Honestly, the light appearance versions don’t look much better from what I’ve seen.
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Do you like Liquid Glass on Mac?
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LG translucency malfunctioned in System Settings again this morning. Just as last time, System Settings was launched by another process, not by the normal way of selecting it from the menubar. In this case, I tried to dismiss my daily after-reboot warning that Zoom would be running in the background, and missed clicking in the right spot. System Settings was subsequently launched with a Liquid Malfunction.
This does suggest to me that it's not Liquid Glass that has this bug, but it is the application's utilization of Liquid Glass. That is, the API calls work properly, but the application failed to use them or used them improperly.
I set my wallpaper to change everything 15 minutes. I notice the widgets sometimes retain colors from a couple of wallpaper ago
Interesting. Mine are set to rotate every 5. Maybe that's why Tahoe seems sluggish overall (for me) as its not rendering things as it should?!
Who knows. But on a modern computer, you should be able to play a video loop on the desktop and it should have little impact on performance. Changing a static image shouldn't be a big deal
I have noticed occasionally the transition of images can be very jarring like the animation didn't quite work and the image almost instantly swaps without a smooth transition and other times the brightness seems to change but that might be the massive hideous shadow running along the top of the screen they've added in Tahoe flickering?! Also when moving files in Finder especially in list view, if you move a bunch of files from the window instead of the other files moving up to fill the gap, there's just a blank gap where they used to be and the files below stay where they are but the filenames of the moved items then duplicate over these lower items. Its very clearly broken and you could be on to something with the desktops.
Which also suggests it wasn't fully tested against all the permutations available.
I see this bug. It's quite an astonishing thing. Some bugs are subtle and require some interactions to trigger and those things might not always happen. This is not such a bug. At no point will it be considered excusable that Finder (a main macOS application) wasn't tested to behave properly with respect to things that are perfectly visible.
Apple needs a 'Back to macOS' moment, just as they had with their 'Back to Mac' initiative several years ago. They've lost their way with stubbornness, heightened Apple arrogance and the insistence of shoehorning the iOS look and feel into macOS, when in reality, these can (and should be) two completely different and amazing OSs on their own (which neither are at the moment) that simply compliment each other and work seamlessly together.
I don't care what anyone says, over and beyond a few bad designers and clueless GUI and UX leads or 'VPs', this 'OS26' mess is a result of Cook's obsession with the fact that the iOS user-base dwarfs the macOS user-base and the desire to cross-sell and bring a chunk of those iOS users onto the Mac platform to fully utilize Apple $ervices. Until there is change at the top, and we get a CEO who prioritizes usability over margins as the beancounters also do their thing in tandem, they are going to double-down on this dreck until they can't.
It's unfortunate (and ironic) that Apple, save a few duds here and there, is currently at peak hardware level in terms of power, efficiency, build quality and so on (despite being stingy and holding back on OLED as if it's still a 'Pro' feature to have, it's not), yet, their software is currently at its worst. Still 10x better than Windows (which I also use daily) and Android (my personal opinion), but it's time to raise that bar again.
In my humble view, Apple's massive growth over the past decade, leading them to the masses that they are catering to, has been detrimental to their identity and has changed their core DNA that drew many of us in back when they were truly the 'Think Different' company that almost went under. This is all fixable of course, but it's going to take digging into their own profit margins by a point or two, and prioritizing their customers over their shareholders for it to happen, and that is just not the world we're living in anymore, especially with Cook at the helm.
I don't care what anyone says, over and beyond a few bad designers and clueless GUI and UX leads or 'VPs', this 'OS26' mess is a result of Cook's obsession with the fact that the iOS user-base dwarfs the macOS user-base and the desire to cross-sell and bring a chunk of those iOS users onto the Mac platform to fully utilize Apple $ervices. Until there is change at the top, and we get a CEO who prioritizes usability over margins as the beancounters also do their thing in tandem, they are going to double-down on this dreck until they can't.
It's unfortunate (and ironic) that Apple, save a few duds here and there, is currently at peak hardware level in terms of power, efficiency, build quality and so on (despite being stingy and holding back on OLED as if it's still a 'Pro' feature to have, it's not), yet, their software is currently at its worst. Still 10x better than Windows (which I also use daily) and Android (my personal opinion), but it's time to raise that bar again.
In my humble view, Apple's massive growth over the past decade, leading them to the masses that they are catering to, has been detrimental to their identity and has changed their core DNA that drew many of us in back when they were truly the 'Think Different' company that almost went under. This is all fixable of course, but it's going to take digging into their own profit margins by a point or two, and prioritizing their customers over their shareholders for it to happen, and that is just not the world we're living in anymore, especially with Cook at the helm.
