Why is Big Sur so ugly?

[nsklaus]

I have a Macbook Pro 2016 15", and I get all my work done on mine too. It's still a good laptop, and I still like it. But the trend since then has been clear and linear toward complete lock-down and more dependence on pings to/from Apple servers. Some of this activity is deliberately opaque and obscure. The Big Sur rollout disaster made a lot of people realize that virtually every application they run must be approved by Apple. Some people are just fine or even happy with this, and that's great. But I don't like it at all. There's no doubt in my mind that Apple already has, or will soon have, the ability to flip a switch that can brick any Apple-connected computer without warning.

Edit: To clarify, they have or will have the ability to brick any new computer, not necessarily all the older models.

apple hardware could be put to good use with linux when/if that happens.
as long as they let us boot other OSes.. speaking of that, i was pleasantly surprised to see apple made it more easy for other OSes to boot on their hardware with the new m1 systems.
and there's already a project of linux port for the new apple silicon machines that got started. granted it will be a while until it reaches usable state, but still..

 

[nsklaus]

I looked at the stuff you posted a few days ago. I like the fact that you dug into this and figured out how to make some changes, and posted detailed instructions on how to do it. It's encouraging to know that this can be done. But....

Weighing the difference against the amount of effort it took to get there, it's not something I would even bother with. Just like every other "unsupported" change I've ever made on Apple products, I have no doubt my efforts will be clobbered by the next (increasingly frequent) patch. Even worse, nagging little things will start to behave unexpectedly as a result of off-path changes.

Over time, the "just works" nature of Apple has declined, but it's still better than any others out there. If I take away that benefit, Apple has nothing left to offer me. I hate the new theme, I hate the obsession with trying to lock everything into these SaaS/subscription arrangements.

Plus, I'm not even using Big Sur, and may never use it, depending on my next purchase decision...

well, for my use case, i bought the macbookpro m1 because it is good hardware, fast, solid and silent.
i usualy use linux, and plan to do so on this laptop too later on. while the port is happening, i thought i could always use linux through virtualisation software and also play a bit with macos. it's an unix based OS too after all.

regarding the theme change, i'm discovering how to do things at the moment.
once i'll know how to do it properly, it shouldn't be that hard for me to make it look like the way i want in a reasonable timeframe. on linux most desktop are completely customisable. and on macos it's the opposite. this wasn't a problem since macos looked so nice before. but now, with these horrible giant toolbars and titlebar/toolbar fuzed together, and the horrible choices of colours, well i have no choice but to try and modify that. once i'll know better maybe i'll make some quick tutorials. for those that like to tinker.. for the rest of folks that can bear the new design well they can use that if they don't mind it.
it bother me none to try and tweak macos appearance. it's a bit like a puzzle game. of course i wish they could have made it more open, and having to reboot each time i want to test my changes also increase the time it take for me to figure things out. but i'll get there

 

[fisherking]

well, for my use case, i bought the macbookpro m1 because it is good hardware, fast, solid and silent.
i usualy use linux, and plan to do so on this laptop too later on. while the port is happening, i thought i could always use linux through virtualisation software and also play a bit with macos. it's an unix based OS too after all.

regarding the theme change, i'm discovering how to do things at the moment.
once i'll know how to do it properly, it shouldn't be that hard for me to make it look like the way i want in a reasonable timeframe. on linux most desktop are completely customisable. and on macos it's the opposite. this wasn't a problem since macos looked so nice before. but now, with these horrible giant toolbars and titlebar/toolbar fuzed together, and the horrible choices of colours, well i have no choice but to try and modify that. once i'll know better maybe i'll make some quick tutorials. for those that like to tinker.. for the rest of folks that can bear the new design well they can use that if they don't mind it.
it bother me none to try and tweak macos appearance. it's a bit like a puzzle game. of course i wish they could have made it more open, and having to reboot each time i want to test my changes also increase the time it take for me to figure things out. but i'll get there

(i know you're not going to see this, but)... won't you lose your changes with each new OS update? i get it, though, i used to spend a lot of time customizing OS X (& jailbreaking ios). so, no harm in it, and it can be fun (or, when not fun, at least an adventure). enjoy

 

[CasualFanboy]

won't you lose your changes with each new OS update?

