Yosemite looks terrible!

[grahamperrin]

Yosemite: excess of UI change for the sake of change … Apple HIG incoherence

… there's a stench of #Apple #HIG #bu****it …

The response from Jason Snell:

"as someone said, the Apple HIG reads more like an explanation or excuse than a logical process that led to Yosemite"​

… Tech reviewers … stand losing advertising dollars and access if they "don't behave," so to speak.

Snell is suitably polite. Elsewhere, someone else associated with a well-known publication is far less polite about designs for Yosemite.

… The HIG were never updated to explain the then new Unified title / toolbar look per example. …

I can respect a document that is outdated.

I can not respect publication of bu****it.

 

[Partron22]

let's not give previous versions martyr status and pretent they were the pinnacle of perfection lacking any interface issues of their own.

Sure, iTunes was always a bit of a maverick as far as UI goes, and that's OK. A little variation is the spice of life and all, but now the whole OS has gone the way of John McCain's 2008 campaign, Mavericky as all getout: Do I click here, or is that just text? I better check whether holding the option key while hovering over this scroll bar makes the feature I used to use magically reappear.............
That's not bold new design, it's incoherent hard to use BS resulting from a lack of properly written and enforced human interface guidelines.

 

[GerritV]

Don't blame Ive too much. This is probably just the guy who has the honor to play the designer role in Apple's stage play. Why didn't we see Ive on the stage during the last keynote? I'm not sure if he really is part of he involved design teams.

No, the Yosemite (design and quality) mess is a clear sign of an organizational failure within Apple.

You can't blame Apple, that's not even a person.
Neither can you blame the person that actually paints the pixels, he just does his job.
Ive is in charge of GUI and is exactly the person to blame.

IMHO both he and Cook have trouble handling their success. They start showing Hollywood Star Behaviour. Bad, Ive.

 

[n-evo]

I can respect a document that is outdated.

I can not respect publication of bu****it.

It was updated for Mac OS X Tiger. Apple just never gave an explanation what the unified title / toolbar meant. I suspected it to indicate a Spotlight-enabled app at first, but that was never officially told.

 

[AndreSt]

You can't blame Apple, that's not even a person.

Apple is a company consisting of people. People organize themselves in teams and departments. Apart from designers there will be product management and marketing. There's no way a single person will have much influence in the end.

The current result more looks like a bad compromise, resulting from endless committee meetings without clear directions. But that is only my opinion.

 

[Ulenspiegel]

Flat interfaces is nothing but regression.

It has existed since the very first GUI. Think about the mainstreams : Windows 3.1 and Mac OS 1. They were definitely flat. Skeuomorphism never existed in that time, because we didn't have the tech to make it.

That is so true!
3D was and is a progression in all fields. Look around you, are you living in a 1D, 2D or a 3D world? What is better aesthetically is a question of taste. Nevertheless if someone with a little bit of good taste looks at the Mavericks 3D Dock and the Yosemite flat Dock can see the difference.
It is so obvious as the fact that anyone would fail trying to explain a blind person from birth how red colour looks.

 

[F1Mac]

That is so true!
3D was and is a progression in all fields. Look around you, are you living in a 1D, 2D or a 3D world? What is better aesthetically is a question of taste. Nevertheless if someone with a little bit of good taste looks at the Mavericks 3D Dock and the Yosemite flat Dock can see the difference.
It is so obvious as the fact that anyone would fail trying to explain a blind person from birth how red colour looks.

And yet some people couldn't stop complaining over OS X's 3D dock, so much that some utilities were made to make a 2D dock available.

The flat design is a trend that's been going on for years now, these days it's what make things look slick, polished, modern and "cool". Things come and go. Flat has been everywhere on the web for years. I can't believe people get so worked up over Yosemite's buttons and menus. It's still very much a "Mac OS".

 

[Eithanius]

And yet some people couldn't stop complaining over OS X's 3D dock, so much that some utilities were made to make a 2D dock available.

The flat design is a trend that's been going on for years now, these days it's what make things look slick, polished, modern and "cool".

That is where the problem crops up... Flat design is supposed to alleviate the 3D sluggishness problem, especially animation. Unfortunately on Yosemite despite being 2D, nothing is slick, nothing is polished... Cool...? My ass...

You want something that's slick and polished. Tiger and Snow Leopard. Now those are slick and polished...

 

[Omega Mac]

It's undeniable that Apple has walked away from established visual grammar (rules) in favour of something else which to me clearly resembles nothing most of the time and obfuscation by sheer ineptness the rest of the time.

It's no more or less complicated than this and it's alarming development.

