Yosemite looks terrible!

[Harshan]

Yosemite is indeed a bad design

It doesn't really matter how many people like Yosemite's flat, retro-60s Hanna-Barbera, Saturday-morning cartoon look, with unearthly colors and reduced visual information (my bias), what matters is not how many like it but how many people dislike it.

If 2% of customers dislike a design, it is a good design. If 20% of the customers dislike the design, it is a bad design in need of change, even though 80% like it. You can't exist if you keep reducing your customer base by 20%. Every time Apple makes a change to the UI, there are people who don't like it, and we should expect that. However, in this case, a large enough number of people dislike the UI "design" of iOS and OS X that it qualifies for being a controversial design.

Steve Jobs said that Apple doesn't want to conquer the world, only earn money for its shareholders. Controversy doesn't sell products. Controversy reduces the amount of money Apple earns for its shareholders. If Jony Ive had been designing Apple's UIs in the 1990s when Apple was particularly vulnerable, there would be no Apple today at all.

Whether you love it or hate it, you have to admit that this UI is not doing Apple any favors. It has to go.

 

[F1Mac]

If 2% of customers dislike a design, it is a good design. If 20% of the customers dislike the design, it is a bad design in need of change, even though 80% like it. You can't exist if you keep reducing your customer base by 20%.

Where do those numbers come from?

 

[Harshan]

The 2% and the 20%

Perhaps I should have said, "a small group" and "a sizeable minority."

The point stands. What makes a design good is not its artistic merits or lack of them, but whether people like it and use it. A good design does not call attention to itself. The UI doesn't exist to be beautiful, it exists to make the software and its features accessible to the user.

Skeuomorphism is only bad because because Jony said so, and because Jony can't draw. He's an industrial designer, and industrial designers don't draw things. They work in surfaces, edges, and overall form. Unfortunately, a UI requires drawings to make icons that tell us which does what. Without some skeuomorphism, there's no way to tell which icon stands for what.

Jony is the sole author of this UI and has final say on it.

 

[F1Mac]

The point stands. What makes a design good is not its artistic merits or lack of them, but whether people like it and use it. A good design does not call attention to itself. The UI doesn't exist to be beautiful, it exists to make the software and its features accessible to the user.

But Yosemite is not beautiful, it's terrible!

Skeuomorphism is only bad because because Jony said so, and because Jony can't draw. He's an industrial designer, and industrial designers don't draw things. They work in surfaces, edges, and overall form. Unfortunately, a UI requires drawings to make icons that tell us which does what. Without some skeuomorphism, there's no way to tell which icon stands for what.

Application icons still do show some slight form of skeumorphism imo. Buttons have been oversimplified, but one could argue that we already knew their function since a lot of them come from iOS.

I can understand some of them are more difficult to "decode" than others, but I do like a somewhat neutral interface.

It's ultrapolished skeumorphism that, to me, makes a UI look like a fisher-price toy.

 

[AndreSt]

Application icons still do show some slight form of skeumorphism imo.

It would ultimately be possible to replace the icons with colorless buttons and only non telling abbreviations (e.g. Ps for Photoshop or Fi for Finder).

Maybe Apple should try this in iOS first.

I highly doubt positive customer reaction though.

 

[hamis92]

...and because Jony can't draw. He's an industrial designer, and industrial designers don't draw things. They work in surfaces, edges, and overall form.

I hope you were joking, because what you said there couldn't be further away from the truth. As an industrial designer I can tell you that drawing is one of the most essential skills ever needed in this profession. When you design a product, no matter what it is, you never go straight to the workshop to work with the actual materials: every product, every detail, everything you work with is ultimately based on a drawing, from which you then iterate by making more drawings. Lots of them. Hundreds of them.

So please, don't tell me industrial designers don't draw.

