Why is Big Sur so ugly?

[fisherking]

I actually really like most of the features in Mavericks introduced. I'm not sure what I'd do without e.g. Notification Center, and even though I usually work on a desktop these days, I appreciate Fullscreen when I need to focus on a single task. I even occasionally use "All My Files", although I agree it should absolutely not be the default view. Still, there's not much cruft!

A handful of features bother me. I think giving files "colors" were better than namable "tags"—the inability to think about it too much was an advantage—but it doesn't make much difference in practice.

The one feature that's in Mavericks and not Snow Leopard which I absolutely hate with a passion is Launchpad. Launchpad completely breaks Apple's beautiful "an app is just a special type of file" metaphor, by creating a special UI that's kind of like a folder but isn't and works based on obtuse and arbitrary rules. I wrote a bit more about this on Hacker News a year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20224370 (Note at the time, I said I preferred Snow Leopard to Mavericks; I've since I changed my mind after actually using them side-by-side.)

I mostly neutered Launchpad in my setup script, but it's technically still there, if you know where to look for it...



You're right, but I still think the details matter, even if not every user knows it. Someone without an art background won't necessarily be able to tell you why they like a painting, but their opinion will still be influenced by all the artist's little touches. When added together, those details make a difference, whether or not a layperson can identify them.

If it wasn't for these types of details, I'd recommend everyone forget about Mac and buy Windows machines instead. They're usually less expensive.

Just yesterday several people from my company were on an important Zoom call with a client. My boss was supposed to present, but he wasn't able to share his screen, which was kind of embarrassing! It turns out the problem was macOS Catalina—the screensharing permission dialog had appeared behind his other application windows, where he wasn't able to find it.

That's one anecdote of one experience—but again, stuff adds up. I don't expect most people to care about UI design as much I do, but I do think it has an affect on everyone's lived experience—how much they like their computer, and how much they're able to get done.

that's a general tech lesson, not a catalina horror story: set things up in advance. setting up screen sharing (or, for that matter, opening zoom for the first time) at the start of a meeting is not a good business move, for anyone, on any platform.

i agree, the details matter; for me, the challenge is to sweat the details, but never lose sight of the big picture.

these forums are filled with people missing the big picture (just my opinion, and i include myself too often)

 

[Wowfunhappy]

setting up screen sharing (or, for that matter, opening zoom for the first time) at the start of a meeting is not a good business move

They actually did in this case, we had a whole test run! For some reason (my boss says that) Zoom insisted on doing an update right before the call, and then that appears to have broken screensharing.

Not a horror story per se, we had someone else present, but a real problem that resulted from an OS detail.

 

[fisherking]

They actually did in this case, we had a whole test run! For some reason I don't understand, my boss says that Zoom insisted on doing an update right before the call, and then that appears to have broken screensharing.

Not a horror story per se, we had someone else present, but a real problem that resulted from an OS detail.

then, just an awkward moment; and i've never seen zoom update itself, it's something you choose to do. but either way, in general, good to test things in advance, and therefore not a catalina or mac OS issue, any more than if this had happened on a PC, or an android device...

 

[Royksöpp]

every company has it's rough moments (funny, tho, am typing this on a 2016 12" macbook that i live on, & the keyboard is fine).

it's your right to believe that 'no one is taking a look at the big picture'; many would disagree. apple makes the choices it makes, even if that doesn't make you, specifically, happy.

opinions are great, as long as we admit that our opinions are just... opinions.

This is a forum for people to express their opinions. If you don’t have anything to contribute to the conversation then don’t post at all. If you don’t agree with me then tell me why. I’d rather have a valid discussion to go off of instead of you simply berating my opinion. How about you present something relevant that we can discuss further?

 

[fisherking]

This is a forum for people to express their opinions. If you don’t have anything to contribute to the conversation then don’t post at all. If you don’t agree with me then tell me why. I’d rather have a valid discussion to go off of instead of you simply berating my opinion. How about you present something relevant that we can discuss further?

i agree, it's a forum for people to express their opinions, which is what you did, and what i did. and i did tell you why i don't agree with you; please ready what i wrote carefully.

so, yes, let's keep the discussion going, & will be careful not to be rude or difficult; i hope you will do the same.

 

[Royksöpp]

i agree, it's a forum for people to express their opinions, which is what you did, and what i did. and i did tell you why i don't agree with you; please ready what i wrote carefully.

so, yes, let's keep the discussion going, & will be careful not to be rude or difficult; i hope you will do the same.

But why? What Is your defense? I presented my opinion on the matter, now what is yours? I would like to talk about Big Sur in more detail. Simply saying Apple makes choices is not bringing anything to the table. Your obviously very defensive, so tell me why. Why defend those choices? Come on... I’d like to hear what you like and dislike about Big Sur.

