that Lucida font is unreadable and ugly. Let’s not talk about the childish “aqua” design.