Why is Big Sur so ugly?

[LJ143]

This is all my option, but I've heard some hate on Big Sur here and there as well. My question is, why does Apple want to make Mac OS into IOS like seriously; I've always liked how good and "professional" OS X looked, but now it just looks so unprofessional...

And when Apple pushes this update, do you think it is safe for me to stay on Catalina?

Like I just got my new Mac, and I see this...

Lol! Maybe you are referring to the desktop and screen saver options? Yes, that was my initial thought. Why are these photos so ugly. I think I have better photos of Big Sur that I took. Maybe it was a rushed release complicated by covid? Definitely doesn’t seem like the Apple we all know and loved.

 

[CasualFanboy]

UI design and software attempting to go back to the 80s-90s again for no reason, certainly not hardware limitations.

I agree with all your points except this one. Sure, UI design back in the 80's & 90's may have been limited when compared to now, but the flat "modern" designs are a thousand times worse. The old interfaces like NeXT, and even toolkits like Motif, still had some style. And they did a much better job at representing physical objects, instead of trying to make individual elements indistinguishable. If nothing else, we can look back on the old UI's now with a sense of nostalgia. These modern abominations have no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

Keep in mind NO consumer demand dictated this change. the OEMs are supposed to listen to consumers, yet for the last 8 years consumers have been told to 'just get used to it!'

If a company had said that 20 years ago, it would put them into bankruptcy. Supply and demand. Or have free market economics suddenly changed lately?

You're right about that, no one ever begged for this regression. As far as the market goes, people have been conditioned to just take what they are given. Yes, things have changed quite a bit in the last 20 years when it comes to assertive and demanding customers.

 

[CasualFanboy]

huh. big sur on both my macs looks fine; modern, simple. and the OS is working really well... the thing i care most about it.

this is apple we're talking about? they've always moved at their own pace, in their own way, and we tag along... or don't. they're not a company driven by 'consumer demand', and that's what keeps them moving forward, instead of holding back, to appease those who are afraid of what's next.

It's good to see the old gang is back together. Welcome back, amigo.

I guess my concern and criticism are from the perspective of this operating system's underpinnings, and how that was always threaded through the design philosophy. Apple is fundamentally a fork of UNIX, a server OS that was extended into a user-friendly desktop OS with engineering genius.

For those who don't even know where to find the terminal app, then the choice between Windows and Mac comes down to style preferences. But if you use the Mac for everything including development & server applications, the difference is enormous. I don't and will never want to use a phone OS for development work.

 

[colourfastt]

I don't find that to be true anymore. People have moved on, it's no longer the 90's. Apple also did a nice job of stoking the flames with their ads between the differences between OS X and Windows. But times have changed and I think most have just moved on. Windows 10 and macOS are pretty much on equally terms, it's boils down to preference.

As far as gamers go, keep in mind you are typically dealing with a tribalism crowd i.e. Playstation kicks Microsoft's butt or Microsoft so much better than Sony. It's juvenile.

I believe the correct assertion is: As far as gamers go, keep in mind you are dealing with CHILDREN.

 

[nickdalzell1]

I don't look at NeXT or 1990s-early 2001 Windows as the examples when comparing flat UI to past iterations of flat UI. I refer mainly to the design of Amiga WorkBench 1.5, or Tandy DeskMate, or CP/M, or the early Windows 1.x versions.

NeXT, if anything, was skeuomorphic all over, and what eventually became OS X.

I'm a gamer, and switched to Linux. Thanks to Steam Play and Proton, I have all my games working, and they actually perform far better than they did in Windows.

 

[bd700pilot]

For those of you who updated... is Big Sur any less ugly now that it’s been out for a few months? Did Apple make any changes to icons and menu bars or other UI stuff since launch?

 

[colourfastt]

For those of you who updated... is Big Sur any less ugly now that it’s been out for a few months? Did Apple make any changes to icons and menu bars or other UI stuff since launch?

It appears to my, untrained, eye that 11.1 isn't as "washed out" as the initial release. The app windows, etc. are a bit darker and more easily discerned from one another.

 

[Jonas07]

This community is full of octogenarians wearing Apple watches, and enjoying an OS with bad design just because some icons look pseudowhatever which make macos look old and ugly, at the same time the wasted space and the contrast.

macOS Catalina looks better.

