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Why is Big Sur so ugly?
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I wouldn't say the whole MacOS is ugly, in fact I enjoy the new finder windows, but I have a problem with Messages. Does it have to be so wide? It is enormous and it takes A LOT of screen real-estate. In general I feel everything takes a lot of space, even when the interface is scaled down in retina screens. I wish they wold keep the look and feel but improve the windows to be more space-efficient.
If the main thing you're doing is messaging people, then the size is not excessive. If a chat is something you're doing on the side, then it is.
That's fair. I think I'm in the same boat, but as I've gotten further in my career, I'm less about tinkering at the low level, and more about trying to add value where's there's gaps. And oh boy is Apple leaving some gaps these days.
But so far Big Sur reminds me a lot of iOS 7. They are taking things in a new direction, and this is the first iteration of how things will look going forward. Don't expect a huge divergence from it, but I'd expect them to keep revisiting and further refining things in the next yearly releases like they have with iOS. iOS 13/14 has a surprising amount of refinement compared to iOS 7 looking back at screenshots.
But we're already seeing influences from the iOS 7 -> 14 learnings in Big Sur, and iOS 14 is picking up UI tweaks that were done for the sake of Big Sur, so at least we aren't quite starting from the janky spot iOS 7 did. It's half jank.
As I jump back and forth between my iMac and iPad Pro I guess I too would like to see a more uniform GUI. I'm just hoping that both platforms would reach their full potential. Maybe that can't happen until Apple brings on the ARM CPU?
I assume that Exposé still exists, but it has been renamed to "Show All Windows". Simply control-click on the app you want and select "Show All Windows". There's also a keyboard shortcut [Control + Down arrow] for that matter in your active window. Also, if you have a MacBook or a magic touchpad you can enable the three fingers swipe down to trigger that!
Or double-tap (Magic Mouse) on the application icon in the Dock.
This is also possible with one finger.Double tap with two fingers, I think.
Some people said this when Apple introduced the first big revision of Aqua with Mac OS X 10.3 Panther in 2003. Then some people went on to say the same when Apple introduced a new look with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Then some were complaining about OS X Lion's new appearance. Then the same happened when OS X Yosemite was first demoed. And now history is repeating itself with macOS Big Sur. As with every change: some will like it, some won't. Hopefully the next revision will be more to your liking. Until that happens no much else to do than stick with an older macOS version, suck it up or switch to another operating system.
Don't you think there is unnecessary white space in between the bubbles? It could be much more efficient, like on iOS, where the bubbles can intersect each other.
Depends on what you mean by "reach their full potential".
But the ARM switch won't solve OS/Software issues, which is honestly the biggest complaint I keep seeing about the iPad Pro.
At first I wasn’t a fan at all, but I decided to install the first couple of betas and had a play around with it and now I’m starting to actually like it.
Mac has needed a fresh coat of paint for a while and as long as that’s all it is and they aren’t sacrificing functionality under the hood at the same time then I don’t have too much problem with it.
My issues I currently have with the UI are:
The icons: they bad
The General UI spacing
Finder title bar alignment (it just doesn’t work well)
They must be listening to the icon complaints tho because they just changed the system pref battery icon in the latest beta 3.
Mac has needed a fresh coat of paint for a while and as long as that’s all it is and they aren’t sacrificing functionality under the hood at the same time then I don’t have too much problem with it.
My issues I currently have with the UI are:
The icons: they bad
The General UI spacing
Finder title bar alignment (it just doesn’t work well)
They must be listening to the icon complaints tho because they just changed the system pref battery icon in the latest beta 3.
My only issue with Big Sur is, why they had to make it less readable, I mean elements in each window used to be carefully distinguished from each other, now its just one white/black plane and user go figure it yourself..
I am a relative newcomer to the Mac world, having bought my first MacBook in 2015. That MacBook was literally the first I had ever seen, I guess because Macs are not so common in UK, or at least not the UK I live in. It was running Yosemite and I immediately thought the interface had a curiously infantile Fisher-Price look, up to and including Catalina it still looks that way to me, but so what? The point of an OS is to manage apps and IO, exactly how icons, menus etc are presented is never going to be a big issue for me. When I look at Big Sur screenshots I'm still reminded of pre-school toys, especially by the iOS-style alphabet block app icons in the menu bar, but that's the way it's going to be. Apple are bringing their operating systems together and we can like it or lump it.
I haven't had any readability issues with Big Sur - what elements are you specifically referring to having trouble with?
Huh? You are telling me that in Big Sur you can no longer go into the accessibility settings and select ’reduce transparency’?
I miss the old menu bar. I really do...
Love it! Looks like a mash-up between classic Mac OS with the roundness and classic OS X with the grey.