Shouldnt smaller toolbars ets be ”mandatory” nowadays? a fugly toolbar in big sur - big yeah! but for what? wasted space...
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Why is Big Sur so ugly?
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I like the overall design of Big Sur. The icons in the dock though, they could have made those a bit better. Especially the icon for FaceTime... it even looks low resolution lol.
I love the overall changes in Big Sur. The only things I'm not fond of would be the iOS-like icons. I like having my dock icons being as small as possible and that size + a 4K resolution of iOS icons can sometimes be difficult to see. Didn't have this issue with the previous icons.
Never needed it before Big Sur. My mac an a late 2014 iMac that is dying though, so I try avoiding any affects like magnification of the dock. As is, it sometimes has a delay just having the dock pop up, when I move the cursor to the edge of the screen.I guess then you do use magnification with those small dock icons?
If you're talking about the individual applications, generally that's true. But the quality of things like Kate text editor don't matter - I tend to use vim anyway, and sometimes VS Code for very specific things. In any case, Kate is certainly no worse functionally than TextEdit. However there is one major exception on the application level, and that's the file manager, dolphin. It is by far the best file manager I've ever used, in all respects that matter to me - stability, customization, and performance with large directories & image loading.
Plasma is as good as I've seen when it comes to window managers - Kwin is extremely easy to customize with keyboard shortcuts, and the effects are good if you're really into that. I stay fairly basic, no wobbly windows or explosions, but scaling out, sliding between desktops... all of it is there, and more than adequate.
I will say this though, KDE's default look is not good at all. By the time I'm done setting it up to my tastes, you can't even tell it's the same desktop at all. And I admit it does have a lot of the good things about previous Mac UI's. None of this Big Sur crap.
Gnome 3 just sucks. I don't even know what else to say.
LOL, I definitely remember. Right down to the "under construction" icons.Geocities
Very afraid to upgrade to Big Sur lol. I tried the beta and had some issues with it (Spotlight Search being broken was the worst thing, did they fix that?), but I generally don't like the look of it and don't see what it offers me that I don't have on Catalina.
Always thought macOS looked so clean and professional compared to its competitors, but I just can't say the same about Big Sur and feel that in some respects Windows 10 even looks nicer. Big Sur though really just seems rushed and ugly, I think I'm gonna stay on Catalina this year and wait to see what they come up with next.
Always thought macOS looked so clean and professional compared to its competitors, but I just can't say the same about Big Sur and feel that in some respects Windows 10 even looks nicer. Big Sur though really just seems rushed and ugly, I think I'm gonna stay on Catalina this year and wait to see what they come up with next.
The underlying problem is - for some reason they have made the totally *&%@@! decisions to tie down the operating system wholesale, and sync it with iOS, and their implementations are breaking nearly everything. SIP was bad enough, but there is no way back from destroying the Unix file system principles with their super complicated APFS containers.
They have said "We don't trust you" , and given the power users and devs the rough end of a pineapple. I mean, microsoft and linux and nasty alternatives, but still better than the terminally bug-ridden mess macOS is turning into.
Go to http://theoldnet.com and relive!Are you aware of how few people on here are aware of just what Geocities was?
Yeah, it's a nightmare I'd rather forget about myself! The only things I enjoy about Big Sur are the skeuo icons, and the new wallpaper/night shift is nicer, and, unlike Catalina, auto dark mode actually works. Other than that, Make Mine Linux!
No more forced update nags, or UI decisions I don't like being thrusted upon me. Only issue is it's slower on the MBP. I think the T2 chip is causing issues (touchbar doesn't work for one and I'm not getting turbo boost).
Even Windows 10 can be made to look however you want. If you want it to look like XP/Vista/7 or even to hell with it, Windows 98, you can.
But try getting the total Snow Leopard UI on any current Mac OS after El Capitan. You can only change certain things but Apple totally broke things after Yosemite with SiP and that got doubled down harder on later versions after.
Is it ugly? Correct me on this, but I think the new look has been well received. My only problem is the system preferences icon, it is bit too dark.
It looked better in early betas. Unfortunately, folks cried 'wahhh! too much skeuomorphism! it's not 2010 anymore!' and Apple just had to up and listen...
Which is why I wish hard that Apple would remove the 'feedback assistant' feature from all betas. Gets attention from the wrong crowd. That's why iOS 7 happened, and why Yosemite happened, and why Big Sur final won't be any improvement or a way out of flat land. I'd have loved if Steve lived two more lousy years just to see his no doubt priceless reaction when Ive revealed iOS 7 on stage at WWDC 2013. It would have been hilarious! Even more iconic than the Bill Gates Windows 98 BSoD on stage.
It's been 7 years already. Wasn't 6 the limit on the skeuo UI? why isn't flat 'dated' to everyone yet?
