macOS Tahoe: A Pattern of Poor Usability and Design Regression

[Kal Madda]

I must say I thought you made it clear why you like Tahoe and LiquidGlass. I don’t think that info has been missing. 🙂

Speaking of consistency, it’s a bit sad that a folder one has given a color (again, nice new feature in Tahoe) isn’t reflected if it is placed in the Dock. 🙁
It just shows a folder icon and not even the icon one might have customized on it on top of changing the color.

I hope Apple gives the Dock and App Switcher some more attention.

Thanks. 🙂👍🏻. Yeah, I try to communicate clearly, but sometimes I struggle with that, and it seemed I may have not communicated clearly enough, so I’m glad to hear you thought it was clear. 🙂👍🏻

Yeah, I agree, it would be nice to be able to see custom folder icons in the App Dock. Though it looks like it’s apparently possible on macOS? I don’t know how though.

But yeah, it would be nice to see improvements with that to make it easier. 👍🏻

 

[Kal Madda]

Just to be sure you're aware - others have reported this bug. I'd heard reports it has been fixed. In post #759, Brent Simmons (a rather famous developer) showed that he was having this bug.

If you're struggling scrolling System Settings make your window shorter. Did you know you can do that? Or, if you can manage to see the general issue rather than the specific, try just moving the Family entry up; it's closer to the top and won't challenge you as much.


View attachment 2611119

Of course, make sure you don't have reduce transparency turned on. That pretty much turns off all translucency and makes most previously translucent things show as black.

Remember, no one here is asking for assistance with bugs. We're reporting them to document the state of affairs. Advice to reboot is particularly bad due to a nasty bug if you use Time Machine (which I do).

That’s no longer a bug, that was already fixed. I shared a screenshot of it before.

 

[JMalone]

I don’t want to get too in the weeds and off-topic, but I wanted to quickly address the claims being made about my work. Again, I don’t wish to get off-topic or in a debate about this, just to defend my work and refute the claims that have been leveled at it…

I create my designs, no AI was used to make the icon, or any of my art for that matter.

As you can see in the screenshot, I created the individual elements in Affinity, and put them together in Apple’s Icon Composer app to add the Liquid Glass effect. As to aliasing, that is also how edges of other Liquid Glass UI elements look when you take a screenshot and zoom it larger than it was intended to be. It likely is something to do with the edge light refraction effect. It’s hardly unique with my icon.

You should be creating a high res asset outside Icon Composer instead of comping all these low res assets inside Icon Composer. That’s one of the reasons it is making the icon look very low quality with bad aliasing.

If an icon looks like that on a forum then it’s going to be noticeable in the Finder and Dock too. Icon designers account for how their icons look at all sizes.

And it’s an app icon, it’s never meant to be seen at a large scale… It’s an app icon, not a wallpaper… None of the details criticized are visible at its proper sizing…

Icons are often seen at large scale in macOS, both in the Dock when magnification is turned on and in the Finder’s preview pane. This isn’t Windows. Take advice from people instead of getting defensive.

 

[Kal Madda]

You should be creating a high res asset outside Icon Composer instead of comping all these low res assets inside Icon Composer. That’s what is making the icon look very low quality with bad aliasing.

The asset for the document is 1,718 x 2,383 pixels. More than enough for an app icon.

Icons are often seen at large scale in macOS, both in the Dock when magnification is turned on and in the Finder’s preview pane. This isn’t Windows.

It’s an icon for a web app. So it isn’t designed for just macOS… I have yet to be able to make the icon big enough on macOS for it to be an issue. I’m using the largest res option in Icon Composer. Though I am new to using Icon Composer (and it’s a newer app in the first place), so perhaps there are additional options I haven’t come across. But in the scenarios people are going to see it in, at the scale it is normally viewed at, I think it should be fine. 🤷🏼‍♂. But perhaps I’ll look into if Icon Composer has any higher res export or something, I will consider your advice. 👍🏻

Anyways, as I said, I don’t want to get in the weeds here. I just wanted to defend my work which was being compared to “AI slop”…

Edit: looked it up, and aliasing might be due to use of .png files vs .svg. Icon Composer supports .png files, but apparently can have some issues with them.

 

[TumbleDryer]

The asset for the document is 1,718 x 2,383 pixels. More than enough for an app icon.

