Why is Big Sur so ugly?

[fisherking]

Apparently to Apple the aesthetics is the number one priority. Otherwise https://www.apple.com/macos/big-sur/ wouldn't be mostly about new UI bringing even more "magic". But it is. So it is Apple who creates such priorities, not us. So please don't be surprised that people are discussing it, as by the way there is not much to be discussed besides that. And please stop bashing people for discussing UI, in the end it is what you see for many hours of your everyday life.

I wish Apple had different priorities though and would not be putting most of its software engineering resources to redoing UI all over again every freaking 2-3 years. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the Catalina UI. But Apple is money driven corporation and it looks like (at least for Apple's marketing and sales) that doing UI that looks nice on screenshots is what sells and what makes a reason to call BigSur new major macOS release.

Times when Apple was talking about new technologies like when Snow Leopard came out (e.g. OpenCL, GCD) are far gone. Only M1 is exceptional, as it is really a new quality in terms of the CPU performance, but besides that, Apple is IMHO hardly innovative these days.

every new apple OS has a lot of work under-the-hood; and there are huge leaps sometimes (moving to an exclusive 64bit architecture, for example). i think you're completely missing this. meanwhile, if apple wants to update the GUI with each new OS, that's their right, it's their OS.

 

[nanoant]

every new apple OS has a lot of work under-the-hood; and there are huge leaps sometimes (moving to an exclusive 64bit architecture, for example). i think you're completely missing this.

I am sorry, but work under-the-hood is just long-term maintenance of the product, which is necessary to move forward, but it has nothing to do with new features. I do appreciate that, but still I miss new features. All I get is few hundreds of new emojis every release.

Or... let me put it other way around, I miss features that used to be there e.g. CUDA, that was deliberately killed by both Apple and NVIDIA because they don't like each other (how professional is that?), Aperture that was killed by Apple and replaced by dumbed down Photos that "just works", i.e. you cannot check size on disk of your albums, you cannot keep certain albums on separate (offline) storage, it occasionally sucks all your CPU to do face detection and you cannot control it.

I think with your admiration to Apple (NOTE: I used to be admirer too), you simply fail to recognize that with each new release of macOS you get more and more stripped down and locked down OS that has one goal - drive the sales of new expensive Macs. Apple used to embrace open-source technologies, support open standards such as OpenCL or OpenGL. Nowadays they replace all of them with proprietary technologies.

With all the money they have they are not even trying to revolutionize the PC market, compete with Chromebooks, Windows nor Linux. All they are interested are the maximum profits from selling their computers at highest possible price. $699 is the cheapest computer you can get from Apple. Their laptops start at $999. And everything is soldered, there's no upgradability. Because apparently "magic" is all Mac consumers need these days and that "magic" solder will make you buy new machine sooner than later. And anyone that thinks or feels otherwise can move to Windows or Linux.

meanwhile, if apple wants to update the GUI with each new OS, that's their right, it's their OS.

Apple would be certainly happy seeing this.

 

[colourfastt]

I like it too. It's definitely different but I really liked when Apple switched the look in Yosemite. My only quibble is it looks like iOS and iPadOS. Besides that I have really no qualms about the updated and refreshed look. Hey, maybe we'll even get cleaner looking fonts because on Mojave and Catalina some of the fonts in 1080p looked pretty bad especially in dark mode.

I've never been thrilled with any iteration of kindergartenerOS, but, then again, I remember actually using a DayTimer, notepads, etc. rather than just writing things on blank sheets of paper.

 

[fisherking]

I am sorry, but work under-the-hood is just long-term maintenance of the product, which is necessary to move forward, but it has nothing to do with new features. I do appreciate that, but still I miss new features. All I get is few hundreds of new emojis every release.

Or... let me put it other way around, I miss features that used to be there e.g. CUDA, that was deliberately killed by both Apple and NVIDIA because they don't like each other (how professional is that?), Aperture that was killed by Apple and replaced by dumbed down Photos that "just works", i.e. you cannot check size on disk of your albums, you cannot keep certain albums on separate (offline) storage, it occasionally sucks all your CPU to do face detection and you cannot control it.

I think with your admiration to Apple (NOTE: I used to be admirer too), you simply fail to recognize that with each new release of macOS you get more and more stripped down and locked down OS that has one goal - drive the sales of new expensive Macs. Apple used to embrace open-source technologies, support open standards such as OpenCL or OpenGL. Nowadays they replace all of them with proprietary technologies.

With all the money they have they are not even trying to revolutionize the PC market, compete with Chromebooks, Windows nor Linux. All they are interested are the maximum profits from selling their computers at highest possible price. $699 is the cheapest computer you can get from Apple. Their laptops start at $999. And everything is soldered, there's no upgradability. Because apparently "magic" is all Mac consumers need these days and that "magic" solder will make you buy new machine sooner than later. And anyone that thinks or feels otherwise can move to Windows or Linux.


