[HN Gopher] Clarus returns home in macOS Ventura
___________________________________________________________________
Clarus returns home in macOS Ventura
Author : shadowfacts
Score : 306 points
Date : 2022-06-14 16:16 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (shadowfacts.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (shadowfacts.net)
| dunham wrote:
| > I, er, accidentally updated my laptop to the beta
|
| Good to know it wasn't just me. I also expected it to be an
| installer that let me choose a different volume to install on.
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| Yah, I've held off for this reason because that happened to me
| last year.
| derefr wrote:
| AFAIK, it will present you a choice, _if_ you've already
| created a separate APFS volume such that there's more than one
| option of installation target. I saw someone do exactly that
| (create an APFS volume for Ventura, start the installer, and
| then choose said volume as the target) in the first YouTube
| video I saw about the beta's release.
| dunham wrote:
| Yeah, that's what I tried, even named the volume Ventura. It
| has worked in the past with previous releases e.g. Monterey.
| It sounds like the original poster (and some commenters) was
| trying to do this too, had done in the past, and was
| surprised.
|
| The process didn't give me an installer, it just jumped to
| the volume building process. TBH I kinda knew it was messed
| up, but after cancelling and trying again, I just let it go.
|
| I didn't see any options in the dev site to pull down a full
| installer.
|
| My M1 is fairly new, so I have recent practice reinstalling
| Big Sur from scratch if necessary.
| shadowfacts wrote:
| Huh, really? That's exactly what I did--I still have an
| empty, vestigial volume called Ventura in the same APFS
| container as Macintosh HD--and I was not presented with a
| choice.
| derefr wrote:
| Weird. Maybe the youtuber I watched didn't realize their
| mistake while filming :P
| clarus wrote:
| It has been a long time and happy to see you back again!
| _0xdd wrote:
| I love it. It's about time they brought some personality back to
| the Mac. I miss things like the startup chime (it's back!), the
| backlit Apple logo, the pulsating power light on the iMac G4 when
| the system was sleeping, etc. Apple got to a point in the early
| 2010s where they started stripping away these things, and I'm
| glad they're somewhat on their way back.
| talentedcoin wrote:
| Idk. Lose 32 bit support forever, get a dog cow? No wonder the
| Mac platform is such a dumpster fire.
| Gigachad wrote:
| What was lost? Aside from gaming, everything is now 64 bit so
| it sounds like a successful transition. And there is a lot more
| wrong with gaming on mac than 32 bit support.
| jeffkeen wrote:
| This is so great. The 90s/pre OS-X Apple (the "BuT tHeREs No
| SOFtWaRe!" and "ApPLe is GoING tO DiiEE" Apple) had a sense of
| playfulness in their UIs that was largely lost when they became
| the Apple we know today.
|
| The Mac OS classic architecture definitely had some problems with
| its non-protected memory and cooperative multitasking, but what
| it _allowed_ were extensions that could really get in there and
| muck around with things... and I looovvvved the zaniness that
| provided. To name a few:
|
| - ResEdit! - Extensions that could seriously improve your
| computer's performance like RamDoubler or SpeedDoubler - That
| extension that made Oscar the grouch climb out of the trash can
| and sing a little ditty when you emptied the trash - The talking
| moose was fun for about 15 minutes, but still, I love the
| attitude. - After Dark! - Easter eggs like that "secret about
| box" text clipping thing that pulled up the pirate flag flying
| over the Apple Campus. - Playful messaging like "Installing
| System Morsels", or Sim City 2000's "Reticulating Splines" - Even
| the iconography was more playful--that little bloated mac icon in
| the Memory control panel next to Virtual Memory comes to mind
|
| I miss the crew of developers, capabilities, and playfulness we
| lost in transitioning to OSX, but am thrilled that tiny fragments
| of this playfulness seem to be returning.
|
| Welcome back Clarus! Moof!
| tarsinge wrote:
| For me it's the Menuette[0] extension, as a child I loved it
| (icons instead of menu names).
|
| [0] https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/menuette
| Lammy wrote:
| Sadly no amount of UI levity can excuse all the ways modern
| macOS phones home and violates my privacy. I'd rather have a
| boring OS that doesn't need remote permission to let me run
| unknown applications, one preferably made by a company that
| haven't publicly stated their desire to scan my devices for
| distasteful/illegal personal data.
| [deleted]
| Alex3917 wrote:
| Now they just need to bring back wild eep and sosumi.
