Yosemite looks terrible!

[Etan1000]

…
Ladies and Gentlemen, whether you like it or not, Yosemite has surpassed Mavericks in usage. If it levels off in the low 40% range an issue may be able to be made that it's not really accepted, since more than half of Apple's users would be on older OSes, but the curves imply, at least to me, that it will likely completely displace Mavericks.

With all due respect, I fail to see the correlation you and a few others attempt to make between installation rates and approval rates.

An updated Mac operating system like Yosemite and those before it is not comparable to, say a newer model of your automobile, where you get to go into the showroom and look it over, slide behind the wheel, take it for a test drive and then go home and think it over before deciding whether or not to trade in your existing model. Nobody hauls away your present automobile while you are trying out the latest model over the weekend!

Nor is it like a product bought online from, say Amazon where you get it delivered to your home, open it up, try it out and have x number of days to return it for a refund with no questions asked. The UPS/FedEx guy doesn't enter your home and take away your existing gizmo while you try out the new one!

No - an update to the Mac operating system is offered by Apple and downloaded and installed by the Mac user solely upon the basis of loyalty, trust and a lengthy string of prior wonderful and positive experiences that each update is going to be terrific!

In this case that loyalty and trust has been misplaced, and it is no simple matter for the majority of Mac users to reverse course and restore their Macs to its prior condition! And it really takes working with it for a week or two, thinking positive and hoping for the best, trusting Apple, before one realizes just what a shocking disappointment this "upgrade" really is. And by that time, aside from a small percentage of highly proficient techies, the majority of betrayed users feel helpless and not up to the task or perceived risk of trying to restore their former version of OSX, be it Mavericks or an earlier version.

So the fact that an avalanche of Mac users have downloaded and installed Yosemite is no proof whatsoever that they are happy or satisfied with Yosemite's appearance, performance or utility.

To the contrary, it appears that the more that the number of installations of Yosemite grow, the more anger, disappointment and frustration is being expressed. Captives may be resigned to their captivity, but that hardly reflects satisfaction with their predicament.

Etan

 

[Ulenspiegel]

With all due respect, I fail to see the correlation you and a few others attempt to make between installation rates and approval rates.

An updated Mac operating system like Yosemite and those before it is not comparable to, say a newer model of your automobile, where you get to go into the showroom and look it over, slide behind the wheel, take it for a test drive and then go home and think it over before deciding whether or not to trade in your existing model. Nobody hauls away your present automobile while you are trying out the latest model over the weekend!

Nor is it like a product bought online from, say Amazon where you get it delivered to your home, open it up, try it out and have x number of days to return it for a refund with no questions asked. The UPS/FedEx guy doesn't enter your home and take away your existing gizmo while you try out the new one!

No - an update to the Mac operating system is offered by Apple and downloaded and installed by the Mac user solely upon the basis of loyalty, trust and a lengthy string of prior wonderful and positive experiences that each update is going to be terrific!

In this case that loyalty and trust has been misplaced, and it is no simple matter for the majority of Mac users to reverse course and restore their Macs to its prior condition! And it really takes working with it for a week or two, thinking positive and hoping for the best, trusting Apple, before one realizes just what a shocking disappointment this "upgrade" really is. And by that time, aside from a small percentage of highly proficient techies, the majority of betrayed users feel helpless and not up to the task or perceived risk of trying to restore their former version of OSX, be it Mavericks or an earlier version.

So the fact that an avalanche of Mac users have downloaded and installed Yosemite is no proof whatsoever that they are happy or satisfied with Yosemite's appearance, performance or utility.

To the contrary, it appears that the more that the number of installations of Yosemite grow, the more anger, disappointment and frustration is being expressed. Captives may be resigned to their captivity, but that hardly reflects satisfaction with their predicament.

Etan

Profound synopsis.
And I would be interested in the number of those who reverted to the original OSX version from Yosemite.

 

[b0fh666]

well, I for one don't plan to upgrade anytime soon.

the looks would not be a deal breaker, but it seems rather buggy and there's the issue with trim enabler too.

cheers

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

While I refuse to "upgrade" to Yosemite, I did buy a new/refurbished iPod Touch 5G 64GB recently with iOS8.1.x on it and I do like a few things better like flicking apps upward to quit them instead of trying to press the tiny "x" button and really, the icons are just blah either way from Apple. I like the new camera better than the 4G, etc., but I HATE the "white" screens in things like Photos and music playback. It's got to be harder on the battery and it just BLARES back at you. Photos look ridiculous until you tap the screen to make the bright white overlay bezels go away. Dark grey would be bad enough (black is preferable), but white? WTF was Johnny Ive thinking? I'm afraid it's that mindset that just ruins iOS/OS X for me. I don't want bright white and/or pastel colors. At least OS X has a "dark mode" even if it currently sucks. Where's the dark mode for iOS?

