
What’s New in macOS Big Sur: Human Interface Guidelines - tomduncalf
https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/macos/overview/whats-new-in-macos/
======
dimmke
I have to be honest and go completely against the crowd here - but I think the
UI updates are very good. They make the two OSes look cohesive but in a
tasteful way. The extra padding in all of the UI is the only thing that I
chafe at a little bit, it feels unnecessary. I really don't think they're
going to put out touch screen Macs.

So I'm not sure what there is to get upset about. I don't see any big
functional changes in the OS aside from reworking the notification center UI a
little- and I like this new version more. It's already been confirmed that
they aren't locking down apps to the app store or anything like that.

It seems like people think that because they're taking design cues from iOS
they intend to lock it down like iOS and they're transferring that fear into
dislike of the new UI itself.

Apple knows that a large percentage of the people who buy its computers are
software engineers and if they ever do fully lock their computers down in that
way they'd be ceding that marketshare entirely, along with catching quite a
bit of heat for it in the press. Maybe eventually that calculus is worth it to
them but I don't think that's what this is a step towards. I think they just
want users who are fully plugged into their ecosystem to feel like it's a
cohesive experience across platforms and this achieves that.

~~~
mxcrossb
Well that and the fact that tech website users basically complain about every
UI change. Hacker News is full of people who think XFCE is the height of
desktop experience. This is fundamentally different than apple’s core fan base
who seem to like any change just for the sake of change.

~~~
dimmke
I agree, any change will be frowned upon. It just annoys me that I feel like
they're drawing the completely wrong conclusions.

Apple was the company that dropped the headphone jack from their phone,
shipped a laptop with only USB-C ports etc... they don't shy away from making
big controversial decisions if they feel like it's good for them.

If Apple was going to do this to MacOS, they'd have already done it. They
wouldn't be spending years tip toeing towards it like people seem to think.

Instead, they've rolled back some really unpopular changes like the crappy
keyboard in their laptop, they just shipped a new Mac Pro that is clearly
designed for professionals. This chip transition _will_ result in Apple's
laptops having better battery life, specs and heating than any other laptops
available on the market. It won't even be close.

Additionally, they're actively trying to bring a huge swath of developers who
currently only develop for their mobile devices into developing for the Mac.
If they were trying to turn Macs into something for college students to watch
Netflix on they wouldn't be doing any of this.

It's insane to me that people can see a UI refresh as a sign of doom while
ignoring that Apple has actually been investing in the platform quite a bit
more than they were a few years ago.

~~~
michaelmrose
I still don't understand how anyone with hundreds of billions of dollars ships
really crappy anything. Like do hundreds of people just pretend that a crappy
keyboard isn't garbage or is it so siloed that most people never get an
opportunity to register an opinion?

~~~
woah
The keyboard isn't that bad. It had reliability issues which suggest a failure
of their stress testing, but it wasn't somehow obviously broken when it
shipped

~~~
fnord123
The 2019 MacBook keyboards are ok. The ones before were worthless. The ones in
2005 had jitter resulting pro keyboards in double key presses rendering them
also total garbage.

~~~
neuronic
I am typing on a 2017 MBP keyboard that never broke. While I generally share
the criticism it is neither garbage nor worthless. These unnecessary juvenile
hyperbolisms are so boring.

The keyboards had a higher fault rate and many other issues and Apple has
corrected its mistake, albeit 1-2 years too late from a consumer perspective.
That's all there is to the story and the only semi-relevant competition to
MBPs was STILL just ThinkPads and XPS, even with the main input device being
significantly worse than previous iterations.

~~~
fnord123
I eventually threw away my apple keyboards from 2005 so they are literally
garbage.

Regarding the 2017 keyboards, I'm not even talking about the fault rate. They
had no escape key and the key travel was too small so it was like typing on a
touch screen.

~~~
mft_
> and the key travel was too small so it was like typing on a touch screen

No, no it's not really.