 

[NT1440]

Skeuomorphism is only bad because because Jony said so, and because Jony can't draw. He's an industrial designer, and industrial designers don't draw things. They work in surfaces, edges, and overall form. Unfortunately, a UI requires drawings to make icons that tell us which does what. Without some skeuomorphism, there's no way to tell which icon stands for what.

Jony is the sole author of this UI and has final say on it.

You may want to read a book or two on who Jony Ive is....

 

[grahamperrin]

Numbers of signatures to petitions

Not too many people signing this

From https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=20258346#post20258346:

The low number of signatures … may indicate that the majority of people who prefer the appearance of pre-Yosemite operating systems are happy to vent steam in public in an isolated way; not yet inclined to engage in group action.

That particular petition is somewhat emotionally charged, debatably too narrow in scope. I would have not described the theme of Mavericks – a current OS distribution – as 'old', and so on. But I'm not here to dissect that petition (I find it easy to think of improvements to other people's work, but terribly difficult to be creative – to begin something). I wholeheartedly thank the person who began that petition.

I recall signing another OS X-related petition at change.org in early February 2013. The number of signatures suddenly leapt – if I recall correctly, from less than a hundred, to thousands – following a brief article in a respected publication.

 

[F1Mac]

You may want to read a book or two on who Jony Ive is....

Not to mention his role at Apple since the early 90s, and his close relationship with Steve Jobs when he came back in 1997. Apparently Jobs had the highest respect for him.

On a side note, this whole "it would have never happened with Steve Jobs" has to stop. Nobody will ever know what would/could/should have happened, period. Time to move on. Apple respects and honors his legacy, and Apple is a very different company now than it was in 1995 (...my first mac, a 7200! LOL good memories!!!! ). Maybe he would have approved Yosemite, maybe he would have done it differently, we'll never know. And we don't have to know.

 

[hamis92]

I recall signing another OS X-related petition at change.org in early February 2013. The number of signatures suddenly leapt – if I recall correctly, from less than a hundred, to thousands – following a brief article in a respected publication.

I can't speak for everyone else, but at least my reason for not signing that petition is simply that I don't believe something like that will turn any heads and ignite change within Apple. Feedback is much more valuable and likely to get at least noticed when sent directly to Apple via their own website.

 

[Partron22]

On a side note, this whole "it would have never happened with Steve Jobs" has to stop.

People seem to forget that Jobs is the guy who recessed the torx screw heads so far into the original Macintosh case that you had to build a special bit holding tool just so you could open the Mac up, void the warranty, and replace that wimpy 128K of memory with a far more manly 512K. That later amount would allow you to copy an entire floppy disk with only 1 swap.
Jobs did a lot of weird/displeasing things.

 

[grahamperrin]

Star ratings, jokes, yelps and good old Apple

App Store star rating for Yosemite is down to four (from 4.5) in the US, with around eighteen percent of voters (1,699) hating it.

In the UK, Yosemite dropped from five stars to four with around fourteen percent of voters (475) hating it; and OS X 10.9.5 (Mavericks) had four stars before Yosemite was released.

I guess that a majority of customers who hate Yosemite hate it due to perceived bugs, not looks. App Store design makes it unnecessarily difficult to make good use of customer reviews. I'll revisit this maybe a few hours from now.

I hope you were joking …

I can't speak for Harshan, but I certainly lose some ability to write rationally when describing something that was so hideous, it made me yelp.

Yelping aside, there's this –

Plain cigarette packaging to be designed by Apple’s Jony Ive

– joking, but not at the customers' expense.

Then there's Apple. Is someone there avin a laugh, or what?

– if you've never heard that said in a Dagenham (or other appropriate) accent, the meaning might be lost.​

… "it would have never happened with Steve Jobs" has to stop. …

If you succeed in stopping that, we'll be left with something less tangible as a point of reference: "it would have never happened with the old, good, Apple".

 

[grahamperrin]

How likely is it that you would recommend OS X Yosemite to a friend or colleague?

A link to a very simple poll.

