Im sorry. But Liquid Glass looks cheap.

[Sniper08]

meanwhile, perhaps this:

"Hey, I don't like the new UI, and so it needs to change, because that's how i feel, and i'm right"
"Sure"
End.

I'm not sure if you're being disingenuous or don't understand what I said. Again, just for emphasis:

People posting a UI glitch or being frustrated that a feature has been removed without warning does the following:
Brings it to people's attention, helps them recognize if it's a widespread problem or just an issue with their hardware or installation, and for anyone who hasn't 'whined' they can learn that whatever is wrong with their device isn't intended.

People whined about their phones slowing down as their batteries aged. The result? Battery replacement program. Keyboards. Speakers. Display lamination, etc.

So when a mere 'aesthetic change' creates real usability issues, removes tools that people use (yes, launchpad. I use it, I like it. I don't use Font Book but I get that there are people who do.), saying 'Hey, I'm not having this issue.' vs 'Guys things change you just gotta go with the flow' is dismissive and unhelpful.

And your fake example shows that dismissive and condescending behaviour.

"Hey, I don't like the new UI, and so it needs to change, because that's how i feel, and i'm right"
"Sure"
End.

There are piles of videos and images of actual usability issues in the release version just in this subforum. Upgrading has introduced serious bugs and inconsistencies in this release with how people use their computers that didn't exist before the upgrade. To reduce that to saying 'because that's how I feel, and I'm right' continues that rudeness and stamps down discussion.

Edit: Fixed an incorrect phrase in the last sentence.

I'm leaving it here so we can get back on track.

 

[fisherking]

I'm not sure if you're being disingenuous or don't understand what I said. Again, just for emphasis:

So when a mere 'aesthetic change' creates real usability issues, removes tools that people use (yes, launchpad. I use it, I like it. I don't use Font Book but I get that there are people who do.), saying 'Hey, I'm not having this issue.' vs 'Guys things change you just gotta go with the flow' is dismissive and unhelpful.

And your fake example shows that dismissive and condescending behaviour.


There are piles of videos and images of actual usability issues in the release version just in this subforum. Upgrading has introduced serious bugs and inconsistencies in this release with how people use their computers that didn't exist before the upgrade. To reduce that and saying 'because that's how I feel, and I'm right' continues that rudeness and stamps down discussion.

I'm leaving it here so we can get back on track.

if only it were true. as i said, there are things that need fixing, and should be discussed! but too many ppl, in so many places, rant on about the aesthetics, how it's 'wrong', and they don't like it, and things should be the way they think it should be.

2 very different subjects; i agree with you about the first (altho am not experiencing any serious 'bugs', i do see the visual issues).

"saying 'because that's how I feel, and I'm right' continues that rudeness and stamps down discussion." i agree here too, and i get tired of being at the receiving end of this.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

I’m just gonna repost some of these comments from older OS launches, for those who want to say that the reception of Apple’s OS’s on these forums (the sky is falling! The sky is falling!) hasn’t pretty much always been the case.

Yes, I am getting that feeling. Sure does look like people are having a lot of troubles. Reading these forums, I haven't seen much about the upside of Tiger..

I love Tiger, but it is buggy as hell. It bums me out because I would love to be using it on all of my Macs and as my main OS for work, but it is nowhere near ready.

The only show stopper bug I have found is Tiger drops connectivity on WDS networks when you move around between hubs. You have to renew the IP lease. It's really bad.

Outside of that, Tiger has quite a few cosmetic and small functionality bugs. Tons, actually. But these are more annoyances.

I am hopeful that .1 is a huge release. 200+MB release with 1,000's of bug fixes. Tiger is really awesome and Apple has a lot to be proud of, but it is clear that Tiger needed a couple of more months of bug fixing.

Fingers crossed on 10.4.1....

Mixed bag here: I did a straight upgrade, and Spotlight doesn't work properly, missing all kinds of things, files and folders. Preview is very buggy, but I can now use it to operate my Epson scanner. If it could do this before, I wasn't aware of it. Dashboard I can do without. I'm going to give it one more chance with an Erase and Install, and if it's no better I'm back to 10.3.9 till 10.4.1 comes out. I can't afford to have a Finder which can't find.