Yes, and that's the problem I have with this whole thing. I do understand that in order to come anywhere near a "just works" level of reliability, you must develop for a known target and can't try to support unknowable configurations.

I'm ok with them not supporting these things, but the Apple ecosystem has become increasingly hostile to any user choice at all. SIP, app signing, the clumsy altering of firmware during software updates... these "for your own good" schemes leave us at the complete mercy of Apple in every respect. I am not harming Apple in any way by changing local files that control the interface of applications that reside on my hard drive.

Yes, technically you can get around these things if you're determined enough, but it's more difficult and tedious with each new iteration.

 

[k2k koos]

Big Sur is OK, but it's the background pictures/art and the homescreen I hate, sometimes I wish I could go back to the relative calm of the fluid looking early days of Aqua (in terms of background themes etc, I don't miss the candy/translucent menu buttons much...)

 

[fisherking]

Big Sur is OK, but it's the background pictures/art and the homescreen I hate, sometimes I wish I could go back to the relative calm of the fluid looking early days of Aqua (in terms of background themes etc, I don't miss the candy/translucent menu buttons much...)

how often do you reboot? and you can change the wallpaper to anything you want. problem solved!

 

[fisherking]

Yes, and that's the problem I have with this whole thing. I do understand that in order to come anywhere near a "just works" level of reliability, you must develop for a known target and can't try to support unknowable configurations.

I'm ok with them not supporting these things, but the Apple ecosystem has become increasingly hostile to any user choice at all. SIP, app signing, the clumsy altering of firmware during software updates... these "for your own good" schemes leave us at the complete mercy of Apple in every respect. I am not harming Apple in any way by changing local files that control the interface of applications that reside on my hard drive.

Yes, technically you can get around these things if you're determined enough, but it's more difficult and tedious with each new iteration.

then let it go? and focus on the apps you need and use, ie mail, or safari, etc... just seems like a rabbit hole that takes time away from working, or playing (altho, to be fair, perhaps modding the OS is playing for you... i get that).

 

[CasualFanboy]

then let it go? and focus on the apps you need and use, ie mail, or safari, etc... just seems like a rabbit hole that takes time away from working, or playing (altho, to be fair, perhaps modding the OS is playing for you... i get that).

Yeah that's pretty much what I was getting at. It's so much of a hassle to customize anything, it may be better to just use something else, which would be Linux b/c Windows is not happening. The Mac's lack of customization hadn't been a big problem for me because Apple used to make sane design choices. Then we lost Steve Jobs and got Tim Cook.

Now with the new UI it's reached the point where I would get preoccupied with trying to change things. A switch may require giving some things up, but it really might not be much. That's still to be determined.

 

[fisherking]

Yeah that's pretty much what I was getting at. It's so much of a hassle to customize anything, it may be better to just use something else, which would be Linux b/c Windows is not happening. The Mac's lack of customization hadn't been a big problem for me because Apple used to make sane design choices. Then we lost Steve Jobs and got Tim Cook.

Now with the new UI it's reached the point where I would get preoccupied with trying to change things. A switch may require giving some things up, but it really might not be much. That's still to be determined.

you're missing my point: am saying that the OS, as an OS, is great, and you shouldn't let minor details in the GUI that you don't like stop you from getting work done. and this is hardly about tim cook, that's ridiculous; apple is a corporation, with an long-term agenda that didn't start with only jobs, and won't end with cook.

 

[lupinglade]

The problem with Tim Cook is he is not good at micro-managing software details, or rather, he probably isn't doing it at all. I imagine the job has fallen over to someone else or a bunch of people, but they aren't as good as Jobs was at it (or they just don't care as much). To make things worse, a lot of the key people that used to work on software and UI at Apple appear to have left. I'm not saying its doom and gloom, but its noticeable.

By the way fisherking, of course we realize we can still use the OS as a tool. You can use a sh*tty car to get from point A to B also. But what if you want to enjoy the ride or get there quicker? What if you don't like the AC knob constantly falling off? Or the wipers not doing a very good job? People who use tools usually prefer good tools, you know?