Apple would be certainly happy seeing this.

under-the-hood work is change, maintenance, bug fixes (and, sigh, new bug creation). new features seem, to me anyway, less important than the under-the-hood work; i want my apps to work well, more than anything else. and right now, they do work well.

i admire apple, AND i have my issues with them. but they can't please everyone, and they are a corporation; they do what they think is best. judging by some of the OS improvements, ios development, and the new arm macs... i think they're doing just fine.

but i respect your right to long for some imagined 'good old days'...

 

[tgwaste]

Biggest problem with Big Sur is all the dead space everywhere.

Messages is a great example where avatars are small now and its just tons of grey space between the elements.

It just looks so bad and lazy.

 

[fisherking]

Biggest problem with Big Sur is all the dead space everywhere.

Messages is a great example where avatars are small now and its just tons of grey space between the elements.

It just looks so bad and lazy.

messages here looks just like it did in catalina. am on a 12" macbook, and my experience seems, overall, much the same as it was in catalina, albiet with some new icons (and safari looking very sleek).

 

[tgwaste]

messages here looks just like it did in catalina. am on a 12" macbook, and my experience seems, overall, much the same as it was in catalina, albiet with some new icons (and safari looking very sleek).

How is safari looking sleek? They dramatically increased the height of the title bar and header. If you compare it to chrome now its literally the exact same height. The old version of safari was "Sleek".


I mean look at all this dead air in tabs. I want to see more text!!!

 

[fisherking]

safari looks great to me, sleek, modern. but, to be fair... what is the second image? have never seen that in messages... (so am curious).

 

[nanoant]

safari looks great to me, sleek, modern. but, to be fair... what is the second image? have never seen that in messages... (so am curious).

Are you serious or ironic?

They dramatically increased the height of the title bar and header.

Yeah exactly. I have impression that everyone who praises Big Sur for "modern" look, don't see it is not modern, it is dumb, boring, unsophisticated, filled with useless white space, stealing screen estate... deserved to be called macOS "Air".

Same goes to new nonsense gap between screen edge and Dock. It has no valid purpose, except to look "great" on marketing materials. But this is just a tip of the iceberg of new design nonsenses.

 

[fisherking]

Are you serious or ironic?


Yeah exactly. I have impression that everyone who praises Big Sur for "modern" look, don't see it is not modern, it is dumb, boring, unsophisticated, filled with useless white space, stealing screen estate... deserved to be called macOS "Air".

View attachment 1669746

Same goes to new nonsense gap between screen edge and Dock. It has no valid purpose, except to look "great" on marketing materials. But this is just a tip of the iceberg of new design nonsenses.

serious, not ironic. am asking about the second image. and yes, things have changed, yet i find myself working in the same way i was working in catalina... and so on. think you're overstressing the details, but that's just my opinion.

EDIT: ah, sorry. thought you were talking about 'messages', which looks the same to me as before. i've never had that many tabs open in one browser window; i prefer multiple tabs in multiple windows, so i can see each site name. try that, perhaps...

 

[nanoant]

what is the second image of?

I have attached only one image. But here's another screenshot of "modern" interface

 

[bsmr]

Are you serious or ironic?


Yeah exactly. I have impression that everyone who praises Big Sur for "modern" look, don't see it is not modern, it is dumb, boring, unsophisticated, filled with useless white space, stealing screen estate... deserved to be called macOS "Air".

View attachment 1669746

Same goes to new nonsense gap between screen edge and Dock. It has no valid purpose, except to look "great" on marketing materials. But this is just a tip of the iceberg of new design nonsenses.

Next OS will be touch. Big Sur is only a transition.
that’s why.

 

[eyalben]

Next OS will be touch. Big Sur is only a transition.
that’s why.

I hate the fact that buttons are just icons and I am responsible to guess if that's a clickable icon or not.

The contrast, ugh, so horrible

 

[eyalben]

Here's the list of the things I hate with the new design


1. The window title is not symmetrical (see the gap on the right side).

2. Contrast is not balanced, this is horrible:

3. Can you tell if the following window is focused? Also, see contrast issues with the 'Search' input:

3. What the....

4. Inconsistent UI (different elements, different colors)

 

[fisherking]

I have attached only one image.

haha, right; how long will you keep this up? also, try my idea, about less open tabs per window, and multiple windows; then you can see every site you have open. change does not have to be difficult

 

[eflx]

Some of the changes are nice ... but these dropdown menus being rounded, the folder icons and the rounded alternating list striping being rounded adds unnecessary visual complexity / distraction from finding the correct folders by name.

I feel like some of the changes are nice, the rest look like it was designed by an amateur in UX/UI design. WTF Apple ...