Another bit of irony. My Mom recently bought a new Hyundai Sante Fe. The UI on the LCD infotainment system and the smaller LCD in the instrument cluster has a UI pulled right out of...Android 2.3!!! Yes, a UI design straight from 2010!
In fact, if that's the way things are going a modern car might not be so bad!!!
Which is why I wish hard that Apple would remove the 'feedback assistant' feature from all betas. Gets attention from the wrong crowd. That's why iOS 7 happened, and why Yosemite happened, and why Big Sur final won't be any improvement or a way out of flat land. I'd have loved if Steve lived two more lousy years just to see his no doubt priceless reaction when Ive revealed iOS 7 on stage at WWDC 2013. It would have been hilarious! Even more iconic than the Bill Gates Windows 98 BSoD on stage.
It's been 7 years already. Wasn't 6 the limit on the skeuo UI? why isn't flat 'dated' to everyone yet?
Another bit of irony. My Mom recently bought a new Hyundai Sante Fe. The UI on the LCD infotainment system and the smaller LCD in the instrument cluster has a UI pulled right out of...Android 2.3!!! Yes, a UI design straight from 2010!
In fact, if that's the way things are going a modern car might not be so bad!!!
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The feedback assistant seems to be a double-whammy, because it always results in only the worst suggestions being implemented, while anyone who isn't drooling over some stupid new trend is ..... "stuck in the past," "resistant to change," "always complaining," "outside the target audience," or "a dying breed."
that is literally the saddest thing i've read on this (already) sad thread; the whole point of the betas (mostly) depends on feedback assistant. i report things consistently; i've gotten maybe 3 or 4 replies in all these years, but someone is listening, and that is the point; the people running the beta are the right crowd.
what you want is just... what you want, and not relevant to the macuser base that exists outside of this forum; that's where most people live; outside of this forum.
As someone who has gone from MacOS X 10.3.9 -> Big Sur (I skipped all those 15 Intel (🤮) years), I can say that the flat "iOS look" of Big Sur is not pleasant. But neither was losing the 3D action buttons (Close/Minimize/Maximize), so many versions ago. I hated it, as I watched it happen from the sidelines. However, as I am privileged to now be able to "get back with Mac" (thank you M1!), I consider it a new beginning... a new era, if you will. And I look at this as a NEW look for a NEW architecture! Like when I first got into Macs with the Power Macintosh 6100/60, back in the 90's.
We can complain all we like, but in the end, I quote my mantra... "Apple will do, what Apple will do". Try to find peace and happiness and contentment where it may be found. It's really the only way you can live in this crazy world...
We can complain all we like, but in the end, I quote my mantra... "Apple will do, what Apple will do". Try to find peace and happiness and contentment where it may be found. It's really the only way you can live in this crazy world...
BS is the first version in quite a while I didn't use the beta, and this makes me a bit sad. I, for one, miss skeuomorphism—though that is probably due to my age; I actually used things like DayTimers, notepads, etc.
The earlier Big Sur betas had more skeuo icons in the dock (now toned down) and the battery section of System Prefs also had a more skeuo look:
I haven't gotten the last few betas (switched to Linux) but the last Beta I ran, had it downgraded to this:
Still skeuo-lite, but I bet it finally got completely flattened in the final.
I still prefer skeuomorphism. It was fun to use, made me actually want to interact with the touchscreen over "Hey siri, send message to x" to avoid looking at the pastel mess iOS became. It's no better on Android, I'm afraid.
Thankfully I keep a few old tablets/phones lying around that run skeuo UI (Galaxy Tab 2, Note 10.1 (original from 2011), S Relay 4G (slider), S4, SIII, Note 2, etc.
Then there's Linux, where you can make it as flat or skeuo as you like. To quote Captain Planet: "The power, is yours!"
I suppose age does have a bit to do with it. Flat I hardly view as modern, it's been done before. It was done back when there was limited computing power (Remember CGA, anyone? ) but those times have passed. I lived through Windows 1.x. It's not something I want to revisit in a modern sense. I remember how crude System 6 was. I was glad to be away from it when OS X came out.
The younger folks probably grew up with skeuo first, never having had the experience with OS/2 Warp, or DOS, or CP/M, Amiga Workbench or Tandy DeskMate. Today, their grandparents probably use the last remnants of skeuo the same way I do, by never upgrading their phone (my father still used the original 2007 iPhone in 2015!). So now skeuo to them feels 'meant for grandma/the illiterate/luddites stuck in the past'
I will never 'get used to flat'. It looks awful. Why do you think dark mode exists? It never needed to before!
There's an scene of Deep Space Nine where the crew are old and the Defiant was pulled out of mothballs (the episode was "The Visitor") and one of them quips "I don't know how we EVER tolerated using a two-dimensional panel!"