 

[ghanwani]

Everything that we experience is a projection of our subconscious mind.

(Responding to the question in the subject line, haha.)

 

[fisherking]

The problem with Tim Cook is he is not good at micro-managing software details, or rather, he probably isn't doing it at all. I imagine the job has fallen over to someone else or a bunch of people, but they aren't as good as Jobs was as it (or they just don't care as much). To make things worse, a lot of the key people that used to work on software and UI at Apple appear to have left. I'm not saying its doom and gloom, but its noticeable.

By the way fisherking, of course we realize we can still use the OS as a tool. You can use a sh*tty car to get from point A to B also. But what if you want to enjoy the ride or get there quicker? What if you don't like the AC knob constantly falling off? Or the wipers not doing a very good job? People who use tools usually prefer good tools, you know?

"i imagine"... that's what most of this is, your imagination, not factual statements.

and i think your analogy is off; it's like someone gave you an amazing car; it drives beautifully, the ride is smooth, it's quiet; it's the best car you've ever driven, but you reject it, because it's green and you prefer blue.

and now, will bow out of this thread, because there can be no discussion with ppl when they're minds are closed, or already made up, and they won't hear anything that doesn't support their point-of-view.

 

[CasualFanboy]

and now, will bow out of this thread, because there can be no discussion with ppl when they're minds are closed, or already made up, and they won't hear anything that doesn't support their point-of-view.

I don't think anyone is here with the goal of changing minds or winning a debate. It's pretty meta at this point... there are some legitimate criticisms, some good counterpoints, some grumpy old mac users getting nostalgic, others making fun of us oldies. It's a good thread. Stick around. Come for the posts, stay for the feels.

 

[nsklaus]

(i know you're not going to see this, but)... won't you lose your changes with each new OS update? i get it, though, i used to spend a lot of time customizing OS X (& jailbreaking ios). so, no harm in it, and it can be fun (or, when not fun, at least an adventure). enjoy

it's possible i will loose the changes i made when new OS updates will come. but so far, it takes me 2minutes to start up themeengine and just change the background colour of windows. i find it so much better looking that way that i don't mind doing that. i haven't found yet how to reliably put back white borders around toolbar buttons and search fields/address bar in safari. what i had showed earlier was more like a proof of concept than a definite win. i had used as a drop in replacement the SystemAppearance.bundle from mojave/catalina into bigsur. it was an easy and quick try and worked to some extent, but also created problems of its own, like missing entries in the menubar's systray (clock, wifi, battery icons and such). i was satisfied to see that, with a bit of more finesse and work, it could be done and. i restored bigsur's SystemAppearance.bundle and left it at that for the time being. what need to be done ideally is to find the correct theme element to modify to have those back too reliably (white button borders and white searchfields and address bar in safari). the problem is that there's many to try and check with. it's a bit like the proverbial needle and haystack. i continue to search a bit for it, but i'm also mostly satisfied with what i got so far, so i'm not that much in a hurry to clear that out.

to recap that, there's two main changes that made my macos life easier:

1) defaults write -g NSWindowSupportsAutomaticInlineTitle -bool false
this restores normal windows titlebars, so i can easily click and drag my windows around, whereas with the fuzed titlebar/toolbar design it's more annoying to find a correct spot to be able to click and grab windows for moving them around. often time i'd just end up clicking on an icon or some element that would have prevented me from grab and drag. which was annoying. well, that setting above took good care of that.

2) restore windows background gradient gray colour. i find it looking so much more better like that. it take me very little time to do that, it's easy to find out and modify in themeengine.

so i'm already quite satisfied with these two changes. i'm glad that could be achieved. but that's just me. everyone's different. hopefully later on i will also be able to restore the white buttons borders and white searchfields.

 

[CasualFanboy]

restore normal windows titlebars, so i can easily click and drag my windows around, whereas with the fuzed titlebar/toolbar design it's more annoying to find a correct spot to be able to click and grab windows for moving them around.

I can't stop thinking of Gnome 3's failed design.