- Transparent menu bar is ugly
- 3D dock is ugly
- Stacks can only be created from an entire directory, not specific files
- Animations run slow on GMA950
- Rubbish bin asks you to confirm every time you empty it
- Finder still beachballs when using network drives

To be honest, I'm not really that impressed with Leopard. The only real change which is useful to me is Quicklook and cover flow.

My biggest gripe about Leopard is that, as with any new Apple product, its launch brings out so much whingeing and complaining.

anyone else having a horrible time with ichat video conferencing? the backdrops look awful. they worked beautifully in the demo though.... what a concept.

They've really dropped the ball on Spotlight. What on earth were they thinking?

Not only can you not exclude your web history like you could in Tiger, but you have to include your library in Spotlight or you won't get any bookmarks indexed. But that means you get all the rest of the crap in the library indexed, and who apart from a few people wants that junk in their search?

It's just awful. Spotlight in Tiger was good. This is no better than the crap search available for Windows or for Linux distros.

I have noticed there are a lot of UI inconsistencies, i remember there being some in tiger, but i really hoped leopard would have made everything consistent.

For example, if ical is not the active window the buttons are grayed out and i cant click on them without selecting the window first. On the other hand safari i can click the buttons no matter if this is the active window or not (you cant click links on a webpage)

In mail the buttons work when the window isn't active, but everything else does not, in itunes I cant click anything unless the window is active.

IMO if I can see it I should be able to interact with it no matter if the window is the active window or not...

Discuss.

I have noticed a series of small things about snow leopard that are not deal breaking for me but certainly do serve as a minor annoyance.

Post your problems with snow leopard

Spaces - I used to be able to switch space by zooming out and hovering the mouse but now I have to click the space I want to move to.

Multitouch - every feature except for scrolling and alternative click no longer works for me. (Update: All multitouch features now work after my 3rd time restarting my computer)

Log in - with usb devices plugged in there is a long delay (possibly indefinite) where the screen is simply blue (BSOD anyone), and when I unplug all usb devices I still end up viewing 2 mouse pointers (screen shot attached (take with my iphone so its pretty low quality)

Frankly I hate Snow Leopard at the moment. I have actually pulled out Leopard and am reinstalling in my iMac and going back to it. Safari crashes constantly, my cursor jumps around terribly, and worst of all is EVERY document I try to work with in iWork freezes up the application. I was getting things ready for church and it all froze up. I was sheepish in telling people the Mac gave me an issue as I am always telling people how well they work.

I haven't heard of others having these problems, but after three installs and all the issues, I gave up.

My MacBook Pro will not go to sleep after installing Snow Leopard.

It WILL go to sleep if I close the lid; however, if I have it sit open for 15 minutes, it won't go to sleep. It attempts to sleep, but instead the screen will just go black for less than a second. It's just like a flash of black, and then the screen goes back to normal. It simply won't sleep.

Anyone else see this happen?

Macbook Pro upgraded install two issues so far.
When using "open with" scrolling through the apps locks up.
iTunes random frequent drop outs on playback.

I did an upgrade on my iMac and MBP and am pretty pissed off with the results so far. I dunno how many times I've had apps crash. I mean I can't even get iPhoto to not crash, I imported a few pictures, wanted to touch them up and the stupid progam has crashed about a dozen times. Purely ridiculous.

I also do some graphic design and don't even get me started with PS CS4. Christ I have to save my work after every freaking layer I add just in case something happens.

I wasn't expecting much in terms of features etc (not the reason why I bought SL, I bought SL purely for performance gains), but Apple could have at least released SL in a decent working order. I am a software developer and I find it hard to believe that this thing even got passed UAT, let alone being released to the public. To not even be able to run native "Apple Programs" like iPhoto is absolutely ridiculous, I can understand 3rd party apps may not be fully compatible but this clearly isn't the case.

I know I'll get a bunch of "why don't you perform a clean install?" and as much as I would like to do that I have so much configurations and applications etc on both my Macs that it just isn't worth the hassle. Apple better freakin come out with some patches soon, going from Tiger to Leopard was a way better experience than this crap.