It's all about preference and tolerance. I bought my Mum an 'old' Apple USB
keyboard (i.e. similar to the pre-2017 laptop keys) when her PC's existing KB
broke, as I liked mine very much. Being a life-long touch-typer, she just
couldn't get on with it, because the travel was too little for her. She's now
very happy with a KB with mechanical (Cherry) key switches.

In contrast, I prefer the older Apple KBs, but can get on perfectly well on my
2017 MacBook Pro's KB; and it's not like a touch-screen at all.

~~~
fnord123
>No, no it's not really.

Then maybe I only used broken ones with no perceptible key travel whatsoever.

------
yssrn
Virtually all of these changes reduce contrast and differentiation between
controls while simultaneously decreasing information density. All bad news for
people who work on their computers for a living.

~~~
dijit
I like borders on my buttons to know what is a button and what isn't, this
feels.. backwards...

So much has to be inferred from the way things used to be, makes it harder to
argue that it's the "simpler" operating system designed for Humans with a keen
eye on UX design..

FWIW I also think the flat UI on iPhone (which has been prevelant for >6y now)
is a horror show.

Steve Jobs famously once said (while working at NeXt): "There are two kinds of
people at Apple: Those that want to push computing forward, and those that
want to be the Sony of computers.. and the Sony guys are winning"

~~~
Yhippa
I remember the transition from iOS 6 to 7. It definitely initially looked
modern but I still sometimes have difficulty distinguishing between a label
and a button.

~~~
pfranz
Another common issue is the lack of scroll bars or other UI hints like shadows
means it's often impossible to know when/if you can scroll.

------
dividedbyzero
For the last few versions of iOS, MacOS has felt somewhat old-fashioned,
lacking things I've grown to really appreciate on my phone and iPad like the
Control Center. I'm glad that is now coming to MacOS. This feels like a much-
needed facelift.

I'm glad is isn't a polished XFCE, there are a lot of options for people who
like this sort of thing already, just run Linux. In its current state, Linux
on the desktop is definitely not for me, but then, I like the touchbar (as a
software engineer, even), I like their new keyboard better than the pre-USB-C
one (the butterfly one was terrible though), I'm fine with four TB3/USB-C
ports, I don't miss MagSafe much. I like not having to bother with a myriad
settings, because the defaults are usually just fine and most things can't be
fine-tuned anyway.

Big Sur seems to be a really interesting spin on a desktop iOS that embraces
and extends the security and UX concepts from iOS, but for keyboard/mouse and
without being so locked-down and constrained. From what they've shown so far,
I like it.

Now please have iPadOS become more like MacOS – that would be terriffic.

~~~
AlexandrB
I expect that MacOS 11.2 will _be_ iPadOS.

~~~
_fzslm
strong disagree. MacOS and iPadOS will take cues from each other, but they
will remain fundamentally different. MacOS for the old-timey folks who want
root access and to be able to browse the file system, iPadOS for people who
like having all for that abstracted away from them a-la iOS. neither is right
or wrong, just caters to different kinds of people who prefer different ways
of working.

~~~
turndown
IMO you vastly overestimate the care Apple has for "old-timey folks who want
root access." They will remove your usecase in due time, when they decide to
merge the two(MacOS and iPadOS).

~~~
the_other
They could have done that at any point in the last 10 years. They're not going
to. "Operating systems" are the bit that makes the hardware work for the
software, and because the hardware of "computers" is different from
"portables", they'll continue to get different OS for a LONG time. Apple make
mac-, i-, iPad-, tv- and watch- OS. That's five different OSs. The "bringing
together" of macOS and iOS has nothing to do with unifying the OS over the
hardware: it's about unifying the experience of interacting with digital
representations of physical reality. Need a surface for displaying 2d media?
Here's a "window" or an "app". Need to write a message to your friend? Here's
a surface that accepts typed characters or your handwriting. Need to write
some code? Here's a surface that accepts text and has some editing controls.
Etc.

What's much more likely is that they'll find some new form factor of sensors
and projectors (keys, screens, pointers, loudspeakers, data i/o) that does
away with "computers" and "tablets" entirely. And that'll have its own
widgetOS.

EDIT: punctuation.