It’s an icon for a web app. So it isn’t designed for just macOS… I have yet to be able to make the icon big enough on macOS for it to be an issue. I’m using the largest res option in Icon Composer. Though I am new to using Icon Composer (and it’s a newer app in the first place), so perhaps there are additional options I haven’t come across. But in the scenarios people are going to see it in, at the scale it is normally viewed at, I think it should be fine. 🤷🏼‍♂. But perhaps I’ll look into if Icon Composer has any higher res export or something, I will consider your advice. 👍🏻

Anyways, as I said, I don’t want to get in the weeds here. I just wanted to defend my work which was being compared to “AI slop”…

Edit: looked it up, and aliasing might be due to use of .png files vs .svg. Icon Composer supports .png files, but apparently can have some issues with them.

Might be best if you create it in vector format then export to PNG in high a res as possible to import into Icon Composer. It sort of looks like you've used the magic wand select on some edges and its missed some pixels because the intensity was set low. Im not sure how you've got the pixelation you have on the buttons for example though, as it doesn't look like upscaling artifacts it kind of looks like you created the icon in pixels but didn't use anti aliasing to begin with?

Personally I'd create in vector then export to PNG. 👍

Also the asset you used initially - you say it's 1718 x 2383 pixels. Those are the dimensions not the resolution. The resolution is determined by how its output on screen (or printed). You could have a 5000x5000x pixel image and it still look bad if the assets imported/created within are poor.

 

[Kal Madda]

Might be best if you create it in vector format then export to PNG in high a res as possible to import into Icon Composer. It sort of looks like you've used the magic wand select on some edges and its missed some pixels because the intensity was set low. Im not sure how you've got the pixelation you have on the buttons for example though, as it doesn't look like upscaling artifacts it kind of looks like you created the icon in pixels but didn't use anti aliasing to begin with?

I did create them in vector format in Affinity Designer. I used the “Export selection area” option, but didn’t use Magic Wand at all. Perhaps something with the export, I may look into it.

Personally I'd create in vector then export to PNG. 👍

Yep, that’s what I did, I created in vector and exported as PNG.

Also the asset you used initially - you say it's 1718 x 2383 pixels. Those are the dimensions not the resolution. The resolution is determined by how its output on screen (or printed). You could have a 5000x5000x pixel image and it still look bad if the assets imported/created within are poor.

I don’t know what the cause is, the page element is 1,718 x 2,383 with a DPI of 350, so it should be plenty high resolution for an icon asset. I may look further into it when I get a chance. Thanks for the advice. 👍🏻

 

[avkills]

You might be better off using Icon Creator instead of whatever you are using now. It has specific sizes that you need to load in, for regular and retina, iPad and iPhone. I have used this app for a while and it works as long as you design correctly and load images everywhere you need them.

 

[avkills]

You might be better off using Icon Creator instead of whatever you are using now. It has specific sizes that you need to load in, for regular and retina, iPad and iPhone. I have used this app for a while and it works as long as you design correctly and load images everywhere you need them.

View attachment 2612251

Does not look like it is available anymore from the App Store, but it is old as dirt, but works for me. 🤷‍♂️

 

[svenmany]

That’s no longer a bug, that was already fixed. I shared a screenshot of it before.

The screenshot you included in this last post misses the point. You have to scroll some content on the left up to overlap the search. If you feel the screenshot that I included in post #771 is not a bug, then I'll just leave you to your opinion on that.

 

[Kal Madda]

The screenshot you included in this last post misses the point. You have to scroll some content on the left up to overlap the search. If you feel the screenshot that I included in post #771 is not a bug, then I'll just leave you to your opinion on that.

Look closer at the screenshot I shared, the search is scrolled over content and overlapping an item… That was already fixed, it’s not a current issue… The screenshot in post #771 is of a bug in an older version of 26 that has since been fixed, so that screenshot you’re citing is no longer relevant…

 

[svenmany]

What's the Time Machine bug? I use Time Machine.

I'm still pursuing it. I've completely reproduced it with fresh Time Machine volumes on Sequoia and Tahoe and I've reproduced it with 5 separate drives. I can only comment on the state of affairs for APFS. You will not notice the bug if you don't monitor your CPU, but the bug will cause significant wear if you are backing up to SSD's.

It's off-topic for this thread since it impacts Sequoia.

In a nutshell, every time you mount a volume that is configured for TM (whether or not the machine is configured to use it), Spotlight will index the oldest backup snapshot found on that volume. Every time it does this, it updates the spotlight index at the root of the TM volume.