| robertoandred wrote:
| And the quack.
| fubar12 wrote:
| I can hear this post.
| drewzero1 wrote:
| I have wild eep as my text notification. On the rare occasion
| that I don't have my phone silenced, it gets some attention!
| jeffkeen wrote:
| Oof, sorry for that botched list formatting, all.
| dtgriscom wrote:
| There was a very early (1985-6?) app called "Selectric." When
| you ran it, it immediately exited, leaving you wondering what
| the point was. Until the next time you started typing: every
| key you typed made a "Chunk!" sound, the spacebar went
| "-diggit-", and the return key went "zzzzz...DING." Way fun.
| danudey wrote:
| > After Dark!
|
| I would pay a frankly distressing amount of money for
| reproductions of After Dark screensavers, even if it was just
| videos I can set my TV to play when it gets tired.
| fragmede wrote:
| https://youtu.be/we8JQe6ugrs
| inasmuch wrote:
| > This is so great. The 90s/pre OS-X Apple (the "BuT tHeREs No
| SOFtWaRe!" and "ApPLe is GoING tO DiiEE" Apple) had a sense of
| playfulness in their UIs that was largely lost when they became
| the Apple we know today.
|
| What's so strange about this is that, as that playfulness has
| been lost, the software has, in many ways, moved in a direction
| that feels more childishly cartoonish. It seems the aim is now
| to make all computing feel fun and friendly (even when it
| perhaps ought to be more serious or economical), which has,
| ironically, stripped all the charm out of the experience by
| inundating us with bright colors and childsafe corners.
|
| Small, unexpected, thoughtful moments and Easter eggs like
| those described in this thread are like a small piece of
| chocolate after a healthy meal. What we have in most software
| now (Apple is by no means the only company guilty of this) is
| more like a diet comprised entirely of candy.
| deergomoo wrote:
| > It seems the aim is now to make all computing feel fun and
| friendly
|
| The weird part is most current attempts of this are actually
| really bad at it past initial surface appearances.
|
| Minimalist and "content-first' UIs look great in screenshots
| and I guess they prevent new users from getting overwhelmed,
| but they also hide all the features in a way I find quite
| hostile. We have an absolute wealth of pixels in our displays
| today, but tons of software makes you decipher abstract line
| icons to work out what it can actually _do_.
|
| The Mac thankfully still has the escape hatch of the menu
| bar, which almost universally allows you to browse and search
| all performable actions (and see their keyboard shortcuts
| inline!), but mobile operating systems don't even have a
| touch-centric equivalent of tooltips.
| weikju wrote:
| I dread the day the menubar disappears...
| apple4ever wrote:
| I as well miss that playfulness of that era. We use these
| things all day, why shouldn't they give us a smile from time to
| time from something that happens.
| ianai wrote:
| We've still got "Stickies" though not quite the same level of
| fun, granted.
| scarface74 wrote:
| And unfortunately AppleScript...
| _moof wrote:
| Moof, indeed!
| macNchz wrote:
| I had many of those fun extensions, I think my favorite was one
| that added physics to your desktop icons so they'd hang from
| your cursor at an angle if you dragged them from a point other
| than their "center of gravity". Sometimes I'd just twiddle
| icons while thinking through things I was working on.
|
| I too miss that sort of whimsy and playfulness-I don't think
| it's inherently incompatible with modern expectations of
| professionalism/accessibility/security but it definitely seems
| to have been lost from most software these days.
|
| Edit: found the extension! http://www.wildbits.com/gravite/
| tksb wrote:
| gravite was delightful!
|
| > I too miss that sort of whimsy and playfulness-I don't
| think it's inherently incompatible with modern expectations
| of professionalism/accessibility/security but it definitely
| seems to have been lost from most software these days.
|
| Agreed completely but every now and then it still pops up.
| Recently, Notchmeister [0]
|
| [0]: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/notchmeister/id1599169747
| hedgehog wrote:
| The Grouch was great. Or "great" if there were little kids
| around, intermittent fun reward for throwing file in the
| trash, what could possibly go wrong?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GE7EWDKVM1Y
| m463 wrote:
| "Why don't we ever go out anymore?" - talking moose
| GekkePrutser wrote:
| > (the "BuT tHeREs No SOFtWaRe!" and "ApPLe is GoING tO DiiEE"
| Apple)
|
| To be fair they did come awfully close to that point before
| Steve came back and reinvigorated the place.
