Yosemite looks terrible!

[vista980622]

A few of you may know that I generally speak favorably of Yosemite... While it hasn't changed (meaning I kinda like it - and I "got used" to the UI) earlier this week I experienced a major crash with Pro Tools at work (not related to Yosemite), which has subsequently rendered the application unusable. On a side note, I'm a musician working mostly in film music, so using Pro Tools and audio apps in not a hobby for me, I need them to work, to be stable and reliable as I make my living with them. Pro Tools was so painful to use that I had no choice but to backup all my important stuff on the internal drive and do a clean install of OS X, then reinstall all my audio apps (fortunately my samples and audio libraries are on other drives otherwise it would take ages to install everything again).

As I'm still not sure where the problem came from, I've decided to not only start fresh, but also start "safe". So I chose to install Mavericks instead.

...Well...

It feels better. It feels better that Lucida Grande is back, feels better that the Finder is much faster than Yosemite's (system prefs open instantly, lists appear instantly, no lag whatsoever, etc), feels better that I don't have to reduce transparency to gain 5-10% of cpu or to simply have readable menus. I was thinking I would see how it goes and go from 10.9 to 10.10 again on this machine (Mac Pro 12 cores mid-2012), but after 2 hours in 10.9 (currently updating to 10.9.5 and installing all my applications, I think I'll just stay in 10.9.5 for the time being. Since this morning I've witnessed pretty clearly that Mavericks performance is much, much better than 10.10 with all its (unnecessary) bells & whistles. Plus, my Mac is not my iPhone, I don't need to make calls from my computer, I don't need icould drive, you get the idea...

I do like 10.10, in fact I installed 10.10.2 yesterday on my Mac Pro 1,1 with no trouble, it works fine, it's stable, but I don't want a slow OS, I don't want to deactivate some functions to make it better. And I still find it too bright.

I know I often come to this thread to say that Yosemite is not as bad as people say, well while I do think it is indeed more than tolerable, today I have to admit I'm glad I'm back to Mavericks (maybe I'll downgrade my other Mac Pro as well). When Apple released Yosemite a few months ago, I thought it was better to keep up with the most current OS. It seemed at least as good as Mavericks in terms of speed so I figured well let's just get used to this new look, no big deal, and frankly I've never experienced any major issue with 10.10 (so far). I don't know if I was fooling myself regarding Yosemite's performance or if I'm just having a nostalgia moment, but 10.9.5 is now my home. Again.

Very well said.

 

[ToM7]

The most obvious reason for that is that all Macs capable of running Mountain Lion can be upgraded to Mavericks and Yosemite. However, Lion is the latest compatible version for many early Core 2 Duo Macs – there are still lots of them in use out there.

I personally can't think of a single reason to stay on Lion if my computer and the software I run on it are compatible with newer OS versions.

last week I saw somebody in the train with macbook air that running lion so I guess that the macbook is from 2011, so this's no exsaclly true
a lot of people don't know / care about update the OS X on their mac's (like a lot of pepole with iPhone's that can running iOS 8 but don't care / want / know to update their iPhone)
a lot of this people just said: it's working good for me so I don't need more than this

 

[hamis92]

last week I saw somebody in the train with macbook air that running lion so I guess that the macbook is from 2011, so this's no exsaclly true
a lot of people don't know / care about update the OS X on their mac's (like a lot of pepole with iPhone's that can running iOS 8 but don't care / want / know to update their iPhone)
a lot of this people just said: it's working good for me so I don't need more than this

Well I didn't say not being able to upgrade is the one and only reason people still run Lion on their Macs, I simply think it's probably (at least one of) the biggest.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

You can attach a delicated GPU to your Mac mini through a PCIe to Thunderbolt adapter and some kext modifications. There are many people who have done this.

The problem is the cost of doing that probably exceeds the cost of buying another computer just for gaming (i.e. those boxes are expensive).

And about young people liking it? I'm sixteen and I consider myself young. But I absolutely HATE THE LACK-OF-CONTRAST, OVERUSE OF TRANSLUCANCY AND OVER-SATURATED COLORS in Yosemite.

It might be OK when I surf the web, but when it comes to NLE editing and graphics design, it's absolutely horrible and uninspiring.

Obviously, no generality will fit all people.