Not about levels of reliability, not about perceptions of beauty or ugliness … nothing deep or contentious. Simply the likelihood of you making the recommendation …

How likely is it that you would recommend OS X Yosemite to a friend or colleague?

 

[F1Mac]

Apple Seeds First OS X 10.10.1 Yosemite Beta to Developers.

https://www.macrumors.com/2014/11/03/first-yosemite-10-10-1-beta-now-available/?utm_source=osx&utm_medium=push&utm_campaign=front

 

[smoking monkey]

Perhaps I should have said, "a small group" and "a sizeable minority."

The point stands. What makes a design good is not its artistic merits or lack of them, but whether people like it and use it. A good design does not call attention to itself. The UI doesn't exist to be beautiful, it exists to make the software and its features accessible to the user.

Skeuomorphism is only bad because because Jony said so, and because Jony can't draw. He's an industrial designer, and industrial designers don't draw things. They work in surfaces, edges, and overall form.

Jony is the sole author of this UI and has final say on it.

This thread is called: Yosemite looks Terrible.

Therefore we are discussing and debating purely the "look" of Yosemite. Something that a lot of detractors are forgetting. Your valid beefs with UI design is not the question here. It's purely the look.

as for the poster who asked would I recommend Yosemite in its current form? No, I wouldn't... even though I like it. There are still major bugs in the software regarding wifi in particular that need sorting out immediately. I'm guessing most people who wouldn't recommend it base this opinion on software bugs or UI versus the looks. Obviously I can't back that up, but this is my opinion.

 

[nubizus]

Guys just give up. Nobody cares enough to make a change. For start i am feeling like this is long forgotten case of Windows XP where i was changing themes to make it more usable and appealing. Change system font to Lucida Grande, change all icons with custom icons, there are still available on icon factory web site. Than spend some hours on cleaning stupid things in spotlight, safari and finder and everything will be bearable. I personally feel that general direction of Apple is to make laptops obsolete with pro version of iPad, than workstations will be only for users tied to the ecosystem of apps and services. May be cross os is on the works now, and will be like Windows 10, changing some interfaces specific to desktop interaction but making more room for touch apps. Os X will die when users lose access and control over experience. When the only experience is like in iOS. Locked.

 

[grahamperrin]

Looks, design, visual design, user experience, tolerability …

Scope

… we are discussing and debating purely the "look" of Yosemite. … UI design is not the question here. It's purely the look.

Whilst I'd like to understand more about people's definitions of looks and design, it's too late to redefine the scope of this topic. In particular, with respect to the opening post:

• the opening poster described the designer as "pretty clueless".

… would I recommend Yosemite in its current form? No …

I see that you have not yet responded to the poll …

There are still major bugs in the software regarding wifi in particular

… Wi-Fi is not a look

More broadly: if looks are a primary/essential part of the user experience – as I expect they are for many sighted and vision-impaired people – then I believe that it's fair to include UX in the discussion. The first mention of UX was less than four days after discussion began; the worst of the looks made the user experience ultimately intolerable for me; and so on.

More broadly: design. I reckon that there's severe criticism of at least half of what Apple's classes as design.

It might be reasonable to:

• treat the design of Yosemite as on-topic
• treat anything that does not affect the looks of Yosemite as off-topic.

Apple's least bearable operating system design yet?

… everything will be bearable …

That is a nice wish, but as addressed – to all readers – it's not true.

Not only in MacRumors Forums. In a variety of media it's noted that some people can't bear the looks (or visual design or user experience or whatever) of Yosemite – so much so, that these people either:

• simply continue using what's more appealing to them (usually Mavericks); or
• take active steps to abandon Yosemite (e.g. try it, reject it, restore Mavericks).