|
| That sentiment was not entirely misplaced at the time.
| dylan604 wrote:
| The crayon color picker with an easter egg if you set the
| computer's date well into the future would cause the crayons to
| no longer look brand new
| jeffkeen wrote:
| Forgot about that one!
| saurik wrote:
| OSX was also easy to modify and add extensions to for many
| years, as Objective-C is so extremely dynamic... until Apple
| started really trying to lock things down on purpose, turning
| macOS more and more into the miserably rigid iOS.
| lxgr wrote:
| I never had a Mac in the 90s/early 2000s, but a lot of this
| still sounds pretty familiar as a passionate Palm OS user at
| the time:
|
| No memory protection, no multitasking (not even threads!), more
| minimalistic than the competition at the time in many ways in
| its core features - but on the flip side, extremely extensible
| in almost every way.
|
| As I later learned, PalmOS was heavily inspired by Mac OS!
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| https://jcs.org/system6c
| jeffkeen wrote:
| Incredible! I have a couple of old Macs lying around and
| it's a dream of mine to write a native app for them that
| does something modern, like a way to control spotify of
| something. Thanks for linking
| _moof wrote:
| I wrote software for both platforms and it was shocking how
| similar they were. Like, surprised-nobody-got-sued shocking.
| smm11 wrote:
| Time to bring back Cyberdog.
| joemi wrote:
| Side note: What an odd webpage style. Makes some things look like
| they're markdown, but they're actually added with css ::before
| and ::after. Plus I found the link style very distracting and
| unnecessary (since browsers already have built-in ways to show
| you the URL of a link).
| jen729w wrote:
| Shows we're all different: I really like it.
|
| I write and think in Markdown and there was something about
| seeing it laid bare that I enjoyed. Wouldn't want it on every
| site, but for something a bit different, call me a fan of this
| one.
| tiffanyh wrote:
| Is it related at all to Apple's recent Low Resolution design
| contest?
|
| https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=3sgp4ps7
| hansword wrote:
| Very unlikely. After all, the new Clarus is high resolution,
| would be an ill fit for anything low resolution, don't you
| think?
|
| Unless you mean in a very abstract way, then, yes, both are
| related to nostalgia.
| fghorow wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=289v_gKJjWU&t=43s
|
| Moof.
| hypertexthero wrote:
| I have a print of Moof the Dogcow on my wall and it is lovely.
|
| Got it at Susan Kare's shop:
| https://kareprints.com/products/copy-of-moof-the-dogcow-on-g...
| nicebill8 wrote:
| Still got my pin from WWDC18, lovely little thing.
| grishka wrote:
| > The keen-eyed among you may notice that although, it had a .pdf
| extension in assetutil info, I've given it here as a PNG. I was
| confused by this too, but upon closer inspection I believe the
| PNG is what ships with the OS. Although the .car format is not
| documented, you can still open it up in a hex viewer and learn a
| bit about what it contains. Looking through it, there appears to
| be some metadata for each file, followed by the image data
| itself.
|
| I reverse engineered the asset catalog format for a bit recently,
| hoping to be able to unpack and repack existing ones to create
| system appearances (themes/skins -- these also come as .car
| files, and you can load one as an NSAppearance object and then
| apply it to your app/window/view).
|
| If it says it's a PDF, then it must be an actual PDF as a "raw
| data" rendition. I did successfully extract some with nothing but
| my own code. But, there are no PNGs present in .car files; as of
| Monterey, bitmap images use a proprietary undocumented
| compression format called "deepmap2". I wasn't able to exactly
| reconstruct how it works because my skills of native code reverse
| engineering are lacking (or am I not using Ghidra correctly to
| get at least somewhat sensible code out of it?), but I did find
| the related functions in the vImage framework inside
| Accelerate.framework.
| shadowfacts wrote:
| You're right: I believe it's using the "Preserve Vector Data"
| option Xcode shows in the asset catalog editor and the PNG is
| just what's being rendered by the CoreUI framework.
| bombcar wrote:
| Interesting - the new higher res one has a clear udder whereas
| the old one curves the other way and looks more like a generic
| dog.
| a3w wrote:
| Looks like a cow-dog hybrid to me. Not meant as bodyshaming,
| just not a good vectorization.
| dsr_ wrote:
| Clarus is a dogcow, and they say "Moof!"