 

[leman]

It should be close to perfect on the first shot. This step by step process is not the Apple I fell in love with. Big Sur was not needed. I’d rather them clean up Catalina and give us Snow Leopard 2.0!

I always though it was interesting how people tend to idolize the past. Like Snow Leopard, the OS that would delete your data and shipped with constantly crashing Safari? It eventually became a very stable release of course, but that took a few patches (and Safari still kept crashing).

As to the rest, well, Big Sur is a cleaned up Catalina in many ways. Apple UI was all over the place. Big Sur brought design and feature parity to the Apple ecosystem and it’s the most systematic look and feel Apple has produced in a while.

 

[fisherking]

But why? What Is your defense? I presented my opinion on the matter, now what is yours? I would like to talk about Big Sur in more detail. Simply saying Apple makes choices is not bringing anything to the table. Your obviously very defensive, so tell me why. Why defend those choices? Come on... I’d like to hear what you like and dislike about Big Sur.

let's move on...i said what i wanted to say, in response to what you posted. now we should get back on track...

 

[m0nkeyb0y]

It doesn’t look cartoonish nor ugly but it does look a lot like iOS and iPadOS.

It looks damn cartoonish on my 2x32" 4k monitors. Those are for very different work than an iPad. Design doesn't necessarily scale in size.

 

[TechThule]

I read this string, before downloading OS XI, and it made me a bit anxious.

Especially after I switched my iPhone to iOS umpteenth. I am really, really sick of the Fisher-Price color scheme for iPhones. If I'm spending >$1k for a magnificent little computer I don't want to feel like I bought a toy.

But, from my perspective, the graphical depictions in Big Sir are well done. I think the window/menu bar/desktop look fine. Nice attention to detail in the icons. It's always refreshing to have a little change.

Above all I am grateful the lollipop colors are minimized. A few things don't work, but none are critical. The new sounds? Meh. Scrambling the petit stuff is not innovation, but people like harmless changes.

Overall, I would rate this as an unobtrusive and pleasant upgrade at the GUI level. Seems to run hot, i.e. churn through mAmps and feel physically hot on my 16" MBP. Not sure what's churning in the background.

But it works, it looks feels and sound good. Nice job.

 

[TrevorR90]

I don’t think it looks ugly. I think the market nowadays is to cater to the current upcoming generation of Apple consumers which includes design.

 

[pioneer9k]

I read this string, before downloading OS XI, and it made me a bit anxious.

Especially after I switched my iPhone to iOS umpteenth. I am really, really sick of the Fisher-Price color scheme for iPhones. If I'm spending >$1k for a magnificent little computer I don't want to feel like I bought a toy.

But, from my perspective, the graphical depictions in Big Sir are well done. I think the window/menu bar/desktop look fine. Nice attention to detail in the icons. It's always refreshing to have a little change.

Above all I am grateful the lollipop colors are minimized. A few things don't work, but none are critical. The new sounds? Meh. Scrambling the petit stuff is not innovation, but people like harmless changes.

Overall, I would rate this as an unobtrusive and pleasant upgrade at the GUI level. Seems to run hot, i.e. churn through mAmps and feel physically hot on my 16" MBP. Not sure what's churning in the background.

But it works, it looks feels and sound good. Nice job.

I agree with the Big Sur stuff. Mine also is constantly spinning fans in this current beta though but I assume that will be fixed. Overall I've been liking it other than the glitches, like my messages contact text is blurry, and so is the input text when im typing a longer message. Stuff like that doesnt count obv.

 

[ErikGrim]

That's not macOS being too complicated, that's macOS lacking sane defaults. I have a setup script that fixes it.

This is excellent. Will you be updating it for Big Sur?

 

[Wowfunhappy]

This is excellent. Will you be updating it for Big Sur?

Probably not, I've actually downgraded all of my machines to Mavericks (10.9), and I intend to stick with that for a long time.

I think that most of the settings that are still applicable in Big Sur will still work. You would at minimum need to change all the instances of /System/Library/User\ Template/ to /Library/User\ Template/.

There are actually a lot of these Defaults Write setup scripts floating around Github. The biggest thing that's unique about mine is that I modify the User Template, so any future user accounts (and the Guest account) will also benefit from the changed settings. There are also some tricks in there that I figured out myself, like how to effectively disable Launchpad.