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The Tim Crook mentality has probably metastisized throughout the company by now. No one with a backbone has stayed with the company, and it's virtually impossible that anyone has the will to change course. Apple will have to be scrapped and rebuilt from the rubble.
In less than 5 months Apple will show off OS27, this preview will be a clear sign of either OS26 being a misstep or whether Apple have firmly decided that the mediocre OS will be offset by the excellent hardware going forward.
I don’t subscribe to the give the trillion dollar company even more time to fix things - OS27 is it. If you can break it, you can fix it in a similar timescale.
I’ve used Apple products for 20 years, I’ll still use them (I don’t see anything on horizon to make me change), but it’s disheartening that we are throwing away the complete Apple experience because of the current generation of managers.
This thread is a fair reflection of sentiment - those that care about experience/ui and those that think everything is going great because their machine boots up and there’s no blue screen.
I don’t subscribe to the give the trillion dollar company even more time to fix things - OS27 is it. If you can break it, you can fix it in a similar timescale.
I’ve used Apple products for 20 years, I’ll still use them (I don’t see anything on horizon to make me change), but it’s disheartening that we are throwing away the complete Apple experience because of the current generation of managers.
This thread is a fair reflection of sentiment - those that care about experience/ui and those that think everything is going great because their machine boots up and there’s no blue screen.
Not sure about "a fair reflection of sentiment". I believe you are correct in your previous paragraph, the buck stops with management. Bug epidemics and wild presentation problems are symptoms of an institutional problem. Yelling at clouds seldom achieves anything positive, much as it might make me feel better for a while
Tahoe could, maybe should, end up in textbooks for students of all aspects of computer science. Hard to get anyone to spill the beans from the inside though.
I agree. I often say that Apple lacks competence in application software developer. I try to be careful to point the finger at the enterprise rather than the developers. I'm sure there are very many developers working at Apple who have the competence to do a much better job than what we witness coming from Apple.
I'm speaking as a professional developer of bugs. I have the luxury of being allowed to fix the bugs and incorporate user feedback. No Apple developer has that level of control.
I mean for heaven's sake, this is a fairly non-trivial app, right? It's the process that needs fixing. Dev testing is just one aspect. Dev system testing is another. QA- and UA testing are others. Everyone should be checking everyone else's work before it gets sign-off for release, both in 'beta' and final.
Process improvement decisions are management level decisions, that is what good managers are for. I've no direct knowledge of their current process, other than what I can glean from looking at the results.
I'm not running Tahoe yet, still on Sequoia. Next week I'll be jumping into it with a new MM M4 Pro. I expect my objectivity to instantly evaporate as I start jumping up and down and yelling at Tim Cook to "get off my lawn"
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I hated Big Sur, and it just got progressively worse, then drastically worse with Tahoe. So it's not like Tahoe is a complete anomaly. Big Sur sucked too.Not sure about "a fair reflection of sentiment". I believe you are correct in your previous paragraph, the buck stops with management. Bug epidemics and wild presentation problems are symptoms of an institutional problem. Yelling at clouds seldom achieves anything positive, much as it might make me feel better for a while
Tahoe could, maybe should, end up in textbooks for students of all aspects of computer science. Hard to get anyone to spill the beans from the inside though.
And when it comes to what I will use, there's only one evaluation that counts - mine. I don't care if it's great for everyone else, or they love the new changes.
Those new icons are something else. They’ve lost their character, sense of fun, and don’t really embody the nature of the software any better than before. Surely a regression.
One of my main applications recently released an update where they extend the right-side sidebar to the top of the window when they adopted Liquid Glass. This makes the edge of the sidebar slice through one of toolbar buttons. After the sidebar is exposed, the toolbar then renders part with one background shade, part with another. I presume they are following the lead of Apple and what they did to Finder when you show select "Show Preview" in the View menu.
Even though there is nothing liquid or glassy about this change, I believe it's still within the umbrella the UI changes named "Liquid Glass". The sidebar's function and content is unrelated to the toolbar and only interferes with its clarity. I'll grant that even though I find it unpleasant, some might find it nice. The astonishing thing about this change is that there is a bug in it.
When you first open a window with "Show Preview" already set, you get what I showed above. If you show the preview after the window is already open, you get:
where the sidebar is rounded on its top left.
This bug and the bug mentioned above about not being able to resize columns in Finder are proof positive of Apple completely failing to do very basic testing. There is no way to unsee this or Apple to explain it away. Many bugs can be chalked up to subtle interactions with other software or more complex requirements that are hard to achieve. But neither of these bugs are that.