Flatness and minimalism are secondary to the arguments, this are style/aesthetics and they exist in a state of flux and are often a by-product of function/new function thus estbalshing a novel form.

If you think that's the problem you do not understand visual communication and human perception.

The fact many users are having to use accessibility (designed for those unlucky enough to have reduced perceptive ability to enjoy a normal OS User eXperience) to make the new OS usable tells you all you need to know as to what is going on. That's a Major failure when your user are trying to tape & glue a workaround to your product.

Hiding function with form is a failure. It's a denial of your product and an abuse of your customers trust.

Careless, callous and highly arrogant behaviour.

There is a reason high street clothes are not exact replicas of high fashion runway garments, real people have to wear them in the real world so what you get in the stores assimilates the latest runways style into the requirement for a functional product, get the balance right equals a quality product and sales.

Car companies also they have their concept cars but the latest models hat tip these ideas as time goes but they still have to work within the parameters of the market and do not resemble in price or execution everythin ghte concept car is.

Apple is no different.

Having watched some Steve Jobs interviews. I believe he might have seen it as Apple hiding it's "content".

They've rolled out a concept OS live on a mostly unsuspecting customer base.

Wow.

 

[435713]

That is where the problem crops up... Flat design is supposed to alleviate the 3D sluggishness problem, especially animation. Unfortunately on Yosemite despite being 2D, nothing is slick, nothing is polished... Cool...? My ass...

You want something that's slick and polished. Tiger and Snow Leopard. Now those are slick and polished...

I like the 3-D look personally. Never heard rampant issues of people not having awesome fast PC's and Macs and getting high level workflow done with the 3-D elements to the respective OS's over the years. I'll take a permanence hit I will not notice for that look anyway.

As stated above a few post: Tiger and Leopard etc.. weren't perfect, (perfection doesn't exist) but IMO they looked far more polished. Those traffic lights alone are enough to really turn me off to the new OS. Transparency in places is fine and I don't always mind it, but we should have the OPTION to use older school elements where we want. With the current state of technology, I would think an OS that is very customizable would be no problem.

Don't think that is asking a lot. If it's an ego thing then that is ridiculous. They are PAID, plain and simple. Either way, when I upgrade I will be able to customize with 3rd party stuff as more becomes developed, I just rather it be easier and Apple have some killer customization options in 'Preferences' Make it look the way you want. Plus it would be fantastic to look at peoples screenshots of their OS and how they like it. Be a cool thread to see all your tastes.

Props to Steve Jobs BTW. I had disagreements with some things he did obviously, as did we all, but for my tastes, that dude directed some fine looking OS's that I felt no need to mod. Not a single thing. Miss ya Stevie!!

 

[vedmant]

Really bad design

I absolutely agree that Yosemite design is terrible, that translucency is Windows Vista Era. It's really bad, no contrast everything looks washed, it even causes eyes strain. I've downgraded back to Mavericks and will never go back to Yosemite, until apple change it's mind about design politics.

 

[grahamperrin]

Bad compromise (Yosemite), good Human Interface Guidelines (2008)

… The current result more looks like a bad compromise, resulting from endless committee meetings without clear directions. …

… Apple no longer has a single, clear, shared vision for OS X.

It was updated for Mac OS X Tiger. Apple just never gave an explanation what the unified title / toolbar meant. …

To me, the unification was self-explanatory and entirely logical.

From the 2008-01-15 edition of HIG for Mac OS X:

----

… In Mac OSX v10.5 and later, all windows display the title bar unified with the toolbar, if a toolbar is present. …

In Mac OS X v10.5 and later, all windows that contain a toolbar display the unified toolbar–title bar appearance by default. This includes windows that were designed for earlier versions of Mac OS X, but are running in Mac OS X v10.5. …

– Tiger Disk Utility window on Tiger, on Leopard​

 

[roadbloc]

It's clear some have short memories and only remember the positive things. Previous Mac OS X versions were by no means perfect. By the time Mac OS X Tiger arrived things turned into an inconsistent hell of different window styles that seemed to serve no clear purpose anymore. The HIG were never updated to explain the then new Unified title / toolbar look per example. iLife introduced matte interface elements, like scroll bars, that were never adopted system-wide. I always thought Mac OS X Leopard and Snow Leopard looked awkward because they underwent this half baked iTunes / iPhoto transformation.

It's fine to say OS X Yosemite isn't your cup of tea. However, let's not give previous versions martyr status and pretent they were the pinnacle of perfection lacking any interface issues of their own.

None of that was my point really. As far as I'm concerned, beauty is subjective and based solely on opinions.