So it's indexing the content found at:

/Volumes/.timemachine/<volumeId>/<oldest backup time>.backup

and updating the index at

/Volumes/TMDrive/.Spotlight-V100

That oldest backup never changes, so re-indexing it on every mount is mysterious. I've seen re-indexing take anywhere from 1 minute to many hours.

This morning's testing is confirming that the problem is completely reproducible on Sequoia. I created a brand new TM volume on an SSD and did a full backup of my Sequoia machine. I then ejected the drive and reinserted it. It's been reindexing for the last 2.5 hours.

Tahoe behaves the same way. One significant step forward is that the Tahoe logs show more errors relating to the state of the Time Machine backup and might provide a hint as to what's going wrong. At the root of the drive there will be a single backup in a folder named <...>.previous. I believe the snapshots on the drive are snapshots of that. The logs show that the state of that .previous folder is off. That could be what is triggering the problem.

You will find tons and tons of people complaining on the internet of Spotlight indexing Time Machine backups. But the complaints are sometimes vague and rarely resolved. People don't explore this issue thoroughly. Most people don't even notice that Spotlight is repeatedly indexing. The fact that the process repeats after every reboot means that suggestions to reboot to solve some problem could be counterproductive for TM users.

I've given up using Time Machine. I'm only continuing to explore the issue to learn. I have Carbon Copy doing hourly backups with snapshots, and it's working flawlessly.

 

[svenmany]

Look closer at the screenshot I shared, the search is scrolled over content and overlapping an item… That was already fixed, it’s not a current issue… The screenshot in post #771 is of a bug in an older version of 26 that has since been fixed, so that screenshot you’re citing is no longer relevant…

A screenshot from my current computer, showing that bug, seems to be relevant. I'm not going to respond to you anymore on this.

 

[Kal Madda]

A screenshot from my current computer, showing that bug, seems to be relevant. I'm not going to respond to you anymore on this.

You’re not running the latest betas of 26 which fixed that. I’m on macOS 26.4 Beta 4. This bug has been fixed since Beta 2.

Apparently the discrepancy is because you’re on the public version and I’m on the beta, but 26.4 should be available to the public soon. And 26.4 has fixed that bug.

 

[TumbleDryer]

I'm still pursuing it. I've completely reproduced it with fresh Time Machine volumes on Sequoia and Tahoe and I've reproduced it with 5 separate drives. I can only comment on the state of affairs for APFS. You will not notice the bug if you don't monitor your CPU, but the bug will cause significant wear if you are backing up to SSD's.

It's off-topic for this thread since it impacts Sequoia.

In a nutshell, every time you mount a volume that is configured for TM (whether or not the machine is configured to use it), Spotlight will index the oldest backup snapshot found on that volume. Every time it does this, it updates the spotlight index at the root of the TM volume.

So it's indexing the content found at:

/Volumes/.timemachine/<volumeId>/<oldest backup time>.backup

and updating the index at

/Volumes/TMDrive/.Spotlight-V100

That oldest backup never changes, so re-indexing it on every mount is mysterious. I've seen re-indexing take anywhere from 1 minute to many hours.

This morning's testing is confirming that the problem is completely reproducible on Sequoia. I created a brand new TM volume on an SSD and did a full backup of my Sequoia machine. I then ejected the drive and reinserted it. It's been reindexing for the last 2.5 hours.

Tahoe behaves the same way. One significant step forward is that the Tahoe logs show more errors relating to the state of the Time Machine backup and might provide a hint as to what's going wrong. At the root of the drive there will be a single backup in a folder named <...>.previous. I believe the snapshots on the drive are snapshots of that. The logs show that the state of that .previous folder is off. That could be what is triggering the problem.

You will find tons and tons of people complaining on the internet of Spotlight indexing Time Machine backups. But the complaints are sometimes vague and rarely resolved. People don't explore this issue thoroughly. Most people don't even notice that Spotlight is repeatedly indexing. The fact that the process repeats after every reboot means that suggestions to reboot to solve some problem could be counterproductive for TM users.

I've given up using Time Machine. I'm only continuing to explore the issue to learn. I have Carbon Copy doing hourly backups with snapshots, and it's working flawlessly.