I've heard two people joke about Tahoe being sabotaged (both external to this site). There is a version of this that is quite plausible. Perhaps the developers don't care because they don't like what they are producing. They might be so demotivated that they just say "good enough for my paycheck".
Even though there is nothing liquid or glassy about this change, I believe it's still within the umbrella the UI changes named "Liquid Glass". The sidebar's function and content is unrelated to the toolbar and only interferes with its clarity. I'll grant that even though I find it unpleasant, some might find it nice. The astonishing thing about this change is that there is a bug in it.
When you first open a window with "Show Preview" already set, you get what I showed above. If you show the preview after the window is already open, you get:
where the sidebar is rounded on its top left.
This bug and the bug mentioned above about not being able to resize columns in Finder are proof positive of Apple completely failing to do very basic testing. There is no way to unsee this or Apple to explain it away. Many bugs can be chalked up to subtle interactions with other software or more complex requirements that are hard to achieve. But neither of these bugs are that.
I've heard two people joke about Tahoe being sabotaged (both external to this site). There is a version of this that is quite plausible. Perhaps the developers don't care because they don't like what they are producing. They might be so demotivated that they just say "good enough for my paycheck".
According to rumors that I just became aware of Apple will be releasing a new MacBook Pro by the end of the year or sooner with an Tandom Oled touchscreen.
It will only be released on MacBook Pros for now and I have no idea if there is a certain configuration needed to get the panel.
A lot of people on this thread have been saying for a while that Apple may be releasing a touchscreen Mac and the terrible GUI is a result of this integration of touch into the GUI of MacOS.
I do have know what else to infer but that everyone who said that was right. Now we know why MacOS GUI sucks they are pulling a Windows 8 on us. It is crazy because you would think Apple would have learned from MS mistakes.
Liquid Glass more like Windows 8 packaged in glass.
Also I am extremely disappointed by the implications to MacOS for those of us who don't like touch interfaces on a PC much less a Mac and those of us with non touch enabled Macs down the line. I wonder what hits to the OS this touch interface GUI will have to overall functionality and usability.
Apple what are you doing?
Micro led screens non touch would have been so much better???? What happened to Mini leds and improving to Micro led tech??
It will only be released on MacBook Pros for now and I have no idea if there is a certain configuration needed to get the panel.
A lot of people on this thread have been saying for a while that Apple may be releasing a touchscreen Mac and the terrible GUI is a result of this integration of touch into the GUI of MacOS.
I do have know what else to infer but that everyone who said that was right. Now we know why MacOS GUI sucks they are pulling a Windows 8 on us. It is crazy because you would think Apple would have learned from MS mistakes.
Liquid Glass more like Windows 8 packaged in glass.
Also I am extremely disappointed by the implications to MacOS for those of us who don't like touch interfaces on a PC much less a Mac and those of us with non touch enabled Macs down the line. I wonder what hits to the OS this touch interface GUI will have to overall functionality and usability.
Apple what are you doing?
Micro led screens non touch would have been so much better???? What happened to Mini leds and improving to Micro led tech??
I’m now using an MS Surface 7 ARM with a touchscreen, and even though Windows 11’s UI doesn’t seem specifically designed for touch support, it works really well with it. I’m not sure if Apple had to make extensive changes to its UI to support touch, or at least not to this degree. That said, iOS is built for touch, yet they’ve stumbled with UI/UX much like with Tahoe. The new Apple updates feel more like a step backward than an improvement, almost as if they’re designed for planned obsolescence. They leave people with devices that, after the final upgrade, end up crippled with no way to downgrade in case for older iPhones and iPads. That’s why the idea of “let’s wait for 27 and see” comes across as ill-intentioned toward end users.
I would soften it a bit - "let's wait for 27 and see" comes across as inconsiderate. I do have a laptop whose upgrade path ended with Sequoia, unable to move to Tahoe. I dodged a bullet. If that laptop was stuck on Tahoe, I would have been very disappointed.
I'm not sure I understand your point about planned obsolescence. Are you suggesting Apple knows 26 is flawed and will release 27 to fix it but make 27 mostly unavailable to older hardware?
I agree that 27 is a step backward for me and the usability of my computer. It will get worse as more of my applications convert to Liquid Glass. Right now, they are few and far between. It could be that Apple set the OS on a path that will end us in a much better place. But, they shouldn't have released a production OS that didn't take us further along that path. And if someone depends on hardware that gets stuck here, that would be very unfortunate.
It’s hard to believe QA didn’t report the flaws or that management was unaware of them. Which raises the question, if they knew, why release the product in this state? Then again, the same could be asked about Apple "Intelligence", so maybe this is just how Apple operates now.