Why is there always so much doom and gloom when a new OS is released? I just love the "it's Apple's Vista" statements. I believe they said the same thing about Snow Leopard.

The UI Fragmentation doesn't stop with gestures, look at Address Book and iCal. Apple threw their own Interface Guidelines out the window on this one.

I recall a few things from past OS X releases mainly:
Jaguar (10.2) is waaaay better than Panther (10.3)

a year later

Panther (10.3) is so much better than Tiger (10.4)

a year or two later

Tiger (10.4) kills this new Leopard (10.5)

and eventually

Leopard (10.5) > Snow Leopard (10.6)

Which finally brings us to this thread. Give it time friends... and also wait for the GM to start ranting about how much you hate 10.7.

The more things change the more they stay the same.

This website has existed for every single launch of Mac OS X, from 10.0 Chita to 26.0 Tahoe.
The complaints? Ever present.
Anyone who says “it wasn’t like this (insert arbitrary amount of time) ago” it was.
Design inconsistency? Anyone remember complaints about brushed metal, and how every application didn’t utilize it equally? That was 1999-2007.
The transparent menu bar in leopard? It took apple five months to add an option to reverse that, after over a year of beta testing.
Snow leopard being the most stable bug free OS ever? Anyone remember the first three versions of that operating systems would literally delete all of your data if you created a guest account? Your home folder, just gone in a snap. Literally could be hundreds of gigabytes of data, if not properly backed up, just gone.

 

[fisherking]

@Lounge vibes 05 : brilliant, and shows what i say every year (but you did the work, so thank you) 👍

 

[MBAir2010]

Snow leopard being the most stable bug free OS ever? Anyone remember the first three versions of that operating systems would literally delete all of your data if you created a guest account? Your home folder, just gone in a snap. Literally could be hundreds of gigabytes of data, if not properly backed up, just gone.

Not that well…..but that was during the ppc to intel switch.
Once  smoothed out the osx was superior even today
So you made a great point!

 

[Sniper08]

Honestly...those are mostly valid issues. Dropping network connections, spotlight privacy settings, full lockups, and laptops not sleeping. I mean, they literally had to dedicate Snow Leopard to fixing bugs from Leopard. The GMA950 was criminal. Snow Leopard brought my poor MacBook to its knees.

But the majority of these issues were actual issues that had to be acknowledged and fixed by Apple. I'm not sure what the point of highlighting that past OS releases were also buggy?

Should we not expect a company that has had multiple buggy releases and decades of development experience to get it together?

I can't speak to any design inconsistencies prior to 10.4, but I don't recall anything being so visually inconsistent in the fundementals of UIs, like alignment and readability, upon release, particularly after months of public beta feedback. I'm curious if the Public Beta that started with Yosemite helped address the more serious issues, like SL's HDD deletion bug but that the UI team is..resistent.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

Not that well…..but that was during the ppc to intel switch.
Once  smoothed out the osx was superior even today
So you made a great point!

This was 2009, Apple switched to Intel in 2006.
The Intel transition had been several years passed by then.
It just so happens that the first several versions of snow leopard were extremely buggy, and all you have to do is look at apples archived release notes for the first several updates to it to see that.
Or just read this excellent article made a couple years ago…

The myth and reality of Mac OS X Snow Leopard

Apple had an absolute ton of UI inconsistencies, bugs, broken features with updates, rough X.0 launches (iPhone OS 2.0 was especially a big mess) back in the day.
It’s just simply that people don’t remember that, because nostalgia allows the struggles, bugs, glitches, and inconsistencies to be forgotten to time.
I remember iOS 4 on my iPod touch, I remember just how fast and fluid and light it felt, how simple compared to today’s operating systems it was.
But the second I actually think about it critically I also remember that… I had to force restart that iPod touch at least twice a day, and holding the home button to force quit an application was pretty much an occurrence every couple hours. Plus the battery life on that thing makes an iPhone 12 Mini look like a 17 Pro Max in comparison.