I don’t understand the hate for Windows 10it’s functional, compatible with everything, stable and it does the work done, sometimes even better than macOS.

 

[lupinglade]

For those of you who updated... is Big Sur any less ugly now that it’s been out for a few months? Did Apple make any changes to icons and menu bars or other UI stuff since launch?

No, not at all.

 

[Heat_Fan89]

This community is full of octogenarians wearing Apple watches, and enjoying an OS with bad design just because some icons look pseudowhatever which make macos look old and ugly, at the same time the wasted space and the contrast.

macOS Catalina looks better.

I don’t understand the hate for Windows 10it’s functional, compatible with everything, stable and it does the work done, sometimes even better than macOS.

That's because some in the Mac community are still living in the past as if it's the 90's or the early 2000's. Times have changed and both companies are different 20 yrs later. Yes there was a time when OS X was vastly superior to Windows XP/ME/Vista. But in time Microsoft got it's act together and it was around Windows 7 when they made a very stable operating system. Windows 8 was equally stable and they tried a new UI which some liked and others said no much like Big Sur. I was in the middle camp. I preferred the 3D look of Windows 7 but I loved the idea of using apps in Windows and to this day, Windows Live Tiles to me is essential although that idea really was taken from Samsung's much maligned TouchWiz. They introduced live widgets to their UI.

It's not that macOS is worse than it was in years past. It's that Windows has caught up. It's rock solid stable and it runs on millions if not billions of hardware combinations around the world. I'm even more impressed by what Microsoft pulls off when Apple only has to build its operating system mostly around its hardware. I also find Windows much faster than macOS given the hardware. It also doesn't require as much overhead i.e. memory to have a smooth and fast experience.

It now boils down to preference but for a Mac user to say Windows is trash because of a, b or c is not living with the times because it's no longer true. It boils down to what you prefer. I personally find Windows vastly superior to macOS when it comes to playing games and its ecosystem such as the XBOX integration between Windows and the XBOX platforms. Microsoft took a page out of Apple's playbook and created a unique and well thought out idea.

 

[TBoneMac]

I really love the Big Sur GUI

Xbox integration into Windows 10 doesn't matter to me because I'm not interested in any Xbox games.

 

[CasualFanboy]

That's because some in the Mac community are still living in the past as if it's the 90's or the early 2000's.

I'm not sure if Poe's Law is in effect here, or if it's some other trope where all you have to do is wait, and it's a guarantee someone will play the "stuck in the past" or "afraid of change" card.

It now boils down to preference

For what? Checking email?

 

[colourfastt]

It now boils down to preference but for a Mac user to say Windows is trash because of a, b or c is not living with the times because it's no longer true. It boils down to what you prefer. I personally find Windows vastly superior to macOS when it comes to playing games and its ecosystem such as the XBOX integration between Windows and the XBOX platforms. Microsoft took a page out of Apple's playbook and created a unique and well thought out idea.

What are you 12? Adults have no concern for games; we use our computers to accomplish tasks.

 

[5883662]

What are you 12? Adults have no concern for games; we use our computers to accomplish tasks.

You must be terribly fun at parties. Jesus.

 

[nebojsak]

Adults doesn't go to parties. They watch TV and go to bed early.

 

[Jonas07]

What are you 12? Adults have no concern for games; we use our computers to accomplish tasks.

I bet you wear an Apple Watch expecting to send Tim Cook a letter about how it changed your life

 

[redcaptrickster]

I bet you wear an Apple Watch expecting to send Tim Cook a letter about how it changed your life

I'm sure that means a lot to him coming from someone who has a skateboard as their profile picture.

 

[Jonas07]

I'm sure that means a lot to him coming from someone who has a skateboard as their profile picture.

I bet, he can’t go back in time

 

[nickdalzell1]

All my Windows 10 systems are set to airplane mode, permenantly offline. I hate how flat it is (I've themed it, but it's not easy on the latest build) and how it wants to update itself whenever it feels like (I don't believe in updates, since iOS 7 ruined iOS after an 'update') but since all the content on those few systems are offline or can be modified via thumb drive, I don't have to worry anymore about security or privacy risks, much less an update changing what should be left alone.