| e28eta wrote:
| > As assetutil showed, there are multiple entries for
| ClarusSmooth2.pdf--and one of them is followed by data that
| starts with the PDF file format header (%PDF). But,
| unfortunately, extracting that data into a separate file seems to
| result in a blank PDF. And I don't know enough about the format
| to figure out whether there is any vector data in it, or if it
| truly is empty.
|
| I suspect this _is_ a vector format, and they're using the Xcode
| 9+ features for a scalable image at runtime. I've never tried to
| extract the data back, it wouldn't surprise me if they're
| optimized for themselves, since in theory apple's frameworks are
| the only "consumer" of the compiled asset catalog.
|
| ref: https://useyourloaf.com/blog/xcode-9-vector-images/
| shadowfacts wrote:
| Ah, that definitely seems like what it is--
| CUINamedImage.isVectorBased is true for the Clarus image.
| Reverse engineering the format could be a fun project.
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| > That dialog shows Clarus on the page preview in every app.
|
| Weird, on my MacOS (12.3 Monterrey) I think I always see a
| thumbnail of the actual page I'm previewing there?
|
| Surely they haven't taken a step back to showing a generic clarus
| icon instead in new version of OS? That would be weird. I must be
| confused about what he's talking about.
| shadowfacts wrote:
| The distinction is between the Print dialog (Cmd+P) and the
| Page Setup dialog (Shift+Cmd+P). Print still shows the normal
| page previews, but Page Setup is where Clarus is. In a Monterey
| VM, there's no page preview at all in Page Setup.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| ex-Apple here.. way past caring about Executive Management after
| repeated torturous treatment of indie developers at the hands of
| legal.
| [deleted]
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| Moof!
| geogra4 wrote:
| A real nostalgia rush here on the dogcow.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| Moof!
| Doches wrote:
| Sure, this is a sweet little hit of nostalgia -- but it's also
| symptomatic of just how far Apple's come (back) with the Mac, and
| why. It's clear that we're way, way over the doldrums of the
| butterfly keyboard, abandoned Mac Pro, "continues to be a product
| in our line-up" years. Little things like this, little
| acknowledgements of the past and the Mac community, suggest to me
| why: the people in charge of the Mac are now people who _grew up
| with it_, who love it, and who have that same nostalgia as (some)
| of us outside Apple.
|
| They want the Mac to be great, too! If this was strictly playing
| on nostalgia it would have been a bit PR feature, or at least
| called out in WWDC. But instead it's just dropped in as an easter
| egg. Such a great sign.
| grishka wrote:
| > the people in charge of the Mac are now people who _grew up
| with it_, who love it, and who have that same nostalgia as
| (some) of us outside Apple.
|
| So then how does one explain the unending UI regressions with
| every single major update? This whole system preferences thing
| for example? The terrible, terrible toolbars combined with
| window titles? The borderless buttons (with borders being an
| accessibility feature)? The utter disregard of the pixel grid?
| Everything else slowly becoming ever more un-desktop?
| selectodude wrote:
| > This whole system preferences thing for example
|
| Do you remember what the battery icon in System Preferences
| looked like in the first beta of Mac OS 12? It's a beta. Give
| it some time. It's not out yet.
| grishka wrote:
| I'm very doubtful that by the time it reaches release,
| they'll bring back the icon grid and the sensible layouts
| (instead of those stupid iOS-like lists) in the panes
| themselves.
| derefr wrote:
| What do you mean, iOS-like? The new System Preferences
| has a very clear precedent in macOS:
| https://www.versionmuseum.com/images/operating-
| systems/class...
| grishka wrote:
| The new preference panes themselves are very iOS-like,
| and _that 's_ unprecedented.
| andrekandre wrote:
| i reminds more of gnome tbh
|
| post big-sur, at least dark-theme, the overall ui looks
| very much like gnome in many ways...
| grishka wrote:
| And modern Gnome is also terrible because they insist on
| supporting touchscreens as first-class input devices at
| the expense of sanely sized controls for the remaining
| 95% of users.
| danaris wrote:
| Frankly, the icon grid was arranged somewhat arbitrarily
| to begin with. I'd be quite happy to have a largely-
| alphabetical list, making it much easier to actually
| _find_ the specific preference pane I 'm looking for.
| grishka wrote:
| There used to be labeled categories that made sense. Then
| they removed the labels, and then they merged some of the
| categories.