 

[redheeler]

But I absolutely HATE THE LACK-OF-CONTRAST, OVERUSE OF TRANSLUCANCY AND OVER-SATURATED COLORS in Yosemite.

ok.

 

[sgtbob]

Yosemite

I'm running Yosemite 10.10.2 on an iMAC, 24-inch, early 2008, with 4 GB RAM and it works well on this system. I do not seem to have the issues iterated in this subject, but maybe I'm not into a lot of heavy use programs. So far, it has worked for me and I am reasonably happy with it.

 

[Traverse]

I'm running Yosemite 10.10.2 on an iMAC, 24-inch, early 2008, with 4 GB RAM and it works well on this system. I do not seem to have the issues iterated in this subject, but maybe I'm not into a lot of heavy use programs. So far, it has worked for me and I am reasonably happy with it.

Well, this thread is more about aesthetics and usability than performance.

 

[Traverse]

I have written about this point earlier in this thread, but its probably a good idea to repeat myself here. I believe that you are misjudging the situation. Apple is not "lazily" integrating back its mobile innovation into desktop, Apple is using the mobile as an experimentation platform for its innovations. This is particularly clear when you look at the developer APIs. Apple would bring them for iOS, then tweak/improve them and bring that improved version to OS X.

As such, this approach has a number of important advantages and no drawbacks that I can see (except feature envy). The mobile platform is volatile, has more developers and users, devices are rotated quickly and the upgrade rates are very high. This all makes it more forgiving to radical changes. In a nutshell, if you mess up an API or fundamental design with the mobile OS, you can usually fix it next year. If you mess it up on the desktop OS, you'll have a problem supporting all the apps that were released using your broken API.

This is an excellent and logic post. Kudos.

 

[Traverse]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R41NNPBqRCk&app=desktop

Remember when iPad use to be fun to use

This is exactly what I miss about Apple! Thank you!

Their devices were different and fun. Windows used blurred glass and Aero while OS X used a notepad. Little animations and textures were fun. I'm not opposed to flat or "modern" if it is implemented correctly, but Apple failed there. Look at iBooks. Why is having a virtual bookshelf bad? Why do we need some funky blurred glass shelf thing.

It's cold and unwelcoming now.

----------

I only want 1 feature request for Mac OS 10.11 and iOS 9. Skins/Themes so you could have the iOS 6 look or the Snow Leopard look. As much as Yosemite has grown on me now the glossy, shinny, 3D look is the best looking interface, its what made me take an interest in the Mac and moved me from Windows and it should still be there for those who want it.

I just want a "Bold Text" option.

 

[AFEPPL]

Lol. i hate... i love....

Two threads side by side. The haters seem to have it won over 2.5k replies against, vs 300+ for.. Shows, you cant pls all the people, all the time..

 

[ZVH]

Lol. i hate... i love....

Two threads side by side. The haters seem to have it won over 2.5k replies against, vs 300+ for.. Shows, you cant pls all the people, all the time..

It's a radical design and radical departure that no one was asking for. I don't remember ever seeing complaints about version changes of this intensity in any releases prior to Yosemite, and I don't remember seeing any of the reviews in the App Store that were complaints based solely on its appearance. Words like "childish," "infantile," "ugly," "looks like it was done by children," and "cheap" are not words of high praise.

 

[Etan1000]

It's a radical design and radical departure that no one was asking for. I don't remember ever seeing complaints about version changes of this intensity in any releases prior to Yosemite, and I don't remember seeing any of the reviews in the App Store that were complaints based solely on its appearance. Words like "childish," "infantile," "ugly," "looks like it was done by children," and "cheap" are not words of high praise.

Very well put! Thank you!

And not to mention the fact that those who are ridiculing those of us who complain, suggesting that we are just a bunch of old fuddy-duddys who can't accept "modern styles" are completely oversimplifying our complaints, overlooking the fact that the functionality of the interface has been seriously impaired!

Straining to read many parts of the operating system, like the dropdown menu items and the functional parts of Safari, etc. means our work output is substantially reduced, and we are getting headaches and eyestrain.

So it isn't just about the aesthetics of the "kindergarten look" bad as that is!

Best wishes, Etan

 

[Ulenspiegel]

Very well put! Thank you!

And not to mention the fact that those who are ridiculing those of us who complain, suggesting that we are just a bunch of old fuddy-duddys who can't accept "modern styles" are completely oversimplifying our complaints, overlooking the fact that the functionality of the interface has been seriously impaired!