 

[fisherking]

Honestly...those are mostly valid issues. Dropping network connections, spotlight privacy settings, full lockups, and laptops not sleeping. I mean, they literally had to dedicate Snow Leopard to fixing bugs from Leopard. The GMA950 was criminal. Snow Leopard brought my poor MacBook to its knees.

But all these issues were actual issues that had to be fixed. I'm curious if the Public Beta that started with Yosemite helped address the more serious issues, like SL's HDD deletion.

Regardless, I'm not sure what the point of highlighting that past OS releases were also buggy? Should we not expect a company that has had multiple buggy releases and decades of development experience to get it together? I can't speak to any design inconsistencies prior to 10.4, but I don't recall anything being so visually inconsistent in the fundementals of UIs, like alignment and readability, upon release, particularly after months of public beta feedback.

sure, but 'visual inconsistency' is a long way from 'serious bugs'. and we have seen small steps forward with LG since beta 1; hopefully we'll see more forward motion

 

[Sniper08]

I'm saying visual inconsistency because this thread is about the appearance of Tahoe. There are still serious bugs: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/time-machine-issues.2463673/

I'm not sure what the point of telling us that past OSx and MacOS releases were also buggy? Should we stop posting about things that are wrong with the release? Should we thank our Apple overlords for not deleting our harddrive when we make a guest account? That we should be thankful that past releases were more buggy and therefore not criticise this one?

It's hard to percieve this line of thought as anything but "Be quiet."

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

Honestly...those are mostly valid issues. Dropping network connections, spotlight privacy settings, full lockups, and laptops not sleeping. I mean, they literally had to dedicate Snow Leopard to fixing bugs from Leopard. The GMA950 was criminal. Snow Leopard brought my poor MacBook to its knees.

But the majority of these issues were actual issues that had to be acknowledged and fixed by Apple. I'm not sure what the point of highlighting that past OS releases were also buggy?

Should we not expect a company that has had multiple buggy releases and decades of development experience to get it together?

I can't speak to any design inconsistencies prior to 10.4, but I don't recall anything being so visually inconsistent in the fundementals of UIs, like alignment and readability, upon release, particularly after months of public beta feedback. I'm curious if the Public Beta that started with Yosemite helped address the more serious issues, like SL's HDD deletion bug but that the UI team is..resistent.

You don’t recall in panther when the finder turned to brushed metal, and everyone had something to say about it? I wasn’t even old enough to speak yet and yet just threw archive preservations, it’s not that hard to find. The complaints back then we’re basically the same as the complaints now, it’s harder to use, it’s less easy to understand, Apple isn’t following their own UI guidelines.
My point was not necessarily that these inconsistencies are OK, or that Apple shouldn’t listen, of course that’s not the point.
The point is that no matter how much beta testing is done, no matter how much experience Apple has in software development, no matter how long they allow something to bake in the oven, no matter which CEO is in charge, every operating system, Apple, or otherwise, has bugs, inconsistencies, glitches, problems, etc.
And no matter what, no matter if there were some Steve Jobs level genius who became apples, CEO tomorrow, whenever a new operating system releases this place will be flooded with complaints, no matter what, valid or not.
If Apple announced tomorrow, they were switching back to the snow leopard aqua look, this place would immediately be flooded with complaints.
If they announced, they were completely throwing liquid glass away and going right back to the way it looked in Sequoia, there would be complaints.
If they said, who cares, you can make it look like whatever theme you want, and gave you a selection of every single theme they have ever used, there would be complaints.

 

[H. Flower]

Pleasantly surprised by Liquid Glass. Yes, some of it is gimmicky, but at least in macOS, we get back some skuemorphism that makes navigation quicker and elements easier to read. And colored folders are back!! I missed this organizational feature dearly for the past decade.

Like I said some of it is gimmicky, but it’s nice to have some of Job’s fun and whimsy back in the design, which Ive completely drained out of the software. We got the boot up chime back… maybe the lit up apple logo on MacBooks will make a return ?