 

[nsklaus]

@CasualFanboy
so true..
i thought apple knew better design principle than to follow gnome horrible experiments.
big sur new design make me think macos got m$windows colours and gnome toolbars.
it's like spectacular fail. i hope apple won't persist or make it even worse. it's also a possibility. gnome is the bad child of linux desktop family. it's rigid, troublesome to customise, they also removed all the poweruser options, i so hate gnome. i haven't used it since gnome2 days. each time i wanted to give it a try, i was disgusted and removed it almost immediately. better example are kde or xfce.

 

[tkermit]

1) defaults write -g NSWindowSupportsAutomaticInlineTitle -bool false

Oh my God - THANK YOU for that!!!

 

[CasualFanboy]

@CasualFanboy
better example are kde or xfce.

I have several Plasma configurations, here's one that is fairly close to 10.11-10.15.

 

[nickdalzell1]

If you're using KDE or Mate, you can get the older glossy traffic lights pretty easily in the settings-->themes menu, just search for Mac or Mac OS or OS X.

I thought of doing it for my VM running Elementary OS but unsure if it will break anything given it was designed to look old modern.

 

[nickdalzell1]

I can't stop thinking of Gnome 3's failed design.

View attachment 1699191

I'm getting Material Design vibes for some reason...Reminds me of Android 5.0 Lollipop only dark.

 

[CasualFanboy]

I'm getting Material Design vibes for some reason...Reminds me of Android 5.0 Lollipop only dark.

Pretty much. I posted that pic just to demonstrate the fat titlebars with bizarre implementations of menus, decorations, in a way that makes it difficult to tell where either one starts and ends, or why they are even there. This is actually one of the better looking Gnome screenshots that I've seen, most of them are a sad commentary on bad design.

 

[nsklaus]

@CasualFanboy
kde is quite flexible. you can make it look and feel in very personal ways. it's nice.
i like to make it use the global menu too. kde is a bit like a safe haven in a world of desktops that have gone mad

on linux i also like tiling wm, for example dwm, with tools like:
- zathura (pdf, epub)
- dunst (notification)
- lf (terminal based file manager)
- sxiv (image viewer)
- sxhkd (hotkey system)
- newsboat (term based rss reader)
- mpv (video player)
- nvim (text editor)
- vimb, felinks, brave (browsers)
it's very minimalist. it's different, but interesting. when i'm tired of getting my hands dirty with that kind of environment, i enjoy taking breaks in xfce or kde. there's many other alternative desktops, they're fun to try. (fvwm, maxxdesktop, pantheon.. )

@tkermit
i'm not the one who discovered that tweak by the way, i'm just sharing the word.
i remember i've reacted the same way you did when i've found it out

 

[CasualFanboy]

i like to make it use of the global menu too. kde is a bit like a safe haven in a world of desktops that have gone mad

Yep, I use the global menu too. It works great, a feature straight out of the base system now. And I agree, it has been my safe haven for keeping things stable while everything else goes.... some other direction.

Although on the tiling WM's, those have just never appealed to me at all. There's nothing more productive about them, or whatever the big selling point is, at least for the way my mental model is hard-wired. Sometimes they look pretty cool, but I find them unwieldy and way too opinionated about how windows are arranged.

 

[CasualFanboy]

If you're using KDE or Mate, you can get the older glossy traffic lights pretty easily

You can do that only if you use the old Aurorae theme engine, which I don't like. Its borders are weird and it often doesn't blend well with different grades gradients.

 

[nickdalzell1]

Best thing about Linux other than freedom is freedom to make it look the way you want

Just wish there were Linux phones (no, I don't include Android/Tizen here). Or Linux tablets. Then I wouldn't have to struggle to keep things working with older Samsung tablets just to keep TouchWiz Nature UX around for the future.

I'd love to see WebOS from 2009 come back. Talk about excellent skeuo mixed with gesture controls. I thought of buying a Palm Pre just for the phone/sms/music/browser to enjoy it but it's 3G only and that's gonna be dead in 2021 unless the Pandemic (and with it, connectivity) hinders the whole VoLTE switchover. WebOS from that time had a neat little earthy nature theme as well, small display, and wireless charging!