Straining to read many parts of the operating system, like the dropdown menu items and the functional parts of Safari, etc. means our work output is substantially reduced, and we are getting headaches and eyestrain.

So it isn't just about the aesthetics of the "kindergarten look" bad as that is!

Best wishes, Etan

I agree with you 100%!

Cheers, an "old fuddy-duddy" who is open to novelties.

 

[joedec]

Retina reviews are not exactly accurate

Well I finally found time to visit an Apple store and see how the Yosemite looks across the entire product line.

I was pleasantly surprised, my main concern the Thunderbolt Display, it looked great. Same with nonRetina iMacs and Macbook Airs. Of course the Retina Macbook Pros and 5K iMac are really really nice, but we already knew that.

Across the new product line the colors look crisp and edges are sharp, I found slight pixelation when viewing from the dock in fan mode, that's it.

I believe the issues are that Apple didn't do the best job on older graphics adapters. Poor implementation of the color maps for non glare screens in particular.

The upside is Apple looks really good for the future, the down side is replacing "all" these machines is not an option for me.

PS What I mean by the title is that I'm refuting the comments that Yosemite is "Retina Only" posted repeating throughout these forums.

 

[Etan1000]

Well I finally found time to visit an Apple store and see how the Yosemite looks across the entire product line.

I was pleasantly surprised, my main concern the Thunderbolt Display, it looked great. Same with nonRetina iMacs and Macbook Airs. Of course the Retina Macbook Pros and 5K iMac are really really nice, but we already knew that.

Across the new product line the colors look crisp and edges are sharp, I found slight pixelation when viewing from the dock in fan mode, that's it.

I believe the issues are that Apple didn't do the best job on older graphics adapters. Poor implementation of the color maps for non glare screens in particular.

The upside is Apple looks really good for the future, the down side is replacing "all" these machines is not an option for me.

PS What I mean by the title is that I'm refuting the comments that Yosemite is "Retina Only" posted repeating throughout these forums.

I'm glad to be reassured that the Macs on display in Apple Stores look great, but this reminds me of a similar phenomenon when shopping for TV sets by looking at floor displays in the TV display department of stores. The lighting conditions in an Apple Store (and I was in a brand new Apple Store a few weeks ago, in which an Apple Genius was bragging to me about the unique new lighting and pointing out its features) would in most cases be very difficult and impractical to reproduce in a typical work environment in an office or at home.

At least when shopping for a TV set, one can follow Consumer Reports advice to ask the salesperson to turn off the special store display setting. It's one single setting.

There is no such single setting on Macs with Yosemite. There is only a combination of multiple settings to be tried by trial and error in order to achieve the "least worst" display on non-Retina Macs running Yosemite. Finding that best setting is now like trying to achieve the perfect hand in draw poker. Each adjustment is like "Should I keep my four clubs and discard and draw one and hope to complete my flush; or should I only keep the pair and discard and draw three, hoping to wind up with two pair or maybe even a full house?"

Maybe Apple can come up with a one-button switch for various typical office and home settings? - something we never needed for non-Retina Macs before Yosemite.

Best wishes, Etan

 

[Masada31]

This is exactly what I miss about Apple! Thank you!

I have my iPad with iOS 6 still and there is not a day that I don't love using it. It's when your in a cafe and everyone has there iPads on iOS 8 you get comments like I really miss iOS 6 or look at ibooks how nice it was ..or i wish I did not upgrade. Apple have taken all the fun out of there products and I think Jony Ive has a lot to do with that. There is too much white in iOS 8 and it's just so boring to use .

 

[Sanlitun]

Well I finally found time to visit an Apple store and see how the Yosemite looks across the entire product line.

I was pleasantly surprised, my main concern the Thunderbolt Display, it looked great. Same with nonRetina iMacs and Macbook Airs. Of course the Retina Macbook Pros and 5K iMac are really really nice, but we already knew that.

PS What I mean by the title is that I'm refuting the comments that Yosemite is "Retina Only" posted repeating throughout these forums.

I recently bought a refurb Mac Pro and have been more than a little disappointed with the blurry text while using an LG 34UM95-P. I can use it for maybe a couple of hours before the eyestrain becomes impossible.