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

I'm saying visual inconsistency because this thread is about the appearance of Tahoe. There are still serious bugs: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/time-machine-issues.2463673/

I'm not sure what the point of telling us that past OSx and MacOS releases were also buggy? Should we stop posting about things that are wrong with the release? Should we thank our Apple overlords for not deleting our harddrive when we make a guest account? That we should be thankful that past releases were more buggy and therefore not criticise this one?

It's hard to percieve this line of thought as anything but "Be quiet."

The line of thought is not necessarily towards those who have any complaint at all, it’s geared at those who seriously insist that “OS X (insert random amount of time ago) was so much better” and “Jobs would’ve fired everyone in software development and made sure they were never hired again if they ever even so much as had a thought of Liquid Glass”.
Because it’s really not true at all, it’s a very ridiculous way of thinking, it’s not accurate to the reception at the time, it can easily be disproven simply by going into the archives, and while I’m sure Snow Leopard was a fine OS the absolutely ridiculous mythology of it being this unbeatable bug free OS that makes Tahoe feel like Windows ME in comparison just… Doesn’t really line up with reality.

 

[Sniper08]

You don’t recall in panther when the finder turned to brushed metal, and everyone had something to say about it? I wasn’t even old enough to speak yet and yet just threw archive preservations, it’s not that hard to find. The complaints back then we’re basically the same as the complaints now, it’s harder to use, it’s less easy to understand, Apple isn’t following their own UI guidelines.
My point was not necessarily that these inconsistencies are OK, or that Apple shouldn’t listen, of course that’s not the point.
The point is that no matter how much beta testing is done, no matter how much experience Apple has in software development, no matter how long they allow something to bake in the oven, no matter which CEO is in charge, every operating system, Apple, or otherwise, has bugs, inconsistencies, glitches, problems, etc.
And no matter what, no matter if there were some Steve Jobs level genius who became apples, CEO tomorrow, whenever a new operating system releases this place will be flooded with complaints, no matter what, valid or not.
If Apple announced tomorrow, they were switching back to the snow leopard aqua look, this place would immediately be flooded with complaints.
If they announced, they were completely throwing liquid glass away and going right back to the way it looked in Sequoia, there would be complaints.
If they said, who cares, you can make it look like whatever theme you want, and gave you a selection of every single theme they have ever used, there would be complaints.

No, I don't recall Panther because I started using Macs with Tiger.

Again, the examples you've shared were real issues that were fixed in later releases. But, for some reason, none of these lessons got transferred over to new OSes? I remember clear improvements in usability going from Tiger moving forward. Most importantly, even when switching UIs, it didn't make literally things harder to read and they learned from their mistakes in iOS7: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/10/os-x-10-10/#toc-h2

My core issues, and I suspect for a lot of other people, is that LG gets in the way. It takes up more white space, it makes things blurrier (or softer if you want to think positive), is harder to read, and is distracting. Again, there is no clear area to grab a finder window and move it around, so the safest spot to click is the name of the folder you're in. This review has a good explanation: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/09/macos-26-tahoe-the-ars-technica-review/#toc-h10

I don't care if the new UI was a fisherprice themed red-and-green-and-yellow skeumorphic analogy based on a toddler's car, or if it was a Windows 98 homage. But at least be consistent about it and don't remove basic interaction areas.

 

[Daimaou]

I like the new look. 🤷‍♂️

 

[MDTyKe]

I like the new look. 🤷‍♂️

You like bugs and visual inconsistencies?

 

[neuropsychguy]

The definition of a soft focus is a slightly blurred image.

I don’t mean a soft focus, I mean a softness to the design. This is achieved through the shapes chosen, layer effects (iOS 26 is more 3D than previous versions), colors, and the “materials” used. For example, glass is softer in appearance than steel. A frosted glass color is softer than elephant gray.

There is a little “blurring” of some features because that’s how glass can affect light — diffusion and even refraction. Overall, the design looks in focus to me, just softer than previous versions of the OS.

I know some people disagree but that’s what I’m seeing. Nothing out of focus or with a softer focus.

 

[MBAir2010]

This was 2009, Apple switched to Intel in 2006.