Sadly, the primary reason I bought a new iPod was my battery life was non-existent on my iPod 4G (now plugged in near a chair in the living room for "wired" use). I don't think this 5G model is exactly getting its prescribed battery life either (averaging 4-5 hours mixed game/WiFi use when it touts 8 hours of video and 40 hours of music). I think my 1G model easily got 6-8 hours of video and certainly lasted me a week for music playback. Since 5G has the lightning connector, all my old cables are worthless and I'll have to buy more lightning cables if I don't want to carry my sole cable around to charge it (i.e. leave one at work, one in the car, etc.)

I've been happier with Apple, that's for certain. I remember getting my 2008 MBP. It was pretty awesome back then. Even this 2012 Mac Mini was pretty great save the GPU a couple of years ago and Mountain Lion was the first OS X version since Leopard Final that impressed me (really Snow Leopard didn't impress me that much; it was just a tweaked Leopard, but thankfully didn't make Leopard worse and did add a few useful things). I was interested in updating the Mac Mini (mostly for a better GPU), but Apple deleting the Quad i7 model ensured that will never happen. I don't want a newer SLOWER Mac. Apple sucks lately. I actually miss Steve Jobs and I wasn't his biggest fan, but even with his swing towards mobile Apple didn't put out this level of CRAP back then. The 5k iMac looks interesting, but it's damn expensive. I'd rather see a $2k base 4k iMac than a non-standard res 5k that will soon come down in price everywhere else for the monitor, but Apple's price will stay sky high forever.

 

[Choctaw]

Sorry dup post by accident. Program asked me to sign in twice why I do not know. Might be a fluke.

 

[Choctaw]

Windows 10 is going to feature a flatter / 2D look worse than Windows 8 and OS X Yosemite combined. So if you dislike the OS X Yosemite "flat" appearance and switching to Windows 10 as a consequence, you're really not making any sense at all. To show you what I mean, this is what the Windows 10 updated icons look like:

Sorry you feel I am not making any sense. Look at it this way, I have no dislikes about the appearance of Yosemite, I don't use it yet because of all the complaints I am reading here on the forum. If the fixes needed are forthcoming I will certainly enjoy the new OS. Until then I use Mavericks and just wait.

As for windows I use Win 7 ........when MS upgraded to Win 8 they took away the start menu and replaced it with a bunch of strange new toys that made it difficult to find my way around. Don't be thinking I am switching to Windows or Apple I have both and only plan to jump on Win 10 when it arrives because it is bringing back my start menu screen which will take me back to where it was before MS took away things I understood, and replace them will a window full of confusion. I am stuck with some expensive Xara web designing software that works on Windows only. I know it is possible to use Windows on a mac, but I respect all the work that has been put into Apples OS and choose not to try and breed it with it's enemy.

 

[Partron22]

And I would be interested in the number of those who reverted to the original OSX version from Yosemite.

We should see that as a flattening of the slope of the adoption curve. There's no sign of anything yet that supercedes noise. Looks like the majority of those who go to the park are not returning to the beach.

 

[joedec]

We should see that as a flattening of the slope of the adoption curve. There's no sign of anything yet that supercedes noise. Looks like the majority of those who go to the park are not returning to the beach.

I would venture to say not 5% of Apple users are capable of downgrading the OS, so people who upgrade stay stuck there like it or not.

 

[Etan1000]

… There's no sign of anything yet that supercedes noise. Looks like the majority of those who go to the park are not returning to the beach.

"…are not returning to the beach" !!!
Surely you jest!

You make undoing an upgrade to Yosemite sound like it's "A Day at the Beach" when, for most users, you must know that it is NOT a viable or reasonable option!

"Upgrading" to Yosemite is virtually a one-click operation, whereas "…returning to the beach" is far, far from a one-click operation and for the overwhelming majority of Mac users is not a viable option at all! Especially after two or three weeks of struggling with efforts to adapt and adjust to Yosemite.

Do you contend otherwise?

Anyone who has a one-click secret for safely returning to their former version of OS X should do us all a big favor and post it here. I would even suggest naming it "Return to the Beach!"

Regards, Etan

 

[b0fh666]

can't you just use time machine to roll back to the previous OS?

 

[joedec]

can't you just use time machine to roll back to the previous OS?

Sure, but after a couple of weeks you have to worry about merging the changes you've made while on Yosemite.

 

[Partron22]

Anyone who has a one-click secret for safely returning to their former version of OS X should do us all a big favor and post it here. I would even suggest naming it "Return to the Beach!"

Just a little AppleScript I wrote years ago. You simply have to remember to install each new version of the OS on a new partition. Switching between them involves only selecting from the list, and clicking "OK". Of course, after a while you end up with several hard drives, but they're cheap anymore.

 

[joedec]

Just a little AppleScript I wrote years ago. You simply have to remember to install each new version of the OS on a new partition. Switching between them involves only selecting from the list, and clicking "OK". Of course, after a while you end up with several hard drives, but they're cheap anymore.

Nice, I prefer partitioning too, I even go as far as not mounting other OS volumes by disabling via /etc/fstab.