| dividedbyzero wrote:
| I've not tried out Ventura myself yet, but from the
| footage I've seen, the new settings app seems like an
| upgrade to me. I've never really found my way around the
| icon grid, none of the iterations since Leopard worked
| well for me (and I've probably used all of them), so good
| riddance, happy to see them they try something new. Those
| lists may break some people's muscle memory, but I'm way
| faster skimming through a list than finding things in a
| more or less arbitrary 2d layout. And besides, it's looks
| pretty similar to iOS, and if that's executed well, then
| I should be able to share muscle memory between iOS and
| macOS, like with Control Center (which is neat).
| dmitriid wrote:
| The new settings forget that desktop OSes are desktop
| OSes and have a rich library of controls that have
| interaction modes distinct from touch.
|
| See this:
| https://twitter.com/siracusa/status/1534261202167152649
|
| Instead of distinct readable controls with clear
| interactions it's a sea of gray upon gray upon gray.
|
| It breaks Apple's own HIGs which says not to (over)use
| switches, and use checkboxes instead. The drop downs no
| longer look like they can be interacted with.
|
| Where you'd have settings that can easily fit on a single
| pane in multicolumn view, you now have lists upon lists
| upon lists that are entirely alien to the Mac OS
| https://twitter.com/oskargroth/status/1534133558817742848
|
| Interface consistency is a bullshit goal: https://twitter
| .com/MarioGuzman/status/1534585939971801088
| pram wrote:
| You can make the current preferences panel alphabetical.
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| Every time I would open system preferences I would just
| use the search bar to open what I was looking for. I
| think they should have just either grouped the icons
| better or let you choose. Right now the current layout
| doesn't fit unless you make it bigger which is weird on
| my XDR when I can just make it longer ...
| npunt wrote:
| > So then how does one explain the unending UI regressions
| with every single major update?
|
| Strategy Tax. They have a bigger strategy they are pursuing
| to align iOS<>MacOS. This is the big ecosystem play that
| raises ARPU and improves customer loyalty. This means
| standardization of UI to improve approachability for iOS
| users, who outnumber MacOS users considerably but whom are
| less loyal customers than combined iOS+MacOS users.
|
| There's a secondary argument about moving off ObjC and code
| maintenance, since they want to gain the value of more modern
| language & to have new devs be able to jump on old products.
| This means every part of MacOS & every app is probably slated
| to be rewritten in Swift & SwiftUI as time goes on.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| > So then how does one explain the unending UI regressions
| with every single major update?
|
| That's easy: not everyone agrees they're regressions.
| grishka wrote:
| They clearly are regressions because they confuse many
| people and make a worse use of the same screen area.
|
| Also what are the problems being solved by these redesigns
| and rearrangements? What was solved by going flat in 10.9
| -> 10.10? What was solved by going even flatter, and using
| the dreaded SF Symbols icons everywhere, in 10.15 -> 11.0?
|
| It's a done product -- it's been one for quite a while.
| Could they just stop meddling with the UX already and maybe
| rewrite their PDF parser in a memory-safe language instead?
| Klonoar wrote:
| People who complain are loud. Just because they're loud
| doesn't make the UI changes bad.
|
| I find I legitimately prefer the newer UI of Big Sur
| onwards. I just don't feel the need to shout it from the
| heavens.
|
| An alternative take: you're really going to suggest that
| one of the richest companies in the world doesn't do
| extensive UI/UX testing before putting things out the
| door? They're not just saying "yeah, this looks nice -
| ship it!".
| CoryAlexMartin wrote:
| Why do you prefer the new UI? I can make a list of
| reasons why it's bad. The only reason I can see why
| anyone would prefer it is because it looks "cleaner", but
| that cleanness is artificial and gets in the way when
| trying to parse and use the software.
|
| A good UI designer makes buttons look like buttons so our
| brain can quickly recognize them as such, without
| mistaking them for something else. A good designer has
| the window title in the same place no matter the
| application, so we know where to look before we even
| look. A good designer gives us a place to reliably
| perform common actions such as dragging the window.
|
| We use our computers daily, and even imperceptible
| improvements to cognitive load and the amount of time it
| takes to perform actions make a difference over time.
| When I use my 2009 iMac running Snow Leaoprd, I perceive
| a reduction in friction compared to the latest macOS
| versions, and even compared to Catalina, which I use as
| my primary OS.
