What happened to notes with the nice textured dark background in dark mode? Now its just black. How do I change it to Catalina style?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
ugly NOTES app
- Thread starter FilmIndustryGuy
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
You don't, Apple removed it in iOS 14 as well. It was (strangely) still skeuomorphic design.
If you want it back, you gotta go back to Catalina or Mojave
Or find a third-party alternative. I replaced pretty much all the built in apps for skeuomorphic versions from the Mac App Store, and believe me, they're not easy to find. It's like the search hates that word 'skeuomorphic'.
Could you please name a few of the skeuomorpic apps I could get from the App Store?
Opus Domini Lite (contact manager/datebook--Paid):
Magnetola (paid, music player app):
Everyday Calculator (free):
Magnetola (paid, music player app):
Everyday Calculator (free):
I use a lot of them for widgets to replace the [now removed as of Catalina+] Dashboard.
Seen here are: Battery Widget (free), Digital Clock Pro (Paid), and Vicinno Financial Calculator (paid)
Now, if there were a skeuo browser (or at least one resembling Safari from Mountain Lion) I'd be all-in!
Seen here are: Battery Widget (free), Digital Clock Pro (Paid), and Vicinno Financial Calculator (paid)
Now, if there were a skeuo browser (or at least one resembling Safari from Mountain Lion) I'd be all-in!
I have one laptop with Big Sur and one with Catalina. ill keep it this way to see what happens over the months but now I appreciate the Catalina which so many people on here did so much complaining about. This ides of changing something just to change it sucks. Notes was quite perfect the way it was. Boy do I hate the new design. Cant stand it. Looks like something Microsoft would design in the 90s
Wow this makes me sad. I really liked the dark textured background of Apple Notes...
I will enjoy it while I can.
Design changes over time, and to be honest I was surprised that the notes app still had its skeuomorphic design all these years after Apple dropped it in Yosemite and iOS7. The Aqua interface of Mac OS X was a radical departure of the Mac OS 9 (and prior) interface and people HATED it when it was launched 20 years ago. It was slow, way too glossy but overtime people started to like it and now still compliment Mac OS Snow Leopard as being the best OS version of the Mac OS X era (with the Aqua UI being at its peak).
I like the new iOS 14 / Big Sur look. It's fresh yet very familiar, and Apple doesn't force new features like App Library (in iOS 14) upon you unlike what Microsoft did to users upgrading from Windows 7 to Windows 8. Remember the charms bar? You know how popular that design language was... (even though I LOVED Windows Phone 7 and the Metro UI, it just didn't work on a PC).
Microsoft reversed its terrible Windows 8 decisions with the launch of Windows 10 and people immediately enjoyed using Windows again, because it felt and still feels fresh but familiar. (Even though the whole design inconsistency to me is utterly baffling, look at the whole Settings / Configuration Panel saga.)
Catalina was too Yosemite looking for me, plus the real deal breaker was all the broken features (fans always running, very slow waking from sleep, the inconsistent dark mode, the inability to shut up update notifications, thankfully that last one has changed in Big Sur)