Spotlight has been crap for 10 years lol. I’ve just downgraded to Seqouia and erased my timeMachine so it starts again from when Seqouia was reborn I barely use it as it’s rubbish. Mostly use it for quick calculations. Anyway we’re off topic but thanks for the detailed description. Mine backups up to HDD.

 

[fisherking]

Spotlight has been crap for 10 years lol. I’ve just downgraded to Seqouia and erased my timeMachine so it starts again from when Seqouia was reborn I barely use it as it’s rubbish. Mostly use it for quick calculations. Anyway we’re off topic but thanks for the detailed description. Mine backups up to HDD.

i use spotlight 98% of the time, without issue (i've got 'find any file' for anything else).

why is it 'rubbish'?

 

[Kal Madda]

i use spotlight 98% of the time, without issue (i've got 'find any file' for anything else).

why is it 'rubbish'?

Same here, though I probably use it less than 98%, I find it very useful, and definitely not “rubbish” in my experience…

 

[TumbleDryer]

i use spotlight 98% of the time, without issue (i've got 'find any file' for anything else).

why is it 'rubbish'?

It quite often misses items I know are there, at least it did years ago, and from that experience I've never really used it much as I never felt I could trust its found everything - you scroll through all the results to find its not there (even with everything ticked) and then go look for it yourself when you could have just done that in the beginning. Obviously it could have changed since then but I've never felt a need to search for anything because I know where everything is on my computer and just have it set up to access what I need quickly so there's not much use for it. In short I just don't trust it.

Also I've never really liked how it presents the data. It's never really had a clear and concise output for me.

 

[nmt1900]

Same here, though I probably use it less than 98%, I find it very useful, and definitely not “rubbish” in my experience…

I have used Alfred instead of Spotlight for many years but now it looks like it is time to move to Spotlight - because Alfred cannot be used to run/search Shortcuts without paying for Powerpack.

 

[svenmany]

i use spotlight 98% of the time, without issue (i've got 'find any file' for anything else).

why is it 'rubbish'?

Time Machine is an amazing effort and technically very sophisticated. I find it very valuable to quickly find changed or deleted files. I will miss it.

Whether you have the issue that I am encountering on multiple machines with multiple drives is unknown. You wouldn't notice it. The bug uses the efficiency cores and runs at low priority. The only likely consequence would be increased wear on your hardware and unnecessary power consumption.

 

[fisherking]

i

Time Machine is an amazing effort and technically very sophisticated. I find it very valuable to quickly find changed or deleted files. I will miss it.

Whether you have the issue that I am encountering on multiple machines with multiple drives is unknown. You wouldn't notice it. The bug uses the efficiency cores and runs at low priority. The only likely consequence would be increased wear on your hardware and unnecessary power consumption.

i moved to carbon copy cloner a million years ago, and never looked back...

 

[Wolf1701]

The good news: I was able (relatively easily) to set up shortcuts so that my Mac adjusts the audio volume at a specific time. (Before Tahoe, this was more complicated.)

The bad news is that Preview seems to have become much more unreliable: before (Sequoia), I could add and remove pages from PDFs without any issues, but now it’s hit or miss... sometimes it does nothing, sometimes it duplicates existing pages, and sometimes it works. Same goes for its text-adding feature... sometimes it creates a field but won’t let you edit it, sometimes it does (maybe on the third try, maybe only after exporting the document with another app)

 

[CrabQueenInc]

Making the rounds is this command line function that gets rid of the terrible icons in the menu bar:

defaults write -g NSMenuEnableActionImages -bool NO

 

[Kal Madda]

Making the rounds is this command line function that gets rid of the terrible icons in the menu bar:

defaults write -g NSMenuEnableActionImages -bool NO

I don’t know why anyone would want to remove the icons in the Menu Bar, they look awesome and make options faster to identify in my experience…

 

[elptdbi3lYI]

It’s hard to justify Tahoe icons

Looking at the first principles of icon design—and how Apple failed to apply all of them in macOS Tahoe

tonsky.me

 

[Kal Madda]

It’s hard to justify Tahoe icons

Looking at the first principles of icon design—and how Apple failed to apply all of them in macOS Tahoe

tonsky.me

He’s citing irrelevant HIG guidelines from 1992 (34 years ago), so his blog piece is ridiculous on its face. There were all kinds of other standards back then as well that have changed and are no longer relevant…. Standards change over time. Displays in 1992 weren’t high resolution like they are now… This blog piece is laughable…