I have probably spent all of my time with the Mac so far tweaking the text settings and display calibration to produce sharper fonts, but of course there is no way to completely disable font smoothing in Yosemite. Calibration seems to be quite important, if you have the gamma or brightness too high it will affect the font edges quite a bit.

Anyways, there are a couple of Apple stores near here and I was able to go and look at all of the other Macs and in general I found text was still soft and fuzzy even on the 5K iMac. Perhaps it was a bit better on the laptops, but it would still cause eyestrain for me. So retina or not I found it all to be less than ideal.

 

[Etan1000]

I recently bought a refurb Mac Pro and have been more than a little disappointed with the blurry text while using an LG 34UM95-P. I can use it for maybe a couple of hours before the eyestrain becomes impossible.

I have probably spent all of my time with the Mac so far tweaking the text settings and display calibration to produce sharper fonts, but of course there is no way to completely disable font smoothing in Yosemite. Calibration seems to be quite important, if you have the gamma or brightness too high it will affect the font edges quite a bit.

Anyways, there are a couple of Apple stores near here and I was able to go and look at all of the other Macs and in general I found text was still soft and fuzzy even on the 5K iMac. Perhaps it was a bit better on the laptops, but it would still cause eyestrain for me. So retina or not I found it all to be less than ideal.

They have really screwed up, and if Jony Ive is as prideful a man as I am guessing he is, I am not optimistic about this getting fixed, especially with all the younger Mac users laughing at us and singing Yosemite's praises, as if this is only about the so-called new kindergarten look which many of them adore, and not about vision and usability. I for one really don't appreciate them ridiculing our struggles to get our work done on our Macs, or our legitimate complaints about eyestrain, headaches and shorter work sessions, as if our concerns have no validity.

Unless you have already done so, would you please be sure to go to Apple's feedback site below in my signature, and add your complaints?

Best, Etan

 

[Sabretooth78]

Allow me to say that I'm inching into the lower limits of age-related eyestrain issues and while Yosemite didn't give me eyestrain issues, after upgrading back to Mavericks I did notice that the overall look and scheme is a whole lot "easier" to look at. That said, it did actually take me a few hours to fully reacclimate to the old color balance/scheme but once I did I don't notice it anymore. Unless you need some of the newer features (besides handoff and batch renaming, are there any?), go back to Mavericks. There's no point in killing yourself just to keep up with a directionless brand's latest trend.

I will say that I do not own a retina display and I didn't think Yosemite looked any worse from a readability standpoint in and of itself. (Disclaimer: I've never viewed it on a retina display so I have no real basis for comparison.) Frankly, I found Helvetica Neue to be crisper and slightly easier to read than Lucida Grande, in the menu bar at least. (In an overall sense, I still prefer LG, just wish I could keep HN in the menu bar.) Perhaps the biggest problem I had was in the dock folder flyouts that I like to use, making the icon labels a light grey on a slightly darker grey/transparent-ish background...Jony, what were you thinking? Is OS 10.11 going to feature yellow menu bar text on a white background? I'd guarantee the fanboys would still eat it up! I dealt with the transparency effects because while I liked some aspects of the high-contrast setting, it didn't seem fully fleshed out and all in all I thought it looked even worse.

Mostly, though, I appreciate Mavericks because for all its flaws, 4 days after doing a clean install I've ironed out the settings and have everything running smoothly again. I wasn't able to achieve that with Yosemite in nearly 3 months. My Mac is also thanking me with its lower memory usage and I no longer hear the HDD crackling away even when it's sitting idle. Allowing Apple users the opportunity to experience the pleasures of Microsoft OSs must also be part of Yosemite's "fresh new look". A polished, working OS X - that's so 2000s. Maybe 10.11 will feature a registry, if we're lucky.

To further establish my eyestrain "credentials", let me say that I can't look at my phone (Samsung Galaxy S4) for more than a few minutes or do any amount of reading on my work computer (laptop screen or docked monitors) running Windows 7 without experiencing issues.

 

[joedec]

Allow me to say that I'm inching into the lower limits of age-related eyestrain issues and while Yosemite didn't give me eyestrain issues, after upgrading back to Mavericks I did notice that the overall look and scheme is a whole lot "easier" to look at. That said, it did actually take me a few hours to fully reacclimate to the old color balance/scheme but once I did I don't notice it anymore. Unless you need some of the newer features (besides handoff and batch renaming, are there any?), go back to Mavericks. There's no point in killing yourself just to keep up with a directionless brand's latest trend.