------
blunte
Larger rounded corners, taller toolbars, and more padding within sections all
further reduce the amount of actual content you can display. If you look at
most of the before/after screenshots, there's clearly less information
delivered within the same amount of screen space. That's nice for a touch
interface perhaps, but it's counterproductive for a computer.

And making toolbar buttons all monochrome outlines does make toolbars have a
more consistent appearance, but that actually makes finding the button you
need more difficult. The differences are what we notice, and later what our
brains automatically key on when we need to actually use the interface.

Less than half of these changes are arguably worth having. The rest seem like
marketing saying, "We need to be fresher, guys!"

Using a new interface can be fun because of the change, but that fun quickly
wears off. Then we're left with the realities of the interface. That Finder
window is going to be much less useful in the real world with real file/folder
names that are longer than 12 characters wide.

This is a UI for casual users. It might be good for grandma, but it's less
good for people who need to get work done.

------
masswerk
Two observations regarding the former title bar:

* Putting the title (folder name) before the controls introduces a fundamental instability, much like OS X did with the menu bar by placing the named app menu before any other menus. Also, the amount of available space for displaying a longer title/file name seems limited.

* It seems, the proxy icon is gone. I can't see which element could bear the functionality in place. The title is already editable, making it dragable as well might be too much. Is this the beginning of the end of the drag-and-drop paradigm? (Notably, it doesn't suit touch interfaces well. Many aspects of these changes seem to prepare "touchability".)

~~~
SllX
The proxy icon is still there, it seems you have to hover or click to show it
though.

~~~
masswerk
So discoverability is finally replaced by the "Ahhh" paradigm?

~~~
SllX
That's been the trend for a while, but in the case of the proxy icon, the
types of interactions you could perform with it were mostly undiscoverable and
unknown to a lot of users. You had to actively explore the way the UI worked
to figure it out, but I can't say I'm a fan of the change either.

~~~
chipotle_coyote
> in the case of the proxy icon, the types of interactions you could perform
> with it were mostly undiscoverable and unknown to a lot of users.

That's a good point I hadn't thought of -- I _love_ the proxy icon. I'm glad
it's still there, but this kind of feels like Apple is implicitly saying,
"Look, for the ten of you who knew what this was, you still do it, but we're
just hiding it from everyone else, sorry."

~~~
SllX
It’s easy to take every UI change as an affront, particularly when somebody
changes something we liked. Just from what I’ve seen though, it appears the
goal is a simply a more space efficient UI. It’s not a bad goal, even though I
still want to beat them over the head with the Dock which functioned better
under NeXTSTEP than it ever did under Mac OS X, and the stoplight isn’t doing
anyone any favors over the Mac OS 9 window controls.

I guess I shouldn’t be fighting the wars of 20 years ago though. It is what it
is, and since the goal seems to be to rebuild everything in SwiftUI
eventually, maybe the Dock will finally be reconsidered in the next few
versions when they get around to it.

~~~
masswerk
The problem is, it seems to be not so much about space efficiency, but about
streamlined appearance (e.g., there's now less horizontal space and fewer
controls are shown at once), which translates to low semantic contrast, wich
again translates to lower work efficiency. And it's the latter, which causes
most of the criticism, as not all users want to trade personal time and
usability for looks (or prettier printouts of the UI).

~~~
SllX
I'm not going to defend Apple's work on this front, it's just they decided to
consolidate the title bar and toolbar to free up some vertical screen real
estate pressure and they're leaning hard on these slide animations to hide
some of the UI elements so as to not overload the toolbar/titlebar thing. That
to me looks like a botched attempt to make it more space efficient, although I
do at least like the bit with the search bar.

John Siracusa has a different theory though, and having had time to go through
and examine to changes in the HIG in more detail, I'm inclined to agree. The
spacing and layout and sizing appears to make Mac OS XI more "touchable", i.e.
we should expect Macs with touch screens at some point.

~~~
masswerk
I can also see, why this is not a bad choice for touch interfaces.