#
# Warning - this file should only be modified with vifs(8)
#
# Failure to do so is unsupported and may be destructive.
#
LABEL=Macintosh\040HD none hfs rw,noauto
LABEL=Backup\040HD none hfs rw,noauto

That way I am sure I don't get cross contamimation. Not as elegant as your solution though

 

[Eithanius]

Image

Damn....! You know what...? I think you have better naming convention than Apple, naming your OSes after celestial moons...

 

[Partron22]

minimalism my arse

neOS Minimalism
I swear in 30 years the Operating System aesthetics of this decade will be compared unfavorably to 70's style Zagreb apartment blocks. Just try to read this dreck with a straight face!
I'd sooner see Roger Dean crawling all over my windows, buttons and folders. Some would complain, sure, but as mentioned above, 95% of em wouldn't know how to revert so they'd be stuck with old Yes albums everywhere.

 

[grahamperrin]

Apple culture, scaling and software quality

… installation rates and approval rates. …

From Declining iOS and OS X Quality Imperil Apple's Future Growth And Retention (2014-12-22, two pages), with reference to the GoSquared measurements for OS X:

"… a different and potentially more troubling trend appears. Although the early adoption of Yosemite has been the largest ever for a Mac OS, that may not be the whole story. …

… The real risk for the company is if its culture makes scaling its engineering staff difficult. It may not just be the shortage of the right kinds of talent …

… will Apple tie it all up for us with a bow? Likely we won’t find out until 2016."​

Related: Apple’s Software Quality Decline

 

[leman]

Just try to read this dreck with a straight face!

What's wrong with that article, besides being rough at the edges? It is pretty accurate. BTW, according to that terminology Yosemite is midway between 'flat' and 'rich'

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

The amusing thing I find in that article are all the comments by people fighting over who invented flat design when it's HIDEOUS so who would want to take credit for it? Besides, GUIs were mostly flat out of necessity early on and frankly, skeuomorphism was a huge step forward. Why people want to go back to crap is beyond me. I'm not sure whether I think Metro or Yosemite it more hideous at this point, but I'm thinking Metro since it just looks like paint samples from Sherman Williams. But then Metro is just the starting point, not the entire interface (where Yosemite rears its ugly head).

 

[leman]

The amusing thing I find in that article are all the comments by people fighting over who invented flat design when it's HIDEOUS so who would want to take credit for it?

...

Why people want to go back to crap is beyond me.

Says the guy who was preaching respect to those that have a different taste and opinion just a few posts ago

Although I do certainly share the sentiment when I think about people wanting the skeuomorphic UI back

 

[grahamperrin]

When flat is not flat

What's wrong with that article, besides being rough at the edges? It is pretty accurate. …

From the article:

"… In laymen’s terms, this means removing stylistic characters such as drop shadows, gradients, textures, and any other type of design that is meant to make the element feel three-dimensional. …"​

Consider the 'flat design interface' image that heads up the article:



Flat my arse.

Elsewhere

The first of twenty 'fantastic examples of flat UI design':



Without the fantasy … in reality there's depth (not flatness) for the area touched by the user.

 

[TheBSDGuy]

I don't think 3D effects are necessarily skeuomorphism. 3D effects were used to segregate controls like buttons from input fields like text fields. An example of skeuomorphism would be the Calendar with the leather trim on Lion and Mountain Lion, or the original Notes in iOS6 and earlier. The skeuomorphism used in Calendar had no functionality and many, including me, thought it looked stupid. The skeuomorphism in Notes for IOS did have functionality because the lines themselves made it easier to align and organized text.

What exactly is the non-skeuomorphic design for the new Notes on iOS7+ ???? it looks like the clipboard in early Windows and X-Windows GUIs.

 

[AlecZ]

Yep, staying on Mavericks for the time being.

 

[grahamperrin]

When a button is not a button

… What exactly is the non-skeuomorphic design for the new Notes on iOS7+ ? …

I don't know, but a couple of days ago on friends' devices I used a variety of apps for the first time. On a Google Nexus the interfaces varied, but I had no difficulty with the variety.

On iOS I set a preference for an Apple app but then couldn't find how to actually use the app. I sat staring blankly at the screen for quite some time before the owner clicked a button. Problem: it looked nothing like a button.

 

[Ezio Auditore]

I really wonder how manny of the people hoe like's Yosemite are on drugs???

In my opinion it looks like ****.

I liked the skeuomorphism. In my eyes that is the more logical approach of doing things. I want the computer to do ..... Ah the picture looks like ....!

What the .... was Apple thinking? Please bring back Scott Forstall!!!
And fire Jony Ive. And if Tim Cook thinks this is a Good direction that OS X is going (transfer OS X to IOS) than let Scott Forstall be the CEO of Apple.
I really doubt this is the direction Steve would want Apple to go!!! He wasn't this stupid...

 

[grahamperrin]

Forstall (orientation)

… bring back Scott Forstall!

There's that discussion in the Scott Forstall topic.

… fire Jony Ive. …

Some talk of Jony Ive in that topic, too …