| Klonoar wrote:
| _> The only reason I can see why anyone would prefer it
| is because it looks "cleaner", but that cleanness is
| artificial and gets in the way when trying to parse and
| use the software._
|
| That's... your opinion, though. I don't particularly feel
| any friction when trying to navigate or use modern macOS,
| at least from a usability perspective.
|
| Even the example everyone throws about - the settings
| redesign - I fundamentally don't find to be that bad. It
| follows modern UI trends so I can intuit how it works,
| thus if I needed to poke around to find something I'm not
| really left wondering how to do so.
|
| On top of that, it's not a tool you're in constantly, and
| as long as there's a search box, you're _probably_ going
| to use that anyway as a power user. I don 't even think
| I've tried stumbling around the mess that's System
| Preferences recently, I just straight up head for the
| search bar.
|
| _> We use our computers daily, and even imperceptible
| improvements to cognitive load and the amount of time it
| takes to perform actions make a difference over time._
|
| I've been using macOS since... Leopard or Snow Leopard,
| ish. The adjustments over the years haven't ever thrown
| me for more than a few minutes. I preferred the
| skeuomorphic UI trend for a variety of reasons (of which
| nostalgia is included at this point) but I think modern
| macOS/iOS has found a decent line to ride.
| audunw wrote:
| > but that cleanness is artificial and gets in the way
| when trying to parse and use the software.
|
| I really don't agree. When software/UIs were simpler, the
| buttons screaming loudly "I AM A BUTTON!" worked. Now it
| quickly gets way too busy. It was important when almost
| everybody was a computer novice and couldn't detect
| subtle hints and conventions about what is a button and
| what isn't. Now? Not as much.
|
| Look at screenshots of older iTunes vs Apple Music. I can
| feel absolutely no difference in how fast my eyes finds
| play/pause buttons. I don't need borders around the icons
| when there's not a whole bunch of skeuomorphic noise
| around them, such that there being any visual complexity
| at all (icon itself) instantly grabs attention. I really
| can't see a single thing I think the old iTunes interface
| does better for common use cases. Not that the old iTunes
| was _bad_ per se, just a different UI for a different
| time.
|
| I agree that often UI designers go too far, but I think
| you can see a bit of back and forth going on, trying to
| tune into the perfect balance of simplicity and clear
| signaling.
|
| Obviously, everyone is different. So it's not going to be
| perfect for everybody no matter which way they do it.
| CoryAlexMartin wrote:
| I'm running a copy of iTunes 8 right now, and I disagree.
|
| I also disagree that the old style of design is less
| suited towards complicated software. Apple's iWork
| software feels like it's suffered the most in terms of
| usability as a result of modern UI design.
|
| Humans evolved in a world where things have depth, light
| and shadows. Even you admit that back when user
| interfaces were designed with that in mind, those
| interfaces were more friendly to novices. By ignoring
| these aspects of our visual perception, you're requiring
| prior knowledge on the part of the user, while
| simultaneously making it difficult to acquire that
| knowledge. That's not a good thing, even if you assert
| that "flat" interfaces are no worse once you get used to
| them (which I clearly disagree with).
| dmitriid wrote:
| IIRC Apple doesn't do user testing because they know
| better.
|
| I have 20/20 vision and I had to turn on contrast and
| button shapes, the new design is so bland and unreadable.
|
| Macs have large screens and that's why... they changed
| all dialogs to be tall narrow boxes with center-aligned
| text?
|
| Properly labeled color-differentiated icons are now
| indistinguishable grays crowding the title bar removing
| all affordances (from being recognizable to being able
| where you can drag the window).
|
| Keyboard access is being removed or broken across all
| first-party apps.
|
| Desktop metaphors like multiple columns, tabs etc. are
| removed in favor of tall narrow strips of gray text that
| surely look great on a screen that fits your palm. But
| that's not the screen Mac OS operates on.
|
| The new designs break Apple's own HIGs and other
| recommendations like WCAG.
|
| So please tell me what it is you like about new designs
| and, more importantly, what the hell is their purpose?
| Klonoar wrote:
| _> IIRC Apple doesn't do user testing because they know
| better._
|
| Citation needed...
|
| _> The new designs break Apple's own HIGs and other
| recommendations like WCAG._
|
| You may have missed it, but they redid that HIG and
| released it during the latest WWDC. This train has left
| the station and it ain't backin' up.
|
| _> Keyboard access is being removed or broken across all
| first-party apps._
|
| How about you... list some of these apps? I've been using
| macOS since Snow Leopard and all my muscle memory on the
| keyboard still works.