Why should any Apple customer have go to so much effort to make a product 'bearable'? By avoiding most of what Apple thought was good about its design of Yosemite, for limited periods I could treat the operating system as

… tolerable, but I want my preferred operating system to appear more than just just tolerable. …I want better …

– and I want Apple to allow customers, including those whose Macs will be limited to Yosemite, a better-looking operating system. One size did not, does not fit all! It stinks that such a contentious design is forced upon all users of Yosemite.

 

[smoking monkey]

Scope
1. Whilst I'd like to understand more about people's definitions of looks and design, it's too late to redefine the scope of this topic. In particular, with respect to the opening post:

• the opening poster described the designer as "pretty clueless".

2. I see that you have not yet responded to the poll …
… Wi-Fi is not a look

1. I think you are manipulating the first post to suit your agenda. I very clearly feel the OP is about the looks. The Central theme and contention is Looks. I'm certainly not the one trying to redefine the OP topic and title. Perhaps a mirror might help you

2. And I won't be responding as the poll is without merit because of the (lack of) parameters set out.

"Not about levels of reliability, not about perceptions of beauty or ugliness … nothing deep or contentious. Simply the likelihood of you making the recommendation"

How can you recommend or not without basing it on something? Like I said, I wouldn't recommend it based on wifi issues. I would recommend it based on looks, ease of use and new features. See how more balanced that answer is?

 

[Proginoskes]

Finder: Artistic Disaster, are we all supposed to think "inside the box" from now on? Sideways dude has been mutilated.
...

Here's some constructive criticism for a change:

If you don't like the icons, you can change them (like I did).

LiteIcon will help with the trash icons -- you need to replace both the "empty" icon and the "full" icon.

I haven't figured out how to fix the Fetch icon, though; it uses an internal image when files are uploading or downloading. (I'm sorry, but I never liked the way that dog looked ... I have a dachshund for the static image.)

 

[grahamperrin]

Spoiler alert

… I think …

… I won't be responding as the poll is without merit because of the (lack of) parameters set out. It feels like a deliberate case of manipulation to achieve a certain result. …

How can you recommend or not without basing it on something?

I think the link to the poll was not followed by smoking monkey. I think that, because the first article linked from beneath the poll both (a) explains the parameters and (b) answers the question above. The link was provided, from the outset, to quell any reader's concern about an intention to manipulate. As I wrote, please simply:

1. first click the button that matches your feeling
2. then, only if you wish to know a little more about the {spoiler alert} follow either of the links …

– and the first plea was repeated; if you view the topic, you'll see that none of the thirty voters has argued against that plea.

Hint: to any reader who doubts me so much that it's felt necessary to ignore that plea – if, for example, you read about the best practices before voting – it's possible that the reading will bias a voting behaviour. That's the opposite of what I'd like.

(I did the proper thing: I refrained before voting, I considered the single sentence that comprises the poll, I waited a while – three hours – before voting, I did not intentionally vote in an extreme manner, then I learnt how the results of the poll might be interpreted.)

Like I said, I wouldn't recommend it based on wifi issues. I would recommend it based on looks, ease of use and new features. See how more balanced that answer is?

Those will be good answers to a more probing question, or set of questions. If you can trust my plea – if you can simply vote first and then read about the best practices – you will very soon discover the rationale (not my own) for me making this particular poll simple instead of probing.

It's not 3rd grade!

My repeated attempts to not bias the results of a poll. Your apparent attempts to dismiss my attempts as childish and/or manipulative. My ignorance of what exactly "third grade" is in childish terms (my schooling ended in 1981, in the UK, where that phrase was never used; for me, third year was aged around fourteen). Those things and many more are off-topic from the looks of Yosemite ;-)

 

[One13Truck]

Well I voted 0 in the poll. And I also did my part today by informing a friend who was considering updating to Yosemite of just how awful it is. He has smartly decided to stay on Mavericks.

I'm still wasting time trying to tweak and fix all the garbage that Yosemite is. And yes, I do blame Ive. Defend him all you want. He's the one that is in charge and oversaw everything. Now it's time for him to take his fall and be gone so this can get fixed before the OS and iOS get ruined any more than they already have been.