Aaaah, now I remember 2009 as tough.... because most of us were either laid off or had to quit our jobs after companies went under.
we well I for one used my iMac igloos and G4 powerbook to look for work
that did not exist as I assembled bicycles during the snow leopard launch
I think that was $129 which would go to food instead.
now anyone can get that for free I think, hope!

my first intel was my MacBook Air 2010 (used that today with SLosx)
I don't remember having any problems with the software, even today that is faster than Tahoe.
eventually that year I gifted my iMac g3 and the powerbook failed that year as well.
as a medical office in Costa Rica is using that igloo G4 for file storing and other office work.

most Mac users did use power pc chips in 2009 as today a lot use intel though a wikipedia page won't mention this.
as if anyone really complained about their computer not up to snuff in 2009,
well that was like a person upset that this steak was over cooked back in 1920.

anyways this was not a retort or a "one up", massage just supporting what I experienced then.

hopefully the Liquid Glass will get better to the eyes for us users.

have fun and take care!

 

[HouseLannister]

I can assure you it’s NOT cheap. They spent a lot of money… oh, on marketing, not development, you silly fool.

 

[Brighton Apple Guy]

nothing in the GUI is keeping me (or has kept me, since DP1), from doing the work (& play) i do on my macbook air. meanwhile, am enjoying stability and speed (not perfection, of course). seems a great time to me 🤷

It’s not just UI. It’s UX. all those annoying glitches detract from your day to day experience. Whilst OS development is inherently more complex than what I do, if I released software in that state I’d be super pissed at myself.

I have higher expectations of a company that charges premiums than what it’s doing at the moment tbh.

 

[al3zza03]

I couldn't get over the corner radius being so large. It takes up too much room. Glad I installed it on Parallels first to check it out. Probably sitting this one out for a bit.

 

[fisherking]

You like bugs and visual inconsistencies?

this is a perfect example of where the complainers won't allow a contrary point-of-view.

 

[fisherking]

It’s not just UI. It’s UX. all those annoying glitches detract from your day to day experience. Whilst OS development is inherently more complex than what I do, if I released software in that state I’d be super pissed at myself.

I have higher expectations of a company that charges premiums than what it’s doing at the moment tbh.

all i can say is, i am using my mac every day, getting my work done, and enjoying the experience. the minute details are not getting in my way, and i am excited to see how things improve or change over time....

same as i've felt since i started on mac OS (10.3.9)....

 

[SaMMyS]

all i can say is, i am using my mac every day, getting my work done, and enjoying the experience. the minute details are not getting in my way, and i am excited to see how things improve or change over time....

same as i've felt since i started on mac OS (10.3.9)....

Well, I am using my Mac everyday, getting work done, and not enjoying the liquid glass. The minute details are getting in my way, and i am excited to see how things degrade or change over time....
Apple design has been rotting for years, and I always tried to get used to their new glitches and design flaws here and there. Now at long last, this time, even my mother can't stand liquid glass, and my whole family went back to iOS18 after upgrading and experiencing iOS26 in two days...

Average user DO CARE about UX and aesthetics, and we here in the forum is to discuss it.

 

[Brighton Apple Guy]

all i can say is, i am using my mac every day, getting my work done, and enjoying the experience. the minute details are not getting in my way, and i am excited to see how things improve or change over time....

same as i've felt since i started on mac OS (10.3.9)....

I am also interested (it’s an OS so excited isn’t really the word) to see how it develops. When it becomes more usable I can consider upgrading from the rock solid and well performing Sonoma.

However, I’m not willing to beta test (let’s face it it’s a beta in all but name) software for one of the biggest tech companies on the planet. They should learn to get things ready properly for release. Maybe by stopping with the ridiculous annual release cycles which are clearly there for the benefit of shareholders and stock price.

One thing that annoys me with the yearly updates is they just pile more bugs on top of the bugs from the last few versions that they don’t bother addressing.

 

[Chidoro]

Flat design was beautiful. Looking now on iOS 18 it looks really futuristic and clean. This iOS 26 is an absolute mess. Hope I didn’t update but it’s too late now.

Kindly rewind to the release of iOS 7 and the sh!tstorm of whiners back then. Dwarfs the amount I’m seeing now quite frankly.