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1) I like both of the icon shown, though I prefer the second one. Sadly, they ended up going with the one that was in 10.15—white, completely "flat".
2) Flat I hardly view as modern, it's been done before. It was done back when there was limited computing power (Remember CGA, anyone? ) My first DOS PC had a CGA video card; I lived with it for 6 years until I bought a 386 with a VGA video card (my first DOS PC was an 8088). Then again I bought my first computer in 1982—a VIC 20 so I'm quite familiar with the original "flat" OSes; a couple of people I knew back then bought "Trash 80"s but that's a system I never worked on.
3) The younger folks probably grew up with skeuo first, never having had the experience with OS/2 Warp, or DOS, or CP/M, Amiga Workbench or Tandy DeskMate. I had a Kaypro that ran CP/M; amazingly it was actually less functional than DOS. Working with "Commy" computers I had some experience with Amiga Workbench, and a friend I worked with had a "Trash" in the 90s so I spent some time with Deskmate. I well remember the original "flat" systems and I sincerely hope that the current "flatness" is a fad that dies a VERY quick death.
for all folks concerned with Big Sur bars height, we should let apple know.
there's the feedback assistant, I have reported my part, and there's also the community support on apple.com,
for example, topics like this: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252047236
if many more people would register and follow the topic, that would be already something. of course, apple being apple there's little chances it will have any impact, but doing nothing have even less chances of producing a result. "a little" is better than nothing. who knows, maybe apple could end up creating a specific option to have a more compact UI or something like that.
there's the feedback assistant, I have reported my part, and there's also the community support on apple.com,
for example, topics like this: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252047236
if many more people would register and follow the topic, that would be already something. of course, apple being apple there's little chances it will have any impact, but doing nothing have even less chances of producing a result. "a little" is better than nothing. who knows, maybe apple could end up creating a specific option to have a more compact UI or something like that.
A crappy interface doesn't become great just because it is better than its successors.
I never liked XP's Luna theme (all but one specific hate of XP I had. It was slow, too naggy with bubble notifications, etc) but I loved Vista/Windows 7. It was just the best balance. 7 was the better, it kept relevant, useful skeuo cues but flat most other places, so it was a bit more balanced. No literal notepad paper or game table felt, but you could easily grasp a button from just text.
I was still a fan of 98SE during XP's heyday, and like I do today with old Galaxy devices, I kept 98 working 100% up until 2011 through hacky means, including making Adobe Flash Player 10 run in 98SE. (to keep playing FarmVille before realizing what a waste of time it was!)
By the time I finally moved on, it was the era of Windows 7 for me. I had a short stint with Vista, and it looked dazzling, but suffered from extremely long boot times (new laptop, took 10 minutes before 'turning me loose' and being usable) and an infamous game-breaking wifi bug (unidentified network, local access only--had to reset and reformat/reinstall to fix it, and it just came back a few days later).
However, I did actually like Microsoft Bob, and Packard Bell Navigator back in the day, having scored a total fleet of Packard Bell Legend MPCs for $5 at a thrift store. I preferred Navigator over Bob for being more modern looking, less cartoony. The last version of MicroProse's B-17: The Mighty Eighth used a similar UI design:
I was still a fan of 98SE during XP's heyday, and like I do today with old Galaxy devices, I kept 98 working 100% up until 2011 through hacky means, including making Adobe Flash Player 10 run in 98SE. (to keep playing FarmVille before realizing what a waste of time it was!)
By the time I finally moved on, it was the era of Windows 7 for me. I had a short stint with Vista, and it looked dazzling, but suffered from extremely long boot times (new laptop, took 10 minutes before 'turning me loose' and being usable) and an infamous game-breaking wifi bug (unidentified network, local access only--had to reset and reformat/reinstall to fix it, and it just came back a few days later).
However, I did actually like Microsoft Bob, and Packard Bell Navigator back in the day, having scored a total fleet of Packard Bell Legend MPCs for $5 at a thrift store. I preferred Navigator over Bob for being more modern looking, less cartoony. The last version of MicroProse's B-17: The Mighty Eighth used a similar UI design:
The only part of those old systems I miss are the sounds. I mean the hard disk sounds. They used to sound like jets taking off and you could literally hear work being done. I remember Kaypros at school with old Hercules cards doing card catalog duty even in 1998. I also remember fondly a unique sounding Sanyo XT at the airport (it just had MS Flight Simulator 1.0 installed, and a note editor) that sounded like some old robot coming to life. I don't know what hard disk it had, but it wasn't a brand I've ever heard of. When it POSTed, you could hear it from the opposite side of the building.
Thanks for this! No Workbench or DeskMate here, but the rest rang some old bells! Much agreed on the loss of context, purpose, and focus with these "flat" interfaces.