I don’t know how this helps recognisability when all the icons are square. Better than the circle icons though!
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The new app icons are horrific and poorly designed
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I don’t know how this helps recognisability when all the icons are square. Better than the circle icons though!
What the hell is this?? Windows XP?
even windows XP didn’t have that kind of abomination nippled battery.
Couldn’t disagree more. This post by @Traverse captures well a major issue with Apple interfaces over the past half decade (that’s getting worse with Big Slur than better) of reducing as much possible visual and contextual user comprehension affordances. Low-contrast everything, razor-thin font/lines all in a sea of white, medium white, or darker white...buttonless buttons with minimal zoning/framing of similar functions to provide subtle instant context, or buried under icons instead of on-screen, requiring more taps or swipes to do what was previously instant via one action.
Their eradication or minimalization have resulted in for many (me included) an increased burden visually/mentally when having to now pause and focus to find, understand, and then engage on a tool or piece of content that used to “pop out” or seem to “just be where I needed it to be.”
UI Redesign Thoughts?
Initial reactions are not positive for me. While I didn't like iOS 7, I love the ultimate iteration in iOS 13, but from what I saw today, macOS 11 is leaning more towards the iOS 7 side and I would not be surprised to so it slowly edge back in later releases. I'm not opposed to change, but...
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Especially cringe-worthy and headache-inducing to me is Windows 10 and Adobe Acrobat 2017 which were reskinned to follow the iOS7-13 minimal-affordance grey/white low-contrast buttonless borderless theme to a fault. By “to a fault,“ I mean, they successfully iOS-ified most of their controls but at a noticeable cost of efficient function. Adobe Acrobat 2017 is just, just awful — at the least, it’s burdensome because it takes more clicks to enact what used to take one due to a convoluted revised Tools system, but at the worst, it’s less efficient because the reduction of borders between reviewer comments allows everything to blend together (while taking much more space than before) such that it takes a lot more time to identify a certain comment and navigate thru them. Major fail. All this talk from Apple about reducing the interface to not get in the way of the content is resulting in more work because the inneficient tools means more work to navigate the content.
Icons schmicons - if the tools and content are more difficult to identify and engage with before, then who cares if the icons, which you use once upfront to engage with an app, are an abomination?
Sadly, the minimalizing iosification of OSX and the looming cliff drop-off for Intel machines will likely make me return my 2020 MBP before even opening it once it arrives this Thursday. I’ll slug on with my 6 year old MBA for another few years and hope that Bis Blur retains the “reduce transparency,” “show buttons,” and “increase contrast” of iOS for those monsters like myself who take issue with the fragile/vague-looking Apple interfaces.
As I mentioned in another post, it’s rather apt to look like a Martian baby milk bottle, to go along with the Fisher Price My First OSX look thrust upon us in Yosemite.
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The only one I really don't like is losing the LaunchPad rocket 
The rest are the sort of big change you'll get used to (people really objected to the Safari Icon and new battery in iOS 7 but everyone accepts them now) but think the rocket is a bit of history lost, even if it has only been there since Lion...
The rest are the sort of big change you'll get used to (people really objected to the Safari Icon and new battery in iOS 7 but everyone accepts them now) but think the rocket is a bit of history lost, even if it has only been there since Lion...I think its a placeholder, cause the whole sidebar is a mess.
I think that too. Its hard getting used to icons that look like this after years of flat design. Some are awful though.
It’s actually wonderful. I welcome the return, as I expected to come sooner or later after the flat design fad. If “real life” that we’re all used to is not flat, what was the functional benefit from flat design other than to give some designers something new to try for the past ~decade? I don’t need cheesy skeuomorphism like that battery; I just need (the return to) an interface that is intuitive, and non-flat designs are generally much more intuitive IMHO as it’s much easier for providing context and identifying actionable items vs. info-only items.
Rejoice to the slight return towards sanity! And, hopefully, increased contrast and borders/groupings to define tool families (instead of buttonless icons awash in a sea of borderless, context-free whiteout).
Some of those icons just look really... cheap. Like icons I would expect of a 2010 super low-end Android phone with a custom UI.
I will reserve judgement until we see the icons in more natural setups.
What put me off the U.I yesterday was the fact that it was very iOS-ified, what with the wallpaper selection, the choice of apps on the Dock and the lack of drives on the Desktop etc.
I can imagine that with revisions and in dark mode, it will look pretty good.
What put me off the U.I yesterday was the fact that it was very iOS-ified, what with the wallpaper selection, the choice of apps on the Dock and the lack of drives on the Desktop etc.
I can imagine that with revisions and in dark mode, it will look pretty good.
The finder icon is not even centered. Those icons look rubbish. Hopefully they will get improved.
Apple keeps saying they’re going for a more unified look every time they update icons but they always end up looking more out of place.
Are you certain the designer’s intent wasn’t to give the right face more prominence?
However if you can’t help but notice that and be bothered by it, I respect that completely. I’m bothered by having to guess whether a button that doesn’t look like a button is a button or not, which is unfortunately looking like a cancer across all of Big Blur and not limited to one icon.
The only one I really don't like is losing the LaunchPad rocket
You can copy over the app from 10.15 - all it is a shortcut.
There are many areas of the redesign that I like, but I’ve always had a round icon next to the Finder - hopefully I can revert the Safari icon too...
Funny enough....this is Apple going BACK to how it used to be. Maverick’s Finder icon (the 'classic' one) was offset like that. Yosemite is the release that centered the Finder icon http://ismh.s3.amazonaws.com/yosemite-finder-icon.png
i remember the days when functionality was of #1 importance And esthetics for MacOS was cooler than we could imagine. Now everyone is a design expert. Lighten up my friends. Life is an evolution. Everything doesn’t need to be a revolution. Pick your battles. ✌🏽❤️🤘🏼
Everything is so white. No sense of hierarchy whatsoever. No design philosophy for icons.
Seems like they've taken every macOS concept in the last three years and combined the worst bits.
Just horrific.
Seems like they've taken every macOS concept in the last three years and combined the worst bits.
Just horrific.
I think it’s more: now Apple is a fashion company, with function playing a far 3rd place.
Apple’s focus now, in order:
1: profits
2: fashion (thinner hardware and less obtrusive (more vague) software/interface elements than the preceding year)
3: function
And thus, all the battles, since many of us preferred the old underdog post-iPod new-iPhone pre-iPad era when Apple‘s focus was more on:
1a: function that’s effortlessly intuitive, packaged in...
1b: ...class-leading fashion that’s the “surprise and delight” and not the main course, in order to grow...
2: profits
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