 

[Ulenspiegel]

And yet some people couldn't stop complaining over OS X's 3D dock, so much that some utilities were made to make a 2D dock available.

The flat design is a trend that's been going on for years now, these days it's what make things look slick, polished, modern and "cool". Things come and go. Flat has been everywhere on the web for years. I can't believe people get so worked up over Yosemite's buttons and menus. It's still very much a "Mac OS".

Flat design is not a world trend and not for years. It is a trend in Apple that has a macro influence. The flat design is nothing but the impact of Bauhas simplistic style on Jony Ive and of course the tremendous influence of Dieter Rams on him. Dieter Rams was a chief designer of Braun in the sixties, a representative of the functionalist school of industrial design. His motto was: "less but better". That is what is behind the flat design of iOS and Yosemite and not a world trend.

 

[F1Mac]

Flat design is not a world trend and not for years. It is a trend in Apple that has a macro influence. The flat design is nothing but the impact of Bauhas simplistic style on Jony Ive and of course the tremendous influence of Dieter Rahms on him. Dieter Rahms was a chief designer of Braun in the sixties, a representative of the functionalist school of industrial design. His motto was: "less but better". That is what is behind the flat design of iOS and Yosemite and not a world trend.

Thanks for the history course though I already knew about Bauhaus and Rams.

So all these wordpress sites are only lining up with iOS 7 design, right?

 

[Ulenspiegel]

Thanks for the history course though I already knew about Bauhaus and Rams.

So all these wordpress sites are only lining up with iOS 7 design, right?

You are welcome. I hope the knowledge that you've already possessed contributed to understanding what is really behind the Apple flat design, i.e. not a trend but fetishism of Jony Ive.

 

[F1Mac]

You are welcome. I hope the knowledge that you've already posessed contributed to understanding what is really behind the Apple flat design, i.e. not a trend but fetishism of Jony Ive.

Without a doubt

That still doesn't answer my previous question. The flat design is everywhere (not talking about computers, I mean, everywhere, ads, TV, movie posters, news sites, everything), only a fool would deny it. That's probably Ive's fault though.

 

[grahamperrin]

Design: a little more history, and a question

Thanks for the history course though I already knew about Bauhaus and Rams.

A little repetition of history does no harm. I guess that some newcomers to this topic will enjoy getting some additional background. Personally, without topics such as this I would never have dug around the Internet and begun learning in new areas. The link to B&O, for example …

Apple, Bang & Olufsen, Braun, Dieter Rams and memorable objects

So all these wordpress sites are only lining up with iOS 7 design, right?

I don't understand (sorry), can you elaborate? Thanks.

I do wonder about the following design:

 

[Ulenspiegel]

Without a doubt

That still doesn't answer my previous question. The flat design is everywhere (not talking about computers, I mean, everywhere, ads, TV, movie posters, news sites, everything), only a fool would deny it. That's probably Ive's fault though.

Let me render help from Amber Leigh Turner Creative Director, graphic and web designer:

"...Apple started hinting at moving away from its use of Skeuomorphism, and then completely abandoned the perfected Skeuomorphism in favor of a more flat design with the release of iOS 7 in the summer of 2013.

Since Apple has a pretty strong following with a rather large group of early adaptors of new devices and technology, the design of iOS 7 seemed to have made flat design even more popular than it was before practically overnight.

Apple’s design aesthetic often heavily influences design of websites and apps because most designers feel that the design is appealing and modern. Thus, when Apple switched to a more flat design style, Skeuomorphism seemed to become almost instantly outdated and sites and apps that used the design style quickly found that they needed a redesign.

This is most evident in the different apps that have been updated to work well with iOS 7 — they all follow the flat design aesthetic that users of iOS 7 have become accustomed to throughout the OS..."

I hope that answers your question, though I am convinced you have already known it.

 

[F1Mac]

I hope that answers your question

It does thanks.

 

[Traverse]

I can't believe people get so worked up over Yosemite's buttons and menus. It's still very much a "Mac OS".

I prefer the flat look on touch screen devices because it always seen odd that you had a glossy, bubbly button begging to be touch and then you taped it, it recessed but your finger just flattened on cold glass. The flat look brings much more harmony between screen and touch. As for mouse-based OSes, the 3D can exist with better harmony because you are not directly manipulating something.