However, at the same time, this also illustrates, why it may be not that great
a choice for a WIMP interface: the kind of "intimacy" related to the specific
mode of interaction is essentially different. Where contrast and too much of
variety may be irritating for a touch interface, it may be already too low in
contrast and information density for a WIMP GUI. On the other hand, visual
grouping (and semantic collapsing of groups) is much more important for the
more remote WIMP interface, whereas touch already is much more locally
focused. Generally, treating them both the same isn't a good idea.

------
bjelkeman-again
More transparent, low contrast menus, and not much colour to help you
navigate. I must be getting old. What accessibility features do one use to
make the UI clearer without becoming butt-ugly to look at?

~~~
Synaesthesia
I’m sure the usual reduce transparency and increase contrast options will
still be there.

~~~
jtbayly
Yes, but color is such a helpful distinguishing feature that contrast can
never make up for it disappearing. I can squint until I can’t distinguish any
of the symbols and still tell which is which when they are colored.

~~~
avree
Which menus generally have color as an element in Mac OS today that don't in
the new Mac OS? Serious question—I can't find one.

~~~
wpm
[https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-
guideline...](https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-
guidelines/macos/overview/whats-new-in-macos/)

Command/Ctrl + F for: "align different subsets of toolbar items"

The pictures above the paragraph that phrase appears in exemplify the problem
perfectly. One certainly looks nicer, being all uniform and monochrome, but
the other provides visual feedback that is far quicker to parse than text or
hieroglyphics.

I have to explain to my 70 year old aunt why I won't be updating her Macbook
to Big Sur, because she'll never be able to cope with this change. Yeah, she's
70 and not that great at all this, but that's exactly who this interface
should be for. We can bitch and moan but we'll deal, because we have to. At 70
years old you just want your fucking email to work and you want to know what
buttons to click on.

Apple decided to add depth to the glyphs on the Dock, but no where else
apparently. I'm so fucking tired of this flat monochrome bullshit.

~~~
fnordsensei
The state of accessibility (as a design goal; as, finding the point where it
critically improves the situation for some, yet is beneficial for everyone) in
tech is generally awful.

It's sad that this doesn't look like it's a priority to Apple.

My only hope is that I'm wrong, that the affordances are actually more than OK
once you use it, and that they've done loads of usage testing and found that
it works better for the majority of people, as well as those with greater
needs.

------
arexxbifs
Well, if it isn't my old favorites: low contrast, no affordances, junk in the
title bars and so little difference between active and inactive windows it's
nigh impossible to spot.

I wouldn't mind it so much if it wasn't that every sucker and his dog will
take this as definitive proof that all the bad UI fads of late are actually
good.

------
IMTDb
> But what should we call it ? Well, if you're a student of MacOS, you know
> this question can only be answered by Apple crack marketing team. Their drug
> fueled minibus driven quests have yielded some great names. [...] We can’t
> responsibly continue to inadvertently lead our competition to copy these
> methods when they clearly can’t handle the trip

Was that guy actually on acid when he introduced the name ? This was so out of
place compared to the usual Apple tone. At least I had a good laugh

~~~
jefftk
That text seems not to be there now?

~~~
sapsan
I think the quote is from the keynote itself. Here's the timestamp:
[https://youtu.be/GEZhD3J89ZE?t=4250](https://youtu.be/GEZhD3J89ZE?t=4250).

~~~
laser
For some reason the CC is out of sync, it's couple minutes earlier
[https://youtu.be/GEZhD3J89ZE?t=4122](https://youtu.be/GEZhD3J89ZE?t=4122)

------
config_yml
Loss of affordance, density and contrast. Why do designers hate these 3
things? It's pretty, yes.

~~~
gowld
Apple's original human interface designer says that

Apple has "razor-sharp focus on a user many of us often fail to even consider:
The potential user, the buyer", ignoring the needs of people who already paid
their money.

[https://asktog.com/atc/the-third-user/](https://asktog.com/atc/the-third-
user/)

~~~
fnordsensei
It seems short-sighted to ignore the person who has used a product or service,
loved it and keeps loving it, and will persistently recommend it to others
during its lifetime. It's hard to think of a better marketing channel when it
works at scale.

