macOS Tahoe: A Pattern of Poor Usability and Design Regression

[Kal Madda]

I believe the point is how the transparency adds nothing but comic, child-like aesthetics, but hey - maybe that's what people prefer 🤷‍♂️

The transparency looks great and polished, there’s nothing “comic” or “child-like” about it, that’s just what people claim about every new aesthetic Apple introduces. And people should get used to Liquid Glass, because it’s clearly going to be the design language for a while.

 

[boswald]

I generally like the look of Tahoe, and it performs decent enough, but it could be better. Everything could be better. But one thing that REALLY pisses me off is how Mail will constantly shrink my columns so I can't read who sent me a message without resizing the damn thing. STOP IT.

 

[yaddam205]

I finally created a Tahoe VM to experience it for myself instead of forming an opinion based on screenshots and anecdotes..... it's much wrose when you start using it.

What is going on with padding? There is an extreme amount of wasted space even with settings changes. The glass effects are somewhat mitigated by darkening.

Here's hoping they fix the numerous flaws with 27. I love a gui update on apps, os, etc.... but this ain't it boss.

 

[svenmany]

I finally created a Tahoe VM to experience it for myself instead of forming an opinion based on screenshots and anecdotes..... it's much wrose when you start using it.

What is going on with padding? There is an extreme amount of wasted space even with settings changes. The glass effects are somewhat mitigated by darkening.

Here's hoping they fix the numerous flaws with 27. I love a gui update on apps, os, etc.... but this ain't it boss.

I work exclusively in dark mode. Before Tahoe I alternated now and then. But, since Tahoe I've found that I don't enjoy light mode - it just seems too light for my eyes. But in dark mode I do enjoy Tahoe. Dark mode on Tahoe feels darker than before Tahoe. On the other hand, my eyes are failing, so who really knows what I'm experiencing. 🙂

If were to use Apple applications more, I would suffer a lot from the wasted space. Thankfully, most apps that I spend so many hours in haven't adopted the Apple aesthetics to the full extent. Every application takes different pieces from it, so I end of with a mishmash of effects. Apple's design is not practical for more serious applications that require complex interactions - especially on smaller monitors or laptops without an external one.

I have 15 windows open now, from various applications. It's a study in inconsistency. I've certainly stopped noticing that. I just lower the bar and stay happy.

 

[fisherking]

I believe the point is how the transparency adds nothing but comic, child-like aesthetics, but hey - maybe that's what people prefer 🤷‍♂️

you typed 'the point' when am sure you meant 'my point'... since not everyone sees this the way you do. opinions... we all have them 🤷

 

[Cape Dave]

I finally created a Tahoe VM to experience it for myself instead of forming an opinion based on screenshots and anecdotes..... it's much wrose when you start using it.

What is going on with padding? There is an extreme amount of wasted space even with settings changes. The glass effects are somewhat mitigated by darkening.

Here's hoping they fix the numerous flaws with 27. I love a gui update on apps, os, etc.... but this ain't it boss.

Apple forgot that broad sweeping changes never bode well. Especially ones that were not very well thought out to begin with. Queue Tahoe here. Back in about 1999-2001 time frame, we learned that incremental well thought out updates were the way to go. THAT never changed. This is on Apple. Tahoe is, in a word, useless. Ill conceived and very poorly implemented.

 

[Kal Madda]

Apple forgot that broad sweeping changes never bode well.

Yeah, Apple made a real big mistake when they rushed out a completely new and radical product also known as the iPhone… They should have just stuck with making old typewriter style computers slightly smaller… Because broad sweeping changes are always bad… 🙄🤦🏼‍♂️

Your idea doesn’t really hold up here…

Sometimes, broad sweeping changes are a great thing. Just like with Liquid Glass…

I respect your opinion, but it is an opinion… 🙂👍🏻

 

[Cape Dave]

Yeah, Apple made a real big mistake when they rushed out a completely new and radical product also known as the iPhone… They should have just stuck with making old typewriter style computers slightly smaller… Because broad sweeping changes are always bad… 🙄🤦🏼‍♂️

Your idea doesn’t really hold up here…

Sometimes, broad sweeping changes are a great thing. Just like with Liquid Glass…

I respect your opinion, but it is an opinion… 🙂👍🏻

I never said it wasn't an opinion. In other news, Let's Make Everything Round! Why? No reason, just because the idea popped into my head! Another word for Tahoe is... unnecessary. What problem did it solve?