 

[Partron22]

Here's some constructive criticism for a change:

If you don't like the icons, you can change them (like I did).

Already changed the worst. But after messing with such OS tweaks for years, I realize that it's a futile or even counterproductive pursuit. The next major update'll just change em back, or worse, the changes will have unforseen consequences. Apple's been actively working against user OS customization since Jobs returned: no more ResEdit, no more Kaleidoscope, irreversibly compiled resources, checksums, tighter and tighter sandboxing.
"Dark mode" was likely a nod to some internal faction that isn't entirely comfortable with the company's policy of artistic hegemony, but if so, it's a bit on the half-assed side, no? Given this history of locking things down, Apple owes it's customer base icons that don't hurt their eyes. If they want to get sloppy, and I can see why they might given the sheer size of the OS, they need to provide an Apple sanctioned method of skinning the UI.

 

[smoking monkey]

1. I think the link to the poll was not followed by smoking monkey. I think that, because... click the button that matches your feeling. then, only if you wish to know a little more about the {spoiler alert} follow either of the links …[/LIST]

2. Your apparent attempts to dismiss my attempts as childish and/or manipulative. My ignorance of what exactly "third grade" is in childish terms (my schooling ended in 1981, in the UK, where that phrase was never used; for me, third year was aged around fourteen). Those things and many more are off-topic from the looks of Yosemite ;-)

1. Ha! You got me, but that's your own fault. Your poll is called: How likely is it that you would recommend OS X Yosemite to a friend or colleague?
You asked for nothing for this to be based on... Let me quote you...

"Not whether you would recommend it based on its levels of reliability, not whether you would recommend it based on its degrees of beauty, and so on; simply the likelihood of you making the recommendation"

IF one can't factor in the inherent qualities of the product that would form the recommendation, then how does one recommend it or not? It's a metaphysical OS! But I digress, we are moving into Pete and Bernie's Philosophical steakhouse territory here.




2. Your M.O. so far on this thread and its polar opposite don't lend well to thinking you don't have an agenda. Apologies if that's not true, but that's how it comes off.

Oh, and you gave yourself away when you said I was attempting to dismiss your attempts as childish. So you do know what 3rd grade means.

Actually, I'm sure if you ask a 3rd grader they'd quite like the look of Yosemite. Now there's a poll!

Anyway, I've got no more to say on this thread as I've said all I've wanted to. Good luck to those who don't like the looks of it. It's only a year, I'm sure they'll change it again in 2015.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

I guess that a majority of customers who hate Yosemite hate it due to perceived bugs, not looks. App Store design makes it unnecessarily difficult to make good use of customer reviews. I'll revisit this maybe a few hours from now.

Based on the "functional" changes of iTunes 12 and 11 (e.g. killed the true side-bar that made it easy to do everything from one view in 12; you still can't resize icons in "movies" view and you still don't have cover-flow for that mode so the mode is ugly as crap or has no artwork in list mode without making the list "fat"); in 11 to further the "borderless look" they removed the easy-to-read speaker button that would tell you which speakers are in use for a hidden behind the icon in the upper left side that has no room to tell you which speakers are in use. EVERYTHING they do is to promote a "minimalist LOOK" but it's just a LOOK. You lose all this power without the full interface and whereas before they just hid the power modes, now they're starting to just flat out remove features in favor of even less buttons and dialogues. The "get info" button is now compromised as well. Things should be better not just different.

I can only imagine the functional change horrors of Yosemite. I refuse to install it when I see no serious improvements offhand to OS X that aren't simply to cater to the iPhone crowd. Frankly, if it weren't for improved monitor support, I would have preferred Mountain Lion to Mavericks.

I can't speak for Harshan, but I certainly lose some ability to write rationally when describing something that was so hideous, it made me yelp.