If that's the way they are thinking about "the potential user," all they're
saying is "we'd prefer to do our marketing ourselves, please; don't go around
recommending our products."

------
Macha
The integration of tall title bars with toolbars is really reminding me of
Gnome 3 here.

~~~
1_player
I'd pay for a well engineered macOS 11 theme for GNOME. Perhaps when GTK4 is
out end of this year with support for blurred transparency shaders. Though I
got to say Adwaita improved a lot recently.

~~~
monadic2
I’d pay for a decent macOS keybinding theme for gnome, any price. Who gives a
damn about the look, app marketers?

~~~
derefr
Heck, figure out how to let me use macOS keybindings on _Windows_ and I'll
give you a medal. The need to use (non-idiomatic, clumsy) Windows shortcuts on
my MBP's keyboard is the reason I don't use Boot Camp.

~~~
opiopi
autohokey is your friend

~~~
monadic2
Sadly, auto hot key does not allow rebinding the native toolkits keybinding
schemes, at least not without per-app significant effort or removing things
like readline bindings.

------
vletal
It's not enough that the windows are getting bulky. The thickness of the
frames is _inconsistent_. Look at the screenshots

\- Some of the windows look like they look now (Safari, Maps, ...) [1]

\- Settings are skinnier [2]

\- Finder is bulkier [2]

I might be a bit autistic in this hurts my eyes.

[1] [https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/06/apple-introduces-
maco...](https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/06/apple-introduces-macos-big-
sur-with-a-beautiful-new-design/)

[2] [https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-
guideline...](https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-
guidelines/macos/overview/whats-new-in-macos/#app-accent-colors)

~~~
saagarjha
Those look fairly consistent to me, especially if you consider how window
toolbars used to work pre-Big Sur.

------
ghettoimp
I really wish there were consistent title-bars. Windows 95 nailed this. It's
really nice to immediately know where to click to move something out of your
way.

~~~
microcolonel
There is so much that Windows 95 got right that the snoots coming out of
design college with funny haircuts have been trying their darnedest to get
wrong.

~~~
int_19h
Much of it was built on the foundation that was CUA.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access#Descrip...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access#Description)

------
bitL
It looks like iPadOS, so instead of adding more functions to iDevices, it
seems like we'll be seeing more "dumbization" for macDevices :-(

~~~
samcat116
Genuine question: Have they removed any features that make it less functional?
There seems to be this belief that if it looks closer to iOS or iPadOS, then
its “dumber” since in the past those product lines have been less capable than
the Mac.

~~~
cpcallen
Every time I get an update (iTunes, iMovie, and now macOS and Finder) they
make the minimum size of icons / thumbnails / UI elements larger, making it
impossible to see as many on the screen at a time. Would you accept your code
editor doubling the font size, making it possible to see only half as many
lines of code?

Being able to see content is a feature.

Every new update brings more uniform, less visually distinctive buttons. When
we went from black and white silhouettes of the original Macintosh System to
colourful, pictographic icons of the Mac OS 9 era it was obviously an
improvement in usability. Now we're back to monochrome silhouettes again.

Being able to find UI elements quickly is a feature.

------
abolishme
Didn't see anyone mention this, but one of the main reasons for making macOS
look more like iOS, iPadOS, tvOS, and watchOS is because at some point we will
be able to run apps written for the other systems natively in macOS. Seems
like an obvious move, why is everyone so surprised? It just means less
duplicated interface code for multiplatform products.

~~~
gshdg
Which isn’t necessarily a good thing. They totally butchered the Mac Mail.app
by shifting it to iOS UI paradigms. It used to be great; now it’s barely
usable. Now they’re just making it easier to do the same and dumb down all the
other apps out there for desktop users by replacing them with dumbed down iOS
versions.

------
rado
It seemed one of my favorite features – the draggable document icon next to
the window title – was removed, but it appears on hover. Phew.

------
627467
For a second i thought I was looking at a Windows 10 mail app screenshot...

[https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-
guideline...](https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-
guidelines/macos/images/windows-views_2x.png)

------
cpcallen
I think the reduction in usable space for content is so egregious that I am
quite sure I will not be upgrading—ever. Too bad: I was looking forward to
ARM.

------
zeristor
Wait macOS 11, not 10.16.

I assume this is a breaking change then?