 

[George Dawes]

I like it , plus all the under hood tech updates

going from Sierra to this on an iMac 27 should be interesting 🧐

 

[GGERARD]

I like it too!
I downloaded it on a external SSD.
It runs perfectly. I don't think it is so uggly. I only think it's new and going on with the style of the moment. We must live with our time.
Technically it is very fluid and all my Apps run excellently.
For the moment, no blocking and no bugs.
For me better than Catalina and it is only a Beta.
GGERARD

 

[iMi]

Ok, so I had to try Big Sur since there has been so much discussion around it. I have to agree with the OP here, the operating system is plain ugly. I remember thinking back when Apple went with the pastel colors that a fifth grader must have been in charge of the color scheme. I think the same fifth grader is now in charge of the UI.

The icons on the menu bar are less intuitive than before. They are inconsistently sized. Yuck.

Also, I've noticed that Apple went back to a more 3D design on some icons (mail, messages, FaceTime, for example) while flattening the overall look of the interface and keeping some app icons flat (reminders, calendar, etc). It just clashes, in my opinion. Again, inconsistent.

There are functional improvements, no doubt. I kind of wish Apple would just leave the overall look the same as Catalina or actually improved it. It seems like their obsession with thinner hardware has now morphed into an obsession with thinner, less functional software, at least as far as the UI is concerned.

Big Sur is a big step back in the visual department...

 

[nickdalzell1]

They didn't flatten anything that wasn't already flat on Catalina from what I can see. But they added skeuo on the preferences menu, the battery health display. Hoping it's a sign of a return to skeuo later on in another release. I'm personally tired of flat design. Heck, I was tired of it back in the early 1990s as well when it was all a PC or 68K Mac could do. I am still unsure why we decided to regress to that time since we have more than capable machines today. This ain't the PowerPC era, or the 68K era, and we don't use CGA/EGA displays anymore or 640KB RAM. Flat design is ancient and it's been with us the second time for almost 8-9 years now. Time to stop.

 

[fisherking]

They didn't flatten anything that wasn't already flat on Catalina from what I can see. But they added skeuo on the preferences menu, the battery health display. Hoping it's a sign of a return to skeuo later on in another release. I'm personally tired of flat design. Heck, I was tired of it back in the early 1990s as well when it was all a PC or 68K Mac could do. I am still unsure why we decided to regress to that time since we have more than capable machines today. This ain't the PowerPC era, or the 68K era, and we don't use CGA/EGA displays anymore or 640KB RAM. Flat design is ancient and it's been with us the second time for almost 8-9 years now. Time to stop.

funny how we see things; i feel the opposite, that flat is simple, tasteful... modern. i'd hate to see notes (for example) as it once was; a notebook with some torn pages. it's not a notebook, it's an interpretation of one.

i prefer my earth round, my GUI flat. but who knows what we'll see in a few years, in a decade?....

 

[AAPLGeek]

They didn't flatten anything that wasn't already flat on Catalina from what I can see.

But they added skeuo on the preferences menu, the battery health display. Hoping it's a sign of a return to skeuo later on in another release.

Prepare to be disappointed.

 

[iModFrenzy]

Big Sur is like cancer, yes it grows on you, but then again it's still cancer. The menu bar is a part of, or extension of the applications on your machine that make use of it. Not a ****ing part of your wallpaper 😂 Apple's obsession with rounded edges/corners makes me seriously throw up a little. A dropdown menu cannot have rounded edges, because then it is simply not a dropdown menu anymore. It's just like a car, it can't have square wheels, because then it is no longer wheel anymore shape and function. You won't get very far with square wheels.

Oh man relax. Clearly, a dropdown CAN have edges. Still works the same way doesn't it?

If the menu broke functionality, I'd agree with your analogy. But it didn't, its purely cosmetic. So it's more like changing the rims of the wheel to a square than the wheel itself.

 

[Solomani]

This! I couldn't have said it better, thank you. People whine and bitch about he most insignificant interface changes such as new icons, relocated buttons, etc. As we speak there's a major ********* happening among Windows users caused by, you guessed it, a new Edge icon....

OMG a new Edge icon..... the catalyst for a Civil War!

 

[Wowfunhappy]

View attachment 945387

I don't think the right screenshot is necessarily flatter than the left. They got rid of the window chrome gradient, but in the Yosemite style that barely suggested depth anyway.

And then, the icons on in the Big Sur screenshot all have this beveled look which suggests layers.

I do think Big Sur is less flat overall, largely for reasons that aren't present in that screenshot. They added prominent drop shadows all over the place, again creating a layering effect.

 

[thadoggfather]

I actually dont find it ugly at all... with dark mode on

I'd have to take a good look at light mode to determine my views on that, but in that case, it probably does like a bit too minimal

Too much dead space on the new Safari though, thats got to go

 

[nickdalzell1]

What dead space in Safari? If anything, the browser now has more web page, less huge web browser control 'bezel'. I still wish I could hide the URL bar and buttons entirely and use the touch bar to do the job instead.