Jobs may have respected Jony's abilities to design hardware, but making a nice looking CASE and making a nice looking GUI interface are two different things entirely. I can't put all the blame on Jony, though. Apple in the '80s and '90s were notorious for making dumbed-down interfaces with no power features and no real multitasking for the masses. It's why I HATED Apple back then. I used an Amiga 500 in the late '80s and an Amiga 3000 throughout most of the '90s. I reluctantly bought a PC in 1999 and went through Win98 and later WinXP. I bought a Mac in 2005 and built a gaming PC in 2006 and haven't bought a PC since but have gotten two more Macs and one Hackintosh netbook since then along with three Apple TVs and two iPod Touches. The reason is OS X!

OS X did the impossible for Apple. It made the Mac a respectable powerful computer with real multitasking and even more impressive, it tamed UNIX (something I once thought impossible) and even made it a pleasure to use! Two decades since I first tried Linux and I still can't stand it. Yes, it looks polished on the surface now, but it doesn't take long before you realize you're either extremely dependent on repositories to get software in a reasonable time-frame for your particular Linux "flavor" or you're right back to 1995 building your own software yourself with compilers and making a mess that gets screwed over sooner or later when it's time to update the kernel (either let their updater screw it up or pray that it doesn't or start compiling yourself. I had several builds screw up several updates so I'm not exaggerating when I say "their" updates don't work. You always end up installing from scratch and losing all your application configurations, etc. in the process. At best, you can keep your documents. It reminds me of Windows come to think of it....

Apple has actually done a respectable job of making it simple to update the OS and even move configurations over from machine to machine. It even moved my PPC machine over to the Mac Mini without much difficulty (only a few PPC only apps failed by that point). Even more impressive, you can easily boot from an external drive as if it were the internal one and thus make fully functional backups that make it a breeze to do things like change internal drives (even on Macbooks) and go back to older versions if they really screw something up royally. It's a nightmare in Windows to make true backups that "just work" on a reboot. I've used several packages and it's downright scary when it comes time to test them with a real problem.

But Apple is taking a nice functional OS that could use some real improvements (even better multi-monitor support, various bugs that need fixed they keep ignoring like no movable side-bar dock) and better gaming support in both drivers and OpenGL updates and hardware (Apple has had GPUs behind the curve for the past decade; they seem gung-ho to improve iOS graphics but don't seem to give a crap about the Mac unless it's to drive a bigger monitor) and now they're trying to CHANGE it based on a few review sites that keep talking about OS X like it's ancient and horrible to use. It needs this "fashion makeover" by the way I read it. You don't mess with perfection. You don't put bumper stickers on a Ferrari. But to me, that is exactly what Apple has been doing.

I believe it's the iPhone sites more than anything that drive this "urgency to change for change's sake". Oh the iPhone still looks like it did when it first came out except for these improvements. That's SOOOO 2007!

SOOOO WHAT? You use what works. But once they changed iOS, you just knew that they would feel the need to change OS X so they "matched". Unfortunately, what works for a small 4-6" touch-screen device (and I'm not sure FLAT works great there either) doesn't necessarily work for workstation and desktop class devices with 28" and larger screens. Depth helps in such environments. I could have lived with Mavericks, but no they keep taking it further and further down the 2D 8-color road until I think I'm in 1994 again with Windows 3.1 or OS7.

 

[dmj102]

Mmm so what's wrong with asking if a downgrade is possible ?

You also understand that having a look at the UI without trying it for couple of days isn't enough to judge it right ?


Let's face it. The user interface is ugly. I so want to defend it but No...no no no...

Wanna talk about the features, fast performance, nice fonts etc... you have my vote.

But not the UI. Come on mate we're not gonna debate a lot, look :

Image

Okay it's a change, a refresh, whatever you wanna call it but a pic is worth a thousand words.

I rest my case.

...and here is the Dock in Yosemite with increased contrast on and/or translucency off...horrible: