[HN Gopher] What's New in macOS Big Sur: Human Interface Guidelines
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What's New in macOS Big Sur: Human Interface Guidelines
Author : tomduncalf
Score : 111 points
Date : 2020-06-22 20:26 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (developer.apple.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (developer.apple.com)
| config_yml wrote:
| Loss of affordance, density and contrast. Why do designers hate
| these 3 things? It's pretty, yes.
| yssrn wrote:
| Virtually all of these changes reduce contrast and
| differentiation between controls while simultaneously decreasing
| information density. All bad news for people who work on their
| computers for a living.
| dijit wrote:
| I like borders on my buttons to know what is a button and what
| isn't, this feels.. backwards...
|
| So much has to be inferred from the way things used to be,
| makes it harder to argue that it's the "simpler" operating
| system designed for Humans with a keen eye on UX design..
|
| FWIW I also think the flat UI on iPhone (which has been
| prevelant for >6y now) is a horror show.
|
| Steve Jobs famously once said (while working at NeXt): "There
| are two kinds of people at Apple: Those that want to push
| computing forward, and those that want to be the Sony of
| computers.. and the Sony guys are winning"
| breakfastduck wrote:
| How on earth is moving to a the ARM architecture not pushing
| computing forward?
|
| macOS moving to ARM is the biggest leap for developers in
| recent years - Amazon are also developing their own ARM chips
| and cloud services running linux ARM is the future.
|
| Having a mac with a unix-like terminal environment & support
| to run linux arm natively when devloping for those services
| is a huge deal.
| lbotos wrote:
| This is not the ARM thread, This is the UI thread. Nothing
| about the UI is predicated on ARM.
| Yhippa wrote:
| I remember the transition from iOS 6 to 7. It definitely
| initially looked modern but I still sometimes have difficulty
| distinguishing between a label and a button.
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| The previous, and still ongoing, thread about this is
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23603852. I'm not sure
| whether to merge the threads or let this one start fresh (another
| comment about this is
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23605260).
| tomduncalf wrote:
| I think they are slightly different as this one is focussed
| purely on the UI/UX differences whereas the other is a more
| general "what's new" in terms of features etc. Happy for you to
| do what you think best of course!
| welearnednothng wrote:
| The title is misleading as it implies everything new in macOS,
| when the linked page is limited to human interface guidelines.
| Perhaps this should be retitled something like "What's new in
| MacOS Big Sur (UX|HIG|Human Interace Guidelines)"?
| dang wrote:
| Good point. We've narrowed the scope in the title above.
| Thanks!
| dimmke wrote:
| I have to be honest and go completely against the crowd here -
| but I think the UI updates are very good. They make the two OSes
| look cohesive but in a tasteful way. The extra padding in all of
| the UI is the only thing that I chafe at a little bit, it feels
| unnecessary. I really don't think they're going to put out touch
| screen Macs.
|
| So I'm not sure what there is to get upset about. I don't see any
| big functional changes in the OS aside from reworking the
| notification center UI a little- and I like this new version
| more. It's already been confirmed that they aren't locking down
| apps to the app store or anything like that.
|
| It seems like people think that because they're taking design
| cues from iOS they intend to lock it down like iOS and they're
| transferring that fear into dislike of the new UI itself.
|
| Apple knows that a large percentage of the people who buy its
| computers are software engineers and if they ever do fully lock
| their computers down in that way they'd be ceding that
| marketshare entirely, along with catching quite a bit of heat for
| it in the press. Maybe eventually that calculus is worth it to
| them but I don't think that's what this is a step towards. I
| think they just want users who are fully plugged into their
| ecosystem to feel like it's a cohesive experience across
| platforms and this achieves that.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| I agree, I think the new UI looks great.
|
| People are taking the UI / ARM change as apple taking away more
| control, but macOS is THE development platform of the entire
| apple ecosystem.
|
| So yeah, the ecosystem may be tighter knitted, but they sure as
| hell will not lock down macOS like they do iOS, they have so
| many mac users who are developers and apple are absolutely
| aware of that.
|
| People complain about features in catalina and other recent
| versions of macOS 'locking things down' - it's incredibly easy
| to bypass the stuff that makes a difference using the terminal.
|
| In a world where every company in the world wants to track and
| harvest your data, we've somehow got to the point where people
| bash apple for actually taking privacy and security seriously.
| aardshark wrote:
| Ee
| aardshark wrote:
| > it's incredibly easy to bypass the stuff that makes a
| difference using the terminal.
|
| Try running dtrace without having to configure a bunch of
| settings and restarting your Mac. Then you have to change the
| settings back and restart again to go back to the way it was.
|
| It's a pain in the hole, and for basically no reason.
| henriquez wrote:
| Apple locks down MacOS more and more with each major release.
| Some of it seems well justified but the totality of it is
| concerning to me. Being able to defeat some of it in the
| console doesn't change what is an increasingly abusive
| relationship. I feel like we're rapidly approaching a point
| where Apple enforces the same strict control over MacOS that
| they do over the iOS App Store and they're softening people
| up towards that in baby steps with each incremental
| restriction they implement.
|
| Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I personally decided to stop
| buying their computers because of it.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| I disagree, I don't think they're anywhere near locking
| down to the iOS level.
|
| Could you explain some of these incremental lock downs? I
| honestly can't think of any that are genuine restrictions,
| but that might just be because I don't encounter them with
| what I do.
| lwhi wrote:
| Every new release of OS X has been an increasing
| disappointment for years now. Security issues, bugs,
| incompatibilities.
|
| It's almost as if they've been actively devesting in OS
| X.
|
| At least we now understand why.
|
| Mac's are no longer machines fit for professional
| development. It's a damn shame, but it's true in my mind.
| _jal wrote:
| > it's incredibly easy to bypass the stuff that makes a
| difference using the terminal
|
| Not my experience. It took a couple weeks of noodling to get
| parts of my environment moved over, and some of my automation
| I just moved to a linux box because I got sick of it.
|
| > we've somehow got to the point where people bash apple for
| actually taking privacy and security seriously
|
| Wow.
|
| On the planet I use a Mac on, the complaints are about a set
| of non-manageable, opaque and somewhat buggy security changes
| that arbitrarily changed semantics on big chunks of the
| filesystem and broke a bunch of things is hard to figure out
| ways.
|
| Add in that there is no sensible mechanism for cleaning up
| any of these magic permissions paths, and I don't even know
| what permissions are active on the machine I'm typing on.
|
| I've loved OS X for being a decent gui on a real Unix. It had
| a decent run, but my next laptop will be a Linux box.
| rzzzt wrote:
| It's interesting that this comment makes the same sentiment as
| the top comment on the CPU announcement thread - contrary to
| the (perceived) public opinion, things are good, it's going to
| be great. Can you both be really against the crowd if so many
| people agree with you?
|
| (To be clear, I'm not insinuating anything, just interested in
| the dynamic.)
| jacurtis wrote:
| I agree completely. The only real gripe I feel is that
| excessive padding.
|
| It is sort of like scrolling through Dribbble app mockups. The
| layouts look amazing as a mockup, but when you actually go to
| make or use the app it isn't as practical as you want.
|
| On a desktop, with a mouse, I have near-perfect precision. I
| don't need overly-padded icons and windows because I have the
| precision of a mouse. The extra padding just wastes screen
| real-estate and makes me move the mouse more to get between
| tools or options in the menu.
|
| I would much rather have less padding, which might not look as
| beautiful, and use the extra space for the content of my
| application as opposed to the toolbars.
| Lammy wrote:
| I liked it as soon as I saw the Accent Colors -- feels like
| Appearance Manager in Mac OS 8 all over again :)
| lwhi wrote:
| The problem is, Apple have chosen consumers above
| professionals.
|
| It's been fairly obvious that this was their plan. Now it's
| been categorically confirmed.
| seumars wrote:
| Even judging by that first screenshot, you can see that white
| text with very smooth shadow on a semi-transparent menubar is
| not at all pleasant or readable. For all the talk about "human
| interface" you'd think they would at least get the whole black-
| text-on-white-background principle.
| thought_alarm wrote:
| I won't know until I actually use it, but based on looks alone
| I think it's the cleanest and most cohesive Mac UI since the
| peak Aqua era (OS X 10.4-10.6).
| loughnane wrote:
| >Apple knows that a large percentage of the people who buy its
| computers are software engineers
|
| I suspect a large percentage of software engineers buy their
| computers, but I'm skeptical at the assertion that a large
| percentage of people who buy their computers are software
| engineers.
| breakfastduck wrote:
| That's probably true - although there are a LOT of iOS
| developers out there who can now essentially program for
| macOS because of catalyst.
|
| Either way, software engineers build the applications that
| drive your platforms popularity, meaning developer adoption
| of a platform is incredibly important and thus they probably
| have a larger influence on Apples decision making than other
| demographics would with similar percentages.
| hyperpape wrote:
| Looks like they've been selling around 18 million macs a year
| (https://www.statista.com/statistics/263444/sales-of-apple-
| ma...). If you ignore individuals having multiple computers,
| and assume the average lifetime of a machine is 5 years, you
| get 90 million people with a Mac. I don't know how many
| developers there are, but saw 20-25 million in some
| estimates.
| oblio wrote:
| The vast majority of developed worldwide are using crummy
| Windows laptops and developing internal enterprise software
| :-) At best Macs probably have a marketshare of 30% among
| developers.
|
| The US and big tech companies are outliers regarding Mac
| usage.
| lwhi wrote:
| There are more 'normies' than engineers out there.
|
| They need to continue sell more to keep share holders happy.
|
| It's a calculated shift.