|
| The newer designs feel smoother and less constrained, and
| don't fundamentally feel at odds with how I work.
|
| I will, however, give you this point with little
| argument:
|
| _> I have 20/20 vision and I had to turn on contrast and
| button shapes, the new design is so bland and
| unreadable._
|
| Someone needs to smack Apple UI designers upside the head
| and tell them to stop using 255,255,255,1 as the light
| mode color. With how good their screens are it's just way
| too much.
|
| I use dark mode exclusively and maybe that's why I have
| less complaints?
| saagarjha wrote:
| Just because Apple has put something in their HIG doesn't
| mean they'll keep it there.
| als0 wrote:
| > It's a done product -- it's been one for quite a while.
| Could they just stop meddling with the UX already and
| maybe rewrite their PDF parser in a memory-safe language
| instead?
|
| Can't wait for this. And the same for the e-mail app.
| Even just a Swift rewrite of the 'hairy' parser code
| would be a reasonable starting point.
| thewebcount wrote:
| Can you elaborate on what problem you have that this
| rewrite would solve? (Serious question, not trying to be
| combative.) I can't remember ever having any problem
| displaying a PDF in macOS, though I don't do anything
| particularly outlandish with PDFs these days. Does
| Preview crash frequently for you? (Or does displaying
| PDFs from within your own apps crash?) I haven't heard of
| this issue, so just curious what the problem is.
| grishka wrote:
| The problem is that writing a parser for a file format as
| complex as PDF in an unsafe language is just asking for
| trouble. There were many exploits already that involved a
| specially crafted PDF file to gain RCE, and there would
| probably be more, unless they do rewrite it. At this
| point we should just accept that it's next to impossible
| to write a 100% safe parser in an unsafe language.
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| If you can run the beta you should complain about it to
| feedback but the new UI is harder to navigate. It seems like
| they are incrementally changing the UI to be the same across
| the product line though....
| grishka wrote:
| > It seems like they are incrementally changing the UI to
| be the same across the product line though....
|
| And this is a misguided idea to begin with. Input devices
| are different, interaction paradigms are different, why
| should UI ever be similar? IMO when designing macOS, they
| should simply forget that iOS exists.
| dmitriid wrote:
| > If you can run the beta you should complain about it to
| feedback
|
| On the WWDC talk show Craig Federighi said that the new
| settings have been "carefully crafted".
|
| This is what "carefully crafted" is in Apple parlance these
| days.
| ben_w wrote:
| It's easy to rose-tint the past. I also remember the hockey
| puck mouse, the UI skeuomorphic choice to combine "brushed
| metal" window backgrounds with "plastic" buttons and "black
| and white LCD" info panels in iTunes and Quick Time Player,
| and the placement of the apple logo in the middle of the menu
| bar.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Different people work on different things.
| [deleted]
| pjmlp wrote:
| I bet the departure of a certain person is directly related to
| the fact we can have those good things back.
| webwielder2 wrote:
| Yep, Steve Jobs famously banned Easter eggs and dismantled
| the icon garden at 1 Infinite Loop.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Jony Ive, as a fellow HNer replied.
| code_biologist wrote:
| I think he meant Jony Ive, who absolutely got out of hand
| without Steve.
| intothemild wrote:
| It's astonishing, the change that's happened since Ive
| has left.
| chess_buster wrote:
| True.
| pupppet wrote:
| I too like the current state of Mac development, but this is
| also a sign of how sterile the company has become when any hint
| of personality needs to be drawn from Apple's past.
| joenot443 wrote:
| I think Apple still exhibits lots of personality and
| playfulness, maybe just not as much in their desktop lineup.
|
| I don't really use them much, but I think the Memojis are
| pretty charming and thoughtful.
| duxup wrote:
| Hint of personality is still a bucket load more than I get
| elsewhere.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| There are currently things like this that we can stop from
| going to doom. But we won't. It will be 2030 when we'll learn,
| yep, we were right.
|
| Lack of critical thinking, patting too much on the back of
| ourselves and inability to make tough decisions is a general
| malaise in Big Tech.
|
| When companies are too focused on other things and not enough
| on the fundamentals, this is what happens.
| russellbeattie wrote:
| For more details about Clarus, the Wikipedia page is packed:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogcow
|
| > _The dogcow symbol and "Moof!" are proprietary trademarks of
| Apple._
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