~~~
kristofferR
Pretty fitting, since Steve Jobs said OS X would last 20 years, which is
exactly this year.

~~~
peterkos
I was re-watching that old keynote and its great when things like this line
up.

I like that this time they lined up design changes + hardware -- and that this
time _hardware_ was the reason to bump the version.

Like, we saw Intel transition in 10.3-ish, no more Rosetta in 10.7, entirely
new design + Swift in 10.10, Catalyst and SwiftUI (brand new frameworks) in
10.15, but new design + ARM was the push for 11.

I like this trend of hardware being the "major" version bump but now I'm
curious what kinda space-age paradigm macOS 12 will be breaking. "real" 3D
touch? Brain-computer interfaces? I can dream, okay?!

~~~
DragoCubed
>"real" 3D touch?

anyone else remember tactus technology?

------
dang
The previous, and still ongoing, thread about this is
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23603852](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23603852).
I'm not sure whether to merge the threads or let this one start fresh (another
comment about this is
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23605260](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23605260)).

~~~
tomduncalf
I think they are slightly different as this one is focussed purely on the
UI/UX differences whereas the other is a more general “what’s new” in terms of
features etc. Happy for you to do what you think best of course!

------
shp0ngle
I don't particularly care about the GUI...

most of my time on my Mac is browser (Chrome), terminal, and Electron apps.
Even my IDE is just Electron.

The new Finder and menus look ugly, but frankly, in the age of Electron
everything, the OS UX doesn't matter that much, as every app has its own one,
reimplemented in JavaScript and React.

Slack still looks like Slack in Big Sur, in Catalina, in Windows 10.

~~~
otherlandlabs
I, for a change, would pay money for MacOS _native_ Slack app.

~~~
TacticalTable
Perhaps the Ipad Slack app running as native? I think we're going to see
Catalyst improve the MacOS experience greatly.

~~~
shp0ngle
Have you tried the JIRA native app, ported from iOS?

It's horrible. It's fast, unlike the web app, but otherwise horrible

------
jwr
It's a pity that most of this is about the visual, rather than the functional.
The first Mac OS guidelines were as much about form as about function, with
the latter being more important.

Modern-day Apple is focused on form, neglecting function.

------
tomc1985
Why such fascination with rounded corners?

~~~
cxr
[https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Round_Rects_Are_...](https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Round_Rects_Are_Everywhere.txt)

------
harshil91
My 2015 mbp can finally stop notifying me of software updates.

------
TheSpiceIsLife
For what it’s worth...

My 2013 MacBook Pro Retina Finally bucked the kicket, so I’m waiting for the
new ARM based range with the new OS before I make any decision.

------
ggregoire
This is such a great UI guidelines document. This should be taken as a
reference by every design and frontend teams.

------
qppo
I can't read the faded items in the drop down menu as displayed with that
background image.

------
gshdg
The HIG used to be all about how each guideline contributed to usability. I
don’t see even the slightest nod to usability in this document. That’s
telling.

------
kgin
The full length top-to-bottom sidebar is a big improvement on MacOS and
IPadOS. The full with titlebar was never optimal for wide screens.

------
satya71
I guess Microsoft is doing design better than Apple now? I mean similar HIG
was introduced in Windows 10 in what 2015?

------
SirLotsaLocks
It's beautiful, I love the blur effect and the colors and the rounding it's
all gorgeous.

~~~
josteink
Windows 7 really nailed this about 10 years ago now.

But design is all fads, so sadly it wasn’t allowed to last.

------
raj_khare
Design consistency is great. But imo, it’s too friendly and too many colors

------
gowld
> Throughout macOS 11, windows adopt visual touches that recall iOS
> interfaces.

Is this an OS or a wine-tasting?