As for the remarks about 'afraid of change' or 'living in the past' the real term is "if it ain't broke, don't fix it' and 'change for the sake of change is always a bad idea'

I only ran Big Sur as of Beta 4, and it had already gotten flatter by then, and I'm quite sure it's even flatter now, given Apple listened to all the skeuo-haters who blew up their 'feedback assistant' app. It's like every 20-something or under wants to stay in flat land forever. Only those young enough to have never lived through flat UI's first iteration would obviously see it as 'modern'. All I see is flat UI users 'living in the past' (see what I did there?) It's a regression to an 80s-90s Interface ala Windows 1.x and DOS. If that's modern, well, I suppose to them, an i386SX is modern as well.

The 80s had some great music, tv shows and movies, and some very nice cars, but I want to live in the actual future/present not the 80s era of computer graphics design. It was bad enough living through it the first time. Flat UI needs to die an ugly death. We are no longer limited by 8-bit CPUs, tube RAM, or 30MB MFM Hard drives, or floppy disks. Time to move on, indeed.

 

[nebojsak]

The problem is, everyone has their own idea about how an UI should look. For me, it's all down to basic functionality.

 

[Squillace]

(...) Windows 8 was equally stable and they tried a new UI which some liked and others said no much like Big Sur. (...)

The comparison with Big Sur is unfair.

Big Sur is, despite what people says and what Apple claims, a continuity to previous macOS versions. Yes, icons adopt a new style, yes, everything is rounder, yes the interface is less "metallic" with all that white, and yes, some menus and bars are "smoother". But overall it's the same OS, it's the same UI, it's the same menu bar, the same dock and the same user experience.

Windows 8 is the opposite of that. Microsoft radically changed the look & feel of a solid and stable Windows experience (from W95 to 7, nobody felt lost using them). The removal of the Start menu and the big full screen colourful tiles was a totally different experience from what people were used to. Plus the background colours, the full black interface, the stripped down icons to the minimum, the redundant settings under new menus and the good old Control Panel... everything looked different.

But, yeah, I understand that there are Mac users that dislike Big Sur changes and already feel nostalgia over older versions.

Unless... (I'm just wondering that now, after writing my post) you just referred Big Sur to compare the controversial changes. "some liked and others no much". If that's the case, ups, sorry, my mistake

 

[MauiPa]

simple answer: It is not ugly in the least

 

[nickdalzell1]

It started out skeuo and got flatter through later betas. If it just kept the look it had during the developement betas, it'd be alright.

Windows 8 comparisons are more accurate when looking at iOS 7+ and Yosemite+. I'm quite surprised Apple and others followed given it was a huge flop for Microsoft. I really wish no one followed and it would just be one more in a long list of Microsoft Blunders, and we'd have an actual future-looking UI

There has been little to zero evolution in UI design since flat UI's second coming back in 2013. It's getting soooo boring to use any modern device (of course, I am immune, still using a Thunderbolt and Tab 2 10.1, but I digress) and a lot of apps I see in commercials are white with green text and line-art (Credit Karma, thank goodness I don't need their service!). It's getting worse actually. Google can't even keep one thing straight in their multiple-times-a-day 'updates'. Muscle memory must be turning into a thing of the past as well to so many app devs.

It's bad enough phones have stagnated in this homogenized no-longer-unique trend when there was once always a device for every taste, plenty of variety, but UI design stagnating is even worse lately.

I have tons of apps backed up from the Android 2.2-4.2 days, skeuo wonders I use for my older devices, but there's just nothing special about any modern app where I'd even feel the need to back it up, much less download/install it. The most 'modern' thing I've installed in the last year have been Steam games.

 

[BB8]

am I the only one who loves the way big sur looks?

 

[fisherking]

am I the only one who loves the way big sur looks?

of course not. people who are happy with something tend to just enjoy it, and people who are unhappy tend to rant a lot; hence, this thread. am fine with big sur's sleek, modern, simple look.

honestly, i wish apple would allow us to customize aspects of our mac experience; this is something apple has never really supported. but i at least appreciate that, in not being able to satisfy every individual, they give us (basically) great-looking hardware, and a great-looking OS to match.