There are two issues for me:

(1) Highly subjective: I spent more time with Yosemite and while I do like many parts of it, I feel like OS X's 3D appearance had personality. Windows always looked cold and generic. It looked like a computer. When I got my first Mac I was delighted by all the little things. The 3D real-life icons, the puff of smoke and bounding icons on the dock. The bubble buttons, etc. It looked more human. I agree the SL needed to be toned down a bit, and they went a little far with the old Notes app and all the linen crap, but at least they were a staple. Yosemite is fine and it is pretty, but it seems less unique, more generic. It's not nearly as "computer-istic" as Windows Vista/7 was, but it lost some identity. Now it seems fine. Just another OS contender with the flat Windows 8/10.

(2) Less Objective: I would have upgraded to Yosemite for technology sake because it has some fascinating features, but to me they just took away to much usability. I'm not going to repeat what I've said many time in this thread, but until they beef up the fonts and tone down the translucency (or make the reduce transparency option less ugly) I will remain on Mavericks.

 

[F1Mac]

I don't understand (sorry), can you elaborate? Thanks.

There's this trend that everything modern and cool should be flat these days, and I'm under the impression it's not just because of Apple, "wordpress sites" was just an example, but flat colors and flat design (including minimalistic fonts) are everywhere. Any ad has them, watch cnn they have them, etc... Movie posters are the perfect example because they're always a product of their time. Is this all because of iOS 7 which started it all? I doubt it.

 

[grahamperrin]

Design again, screenshots and so on

Don't blame Ive too much. …

+1

… the Yosemite (design and quality) mess is a clear sign of an organizational failure within Apple.

From what I read, in recent weeks, it's more like two styles of working within a single organisation. There's a failure of products to deliver what's required, but I don't sense organisational failure. The two styles need not be incompatible.

… Ive is in charge of GUI and is exactly the person to blame.

IMHO both he and Cook have trouble handling their success. They start showing Hollywood Star Behaviour. Bad, Ive.

I can't condone blaming Jony Ive alone. He bears some responsibility, and I'm frustrated, but from the little that I have seen and heard, there's no evidence of Ive wilfully behaving badly. He's quoted as saying:

"… I also have a sense of being accountable as we really live, sometimes pretty painfully with the consequences of what we do. …"​

It's remarkably difficult to find Sir Jonathan responding to questions about software, OS X or iOS; it's remarkably difficult to find such questions addressed to him.

… endless committee meetings without clear directions. But that is only my opinion.

I suspect too few meetings, not enough discussion of the type that results in a truly great operating system. Collaboration, but collaboration in a bubble.

… flat design … these days it's what make things look slick, polished, modern and "cool". Things come and go. …

https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=19536631#post19536631 in particular the links relating to flatness and/or skeuomorphism.

… They've rolled out a concept OS live on a mostly unsuspecting customer base.

Wow.

Yeah, I still feel much as I felt in August: I applaud Apple for a bold public experiment; for pushing boundaries.

Now, I'm glad that customers are no less bold in pushing back against the parts of the experiment that failed. There's not yet a co-ordinated push beyond the MacRumors domain. I suspect that the broader push will come, but I'm not rushing towards it.

… we should have the OPTION to use older school elements where we want. …

+1
and we should not have to holler for it. I'm prepared to encourage ruthless hacking of the operating system, but it'll be much better for everyone concerned if Apple can appreciate why there is such vehement rejection of its one-size-fits-all design for OS X Yosemite.

… it would be fantastic to look at peoples screenshots of their OS and how they like it. …

I would love that, but unfortunately the wish does seem to be a fantasy.

Post all of your OS X Yosemite screenshots here! is overwhelmingly unrelated to Yosemite. By strange coincidence, nine minutes before Sacird's post I thought, "If you can't beat 'em, join 'em"; I joined in the fun and began posting shots that are entirely unrelated to OS X Yosemite software.

… motto was: "less but better". That is what is behind the flat design of iOS and Yosemite and not a world trend.

I wonder.

… flat design is everywhere (not talking about computers, I mean, everywhere, ads, TV, movie posters, news sites, everything), only a fool would deny it. …

I pressed a few buttons on the remote control of my recently updated set-top box. Depth, gradients, effective use of translucency, and so on. Call me a fool

 

[F1Mac]

I pressed a few buttons on the remote control of my recently updated set-top box. Depth, gradients, effective use of translucency, and so on. Call me a fool

"everywhere" is a figure of speech

 

[Ulenspiegel]

... I feel like OS X's 3D appearance had personality. Windows always looked cold and enteric. It looked like a computer. When I got my first Mac I was delighted by all the little things. The 3D real-life icons, the puff of smoke and bounding icons on the dock. The bubble buttons, etc. It looked more human...

I feel absolutely the same, that is why Yosemite seems to me "cold" and "inhuman". I stay with Mavericks.