| mxcrossb wrote:
| Well that and the fact that tech website users basically
| complain about every UI change. Hacker News is full of people
| who think XFCE is the height of desktop experience. This is
| fundamentally different than apple's core fan base who seem to
| like any change just for the sake of change.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| Are we going back to skeuomorphic, please god yes! I've been so
| saturated of flatness, it's boring!
| Macha wrote:
| The integration of tall title bars with toolbars is really
| reminding me of Gnome 3 here.
| Phrodo_00 wrote:
| Yep, getting real gnome 3 vibes from it. Compare their mailing
| app image to geary[1]. Even though they're browner I kind of
| prefer gnome's toolbar because they're more obviously
| interactive. I guess it's not such a big problem is you use iOS
| maybe, but I don't.
|
| https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Geary
| hactually wrote:
| It looks so much like Gnome that I was honestly surprised.
|
| The new header bars and merged controls are almost exact
| matches... I wonder if they'll contribute anything back
| upstream
| zeristor wrote:
| Wait macOS 11, not 10.16.
|
| I assume this is a breaking change then?
| ihuman wrote:
| I think it's because Big Sur is the first version that supports
| ARM.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Apple's version numbers are decided by marketing, not any
| technical API versioning reasons.
| throw0101a wrote:
| Going from Intel to ARM is potentially a breaking change, so if
| you're going to rev the 'major' version number there's probably
| no better time.
| samename wrote:
| Technically yes, but Rosetta 2 is supposed to allow most apps
| to continue working fine until their developers upgrade them.
| [deleted]
| croddin wrote:
| It could be they are moving to the major version number being
| the one that is now incremented in each major release, in line
| with iPadOS and all the apple OSs. Eg. it will be iPadOS 14,
| not 10.14.
| kristofferR wrote:
| Pretty fitting, since Steve Jobs said OS X would last 20 years,
| which is exactly this year.
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| This is macOS. Every major and some minor versions are
| breaking, especially from an enterprise point of view :)
| deathanatos wrote:
| They're giving up TenVer[1]... wow. Must have become too
| mainstream.
|
| [1]: http://tenver.drone-ver.org/
| paulirwin wrote:
| macOS in its history has not really followed semantic
| versioning. 10.6 dropped support for running on PowerPC CPUs,
| and 10.7 dropped support for running PowerPC apps with Rosetta.
| 10.15 dropped support for 32-bit apps. Those were pretty
| significant breaking changes.
| Phrodo_00 wrote:
| Good job spotting this. I guess this is why they officially
| moved away from the OSX name.
| bitL wrote:
| It looks like iPadOS, so instead of adding more functions to
| iDevices, it seems like we'll be seeing more "dumbization" for
| macDevices :-(
| bjelkeman-again wrote:
| More transparent, low contrast menus, and not much colour to help
| you navigate. I must be getting old. What accessibility features
| do one use to make the UI clearer without becoming butt-ugly to
| look at?
| Synaesthesia wrote:
| I'm sure the usual reduce transparency and increase contrast
| options will still be there.
| jtbayly wrote:
| Yes, but color is such a helpful distinguishing feature that
| contrast can never make up for it disappearing. I can squint
| until I can't distinguish any of the symbols and still tell
| which is which when they are colored.
| avree wrote:
| Which menus generally have color as an element in Mac OS
| today that don't in the new Mac OS? Serious question--I
| can't find one.
| justwalt wrote:
| Looks like the mail preferences window is one such
| example, as seen in the before/after in the middle of the
| page.
| 0xDEEPFAC wrote:
| It seems like these new Macs might as well be phone with a
| keyboard in the way they treat their software and "pro" consumers
| taking away options when screen real-estate exists to empower the
| mouse user.
|
| Wake me up when they use less glue to hold their computers
| together : (
| qu1mby wrote:
| I think you're right - by leveraging everyone who has now
| learned to create apps for iPhone and suddenly empowering them
| to create for Mac, too, we're going to see a flood of
| underwhelming iPhone apps on desktop.
|
| But that's exactly the catalyst you need to motivate the more
| capable of that bunch to cut through the noise with powerful
| applications specifically tailored to desktop -- and a very
| healthy App Store for desktop begins to emerge (just like the
| one we have for iPhone now). But faster, because now there are
| so many people who suddenly know how to create for Mac.
| [deleted]
| IMTDb wrote:
| > But what should we call it ? Well, if you're a student of
| MacOS, you know this question can only be answered by Apple crack
| marketing team. Their drug fueled minibus driven quests have
| yielded some great names. [...] We can't responsibly continue to
| inadvertently lead our competition to copy these methods when
| they clearly can't handle the trip
|
| Was that guy actually on acid when he introduced the name ? This
| was so out of place compared to the usual Apple tone. At least I
| had a good laugh
| Frajedo wrote:
| He's been doing similar jokes about MacOS names since a couple
| of years :)
| jefftk wrote:
| That text seems not to be there now?
| ryanjm33 wrote:
| Go back and watch previous intros. :) Fun bit of Apple history.
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