 

[nickdalzell1]

I have attached only one image. But here's another screenshot of "modern" interface
View attachment 1669780

I can go one further. I remember when Flat UI design meant this:

Or this:

Or this:

See why it makes no sense to call this regression of UI design 'modern?' It might have been modern back in the late 80s, or perhaps 1991, but it's nowhere near as future-looking as iOS 6, OS X Mavericks, or my personal favorite, TouchWiz Nature UX would ever be. What was being done in 2010-2013 was pretty darn whiz bang compared to this rehash of the EGA graphics era. Today's UI is about as 'modern' as Art Deco, but at least Art Deco was pretty nice looking.

Of course, if you are 18 or younger, you were not around long enough to see flat UI as being this deja vu feeling like I do, because from your perspective, skeuo would be the old and flat would be the new. Those of us who are older than 30 will know better.

 

[tgwaste]

haha, right; how long will you keep this up? also, try my idea, about less open tabs per window, and multiple windows; then you can see every site you have open. change does not have to be difficult

Yes because we should have to change our workflow to make up for Apples failed design.
I don't want a bunch of safari windows open. Thats stupid.

 

[Kyanar]

Here's the list of the things I hate with the new design

All of that pales in comparison to the sheer brokenness of the UI

Yes, that's the whole dialog. Clipped text and all.

 

[nickdalzell1]

I personally never could adjust to tabbed browsing, especially since if you have say 8 tabs open reading discussions or RSS feeds like I do, having the browser give up and crash means starting over from the top as none of that 'restore pages' does anything except do what the 'refresh button' does. I was so sick of losing my place so I keep multiple browsers, say, Chrome, Safari, Firefox, etc to view different sites as it's not likely all the different browsers will crash en masse. So far the only site I load on my MBP lately is MacRumors. It won't load on any of my older tablets, too much HTTPS. Plus, I like a laptop for discussion forums.

At least there are still button shapes in macOS, unlike mobile where you have to know if text is a button or if the play symbol is a button or just an icon. Mobile devices truly suck on flat UI, especially Android 10 or iOS 14.

 

[Kyanar]

every new apple OS has a lot of work under-the-hood; and there are huge leaps sometimes (moving to an exclusive 64bit architecture, for example). i think you're completely missing this. meanwhile, if apple wants to update the GUI with each new OS, that's their right, it's their OS.

And we're their customers, so if we want to disagree with those changes and voice them to Apple, that's also our right. Ultimately Apple is answerable to their customers because with no customers there's no product, so your constant "you're wrong and Apple is right" to everyone is way off the mark.

 

[nickdalzell1]

The only problem with your theory, Kyanar, is you and I and a few others aren't going to amount to a drop in the bucket to Apple. They're into the whole pre-teen era of new customers to attract even if it means alienating their older folks who were with them during their beginnings. Similar to Star Trek fans from the TOS era, you are not their demographic anymore. It's a shame since no other OEM caters to our needs. We have to either go with some oddball out there who still makes say a QWERTY slider or a Skeuo UI, and hope they can even support their product in the future, or stick with and 'just get used to' the crap that's going on in the 'mainstream' these days.

 

[fisherking]

And we're their customers, so if we want to disagree with those changes and voice them to Apple, that's also our right. Ultimately Apple is answerable to their customers because with no customers there's no product, so your constant "you're wrong and Apple is right" to everyone is way off the mark.

am not saying anyone's 'wrong' & apple is 'right'; i'm saying that, like any corporation, they do what they want... and all the whining and complaining on an internet forum won't change that fact.

there are GUI elements that have improved since the betas started; perhaps we'll see more of that. but (& i've said this before) most mac users just use their macs, they don't take endless screenshots of minute details and point arrows at half-point size flaws.

discussion is great, whining is not. and i stand by my opinion... no more (or less) valid than anyone elses...

 

[Kyanar]

am not saying anyone's 'wrong' & apple is 'right'; i'm saying that, like any corporation, they do what they want... and all the whining and complaining on an internet forum won't change that fact.

there are GUI elements that have improved since the betas started; perhaps we'll see more of that. but (& i've said this before) most mac users just use their macs, they don't take endless screenshots of minute details and point arrows at half-point size flaws.

discussion is great, whining is not. and i stand by my opinion... no more (or less) valid than anyone elses...

And that is where you are again, totally wrong. Apple, like any company selling a product, is answerable to those who purchase (or do not) purchase that product. If everyone just went with your idea of not raising complaints about anything, Apple would wrongfully believe everyone just loves their new paradigms, when in fact they're generally much maligned. Your "fact" is actually a blatant lie which you are attempting to use, as you have done all through this thread, to silence opposition.

I don't see any people taking "endless screenshots of minute details" or "pointing arrows at half-point size flaws", this thread is actually full of giant glaring flaws, omissions, and defects in the UI.

 

[Lvivske]

Windows XP.

The exact same criticism was levelled against XP back in the day.

Now it's seen as onr of the best desktop Windows releases ever.

windows XP was incredibly ugly then, and now

people like it for non-aesthetic reasons