> use an increased corner radius

What was wrong with lower radius? Were Apple designers too ignorant to try
larger radious in the past?

> Within an alert, most content is center aligned.

center-aligned paragraph text? It's 90s HTML throwback!

------
GiorgioG
Can't wait for the 'tech support' calls from my older parents / relatives
because of all the changes...

------
sergiotapia
Are we going back to skeuomorphic, please god yes! I've been so saturated of
flatness, it's boring!

------
monadic2
Lmk when they enforce these guidelines for their own apps

------
29athrowaway
I guess this will piss off a lot of people.

------
noway421
Skeuomorphism here we go again

------
kmckiern
<3

------
MintelIE
Oh my gosh I wish they'd have stopped with Rhapsody, to tell you the truth.
Constantly redoing the UI while leaving basic functionality at a very bare
level is really not doing it for me any more. Apple has moved against power
users several times in the past in more aggressive terms but always having a
fresh look in the UI is just a pointless exercise.

Consistency is much more important especially when reaching the phone- and
tablet-raised crop of people who don't really know how a computer works nor do
they care. Same with many people, they simply need a computer for their
various duties. A more tech-oriented person will never have problems adapting
to even radically different UI paradigms and degrees of chrome but less techy
people will.

Add more functionality to the OS, fix the ancient packages, do SOMETHING for
the more advanced users, Apple. Please?

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welearnednothng
The title is misleading as it implies everything new in macOS, when the linked
page is limited to human interface guidelines. Perhaps this should be retitled
something like "What's new in MacOS Big Sur (UX|HIG|Human Interace
Guidelines)"?

~~~
dang
Good point. We've narrowed the scope in the title above. Thanks!

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angel_j
Holy shit, it only took almost 40 years of personal computing for "human
interface guidelines" to stick. I have begun believing boomers who tell me how
much Microsoft fucked their business, by forcing them to use shitty software.

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0xDEEPFAC
It seems like these new Macs might as well be phone with a keyboard in the way
they treat their software and "pro" consumers taking away options when screen
real-estate exists to empower the mouse user.

Wake me up when they use less glue to hold their computers together : (

~~~
qu1mby
I think you’re right - by leveraging everyone who has now learned to create
apps for iPhone and suddenly empowering them to create for Mac, too, we’re
going to see a flood of underwhelming iPhone apps on desktop.

But that’s exactly the catalyst you need to motivate the more capable of that
bunch to cut through the noise with powerful applications specifically
tailored to desktop — and a very healthy App Store for desktop begins to
emerge (just like the one we have for iPhone now). But faster, because now
there are so many people who suddenly know how to create for Mac.

~~~
rahkiin
One must not forget that AppKit is pretty awful compared to UIKit. It is much
easier to accomplish things with UIKit. SwiftUI helps though and will end up
being the way of making cross platform apps

~~~
saagarjha
> AppKit is pretty awful compared to UIKit

Well…

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phs318u
Too late, don't care. I no longer trust Apple with my work. Ask me how many
times I've re-installed macOS Catalina on my mid-2013 MBA since it came out?
Ask me how many times I've had to restore my MBA to an earlier TimeMachine
snapshot (local thank god) because the Apple Mail app shat itself
unrecoverably while copying several thousand emails from one mailbox to
another. Ask me how many more stories like that I've got. And to think, I'm an
IT professional with 35 years in the industry and been an Apple user since
2004, having had a deep knowledge of many an operating system (including
flirting with Linux in between Windows 2K and iMac (I'm aware one's an OS and
the other's HW).

The marriage is over Apple. We're headed for divorce and no promises you make
now will convince me to stay. I'm leaving. In reality, it's been over for
awhile, but of course, having invested so many years in this relationship,
it's been hard to make the mental leap needed to let go. Well - now I'm there.
While I'm sure your new hardware will indeed be magical with industry leading
battery life and performance, that performance is only as good as the OS that
runs on it. Who cares if you get an extra 6 hours battery life, when I have to
restore from TM yet again and walk away overnight while 200+GB of storage gets
re-installed? I loved you, and will think of you fondly from a distance. All
the best.