I will say that I do not own a retina display and I didn't think Yosemite looked any worse from a readability standpoint in and of itself. (Disclaimer: I've never viewed it on a retina display so I have no real basis for comparison.) Frankly, I found Helvetica Neue to be crisper and slightly easier to read than Lucida Grande, in the menu bar at least. (In an overall sense, I still prefer LG, just wish I could keep HN in the menu bar.) Perhaps the biggest problem I had was in the dock folder flyouts that I like to use, making the icon labels a light grey on a slightly darker grey/transparent-ish background...Jony, what were you thinking? Is OS 10.11 going to feature yellow menu bar text on a white background? I'd guarantee the fanboys would still eat it up! I dealt with the transparency effects because while I liked some aspects of the high-contrast setting, it didn't seem fully fleshed out and all in all I thought it looked even worse.

Mostly, though, I appreciate Mavericks because for all its flaws, 4 days after doing a clean install I've ironed out the settings and have everything running smoothly again. I wasn't able to achieve that with Yosemite in nearly 3 months. My Mac is also thanking me with its lower memory usage and I no longer hear the HDD crackling away even when it's sitting idle. Allowing Apple users the opportunity to experience the pleasures of Microsoft OSs must also be part of Yosemite's "fresh new look". A polished, working OS X - that's so 2000s. Maybe 10.11 will feature a registry, if we're lucky.

To further establish my eyestrain "credentials", let me say that I can't look at my phone (Samsung Galaxy S4) for more than a few minutes or do any amount of reading on my work computer (laptop screen or docked monitors) running Windows 7 without experiencing issues.

Regarding, Fan mode from the dock, or as you say "dock folder flyouts" the Apple store machines are are set to Grid, seems they are aware that it looks bad and change accordingly, the default is Automatic and in most cases you'll see Fan mode.

I hate this too, but I see this as a quality problem more than a design problem, or maybe we should say quality issue caused by design.

 

[F1Mac]

Unless you need some of the newer features (besides handoff and batch renaming, are there any?), go back to Mavericks.

Actually yes, among them a new notification center a new spotlight, both much more useful than before. Spotlight in Mavericks is a real pain to be honest.

 

[joedec]

I'm glad to be reassured that the Macs on display in Apple Stores look great, but this reminds me of a similar phenomenon when shopping for TV sets by looking at floor displays in the TV display department of stores. The lighting conditions in an Apple Store (and I was in a brand new Apple Store a few weeks ago, in which an Apple Genius was bragging to me about the unique new lighting and pointing out its features) would in most cases be very difficult and impractical to reproduce in a typical work environment in an office or at home.

At least when shopping for a TV set, one can follow Consumer Reports advice to ask the salesperson to turn off the special store display setting. It's one single setting.

There is no such single setting on Macs with Yosemite. There is only a combination of multiple settings to be tried by trial and error in order to achieve the "least worst" display on non-Retina Macs running Yosemite. Finding that best setting is now like trying to achieve the perfect hand in draw poker. Each adjustment is like "Should I keep my four clubs and discard and draw one and hope to complete my flush; or should I only keep the pair and discard and draw three, hoping to wind up with two pair or maybe even a full house?"

Maybe Apple can come up with a one-button switch for various typical office and home settings? - something we never needed for non-Retina Macs before Yosemite.

Best wishes, Etan

The ambient light sensor is suppose to solve these sort of problems. The MBP had issues running Yosemite early on, found myself manually adjusting brightness, that seems to have settled down in the last couple releases.

I don't have an iMac, do iMacs have ambient light sensors?

 

[BradHatter]

They (Apple) had the public beta of this thing. I wonder if instead of relying on their own quality control group they figured that they could do it on the cheap by having users report their errors to them, but the users didn't. QC people are required to find and report bugs, but a third party public beta user may very well see a problem and then just say to themselves, "Weil, it's just a beta, I'm sure they'll fix it." Filling out a bug report for Apple is time consuming.

 

[n-evo]

[...] (system prefs open instantly, lists appear instantly, no lag whatsoever, etc)[...]

The System Preferences preference panes lag has been fixed in v10.10.3.

 

[Eithanius]

The System Preferences preference panes lag has been fixed in v10.10.3.

Not from my end... I still see lags and flickerings...