 

[Kal Madda]

I never said it wasn't an opinion. In other news, Let's Make Everything Round! Why? No reason, just because the idea popped into my head! Another word for Tahoe is... unnecessary. What problem did it solve?

It solved the problem of an over decade old flat design language that was becoming visually stale, antiquated, and boring… And it provides less distraction in several apps I use all the time, the UI stays out of my way and feels less intrusive between me and the stuff I’m working on. 🙂👍🏻

 

[svenmany]

Apple forgot that broad sweeping changes never bode well. Especially ones that were not very well thought out to begin with. Queue Tahoe here. Back in about 1999-2001 time frame, we learned that incremental well thought out updates were the way to go. THAT never changed. This is on Apple. Tahoe is, in a word, useless. Ill conceived and very poorly implemented.

Do you still use Tahoe?

I am very far away from a negative reaction that would motivate me to call it useless. I am generally happy to sit down at my computer every day, and I'm usually very productive. But something does happen every day that points to things that Apple could do so much better.

Today I was talking on the phone and was put on hold; I was using my Mac for this. I wanted to move the little phone popup to a different monitor to move it out of the way of my work. I decided not to risk it. Even though there was a clear red button to hang up, I worried that clicking anywhere might disconnect the call. That speaks to the extreme lack of confidence I have in Apple's UI choices. It's their lack of consistency in some of their apps that shakes my confidence about what happens when I do things. The Home app is a good example.

In the Home app I have a bunch of sections shown on the main page (named "Home"). Here's a small screenshot from that page:

It's such a strange situation. If you click on the word "Porch", you are taken to a page dedicated to that location. But, if you click way off to the right, you might or might not be taken to that page. If click a spot that is horizontally aligned with the word "Porch", you will be. Otherwise, you won't be. The level of disdain I have for the designer of this app is hard to express in words.

Apple's deemphasizing predictability in UI interactions left me unwilling to touch the popup without fear of disconnecting an important call.

 

[avkills]

It solved the problem of an over decade old flat design language that was becoming visually stale, antiquated, and boring… And it provides less distraction in several apps I use all the time, the UI stays out of my way and feels less intrusive between me and the stuff I’m working on. 🙂👍🏻

They did not have to round the window corners as much as they did; But they did because of the rounded displays on iPhones and iPads; it works fine for those devices; not so much for the desktop -- too many choices for displays.

I would say most of the disdain is the rounded corners; I could probably stomach if they had doubled what the rounded space was, but it is easily 3-5x as rounded than Sequoia -- from my perspective it just looks bad and adds a ton of padding.

 

[Kal Madda]

They did not have to round the window corners as much as they did; But they did because of the rounded displays on iPhones and iPads; it works fine for those devices; not so much for the desktop -- too many choices for displays.

I would say most of the disdain is the rounded corners; I could probably stomach if they had doubled what the rounded space was, but it is easily 3-5x as rounded than Sequoia -- from my perspective it just looks bad and adds a ton of padding.

Ok, I like the corner rounding, but to each their own. 🙂👍🏻

 

[DCIFRTHS]

there's just a group of people here who become enraged (or just indignant) when someone disagrees with their observations or opinions. i find it entertaining (at best) and exhausting (mostly) 🤣

What's that story about the pot...?

 

[DCIFRTHS]

agreed 👍 the forum is full of them... 🤷

We agree on this point 👍

 

[fisherking]

What's that story about the pot...?

the two people, though still in serious disagreement, smoked the pot, sat back, and laughed.

'it's ok to have different opinions' said the first; 'and at least we can agree on that', said the other. ☺️

 

[fisherking]

I would say most of the disdain is the rounded corners; I could probably stomach if they had doubled what the rounded space was, but it is easily 3-5x as rounded than Sequoia -- from my perspective it just looks bad and adds a ton of padding.

i can honestly say that i spend my time in the windows of apps, and don't stress the corners of those windows; am not sure why anybody would 🤷

 

[DCIFRTHS]

Quoting is not working for me, so I had to go old school 🙁

Not sure if it's the site or Tahoe's version of Safari??? Which is a topic for another thread!

@kagharaht said:
I really don't understand how such a goofy thing is allowed on Apple Music UI with Tahoe. Look at this...it's just stupid.

@Kal Madda said:
It looks fine to me. 🤷🏼‍♂️. The playback control bar is finally where it is in basically every other media player on every other platform… 👍🏻

@DCIFRTHS states: It's not the placement, it's the stupid transparency that serves no function other than being optical nightmare. In my opinion, that is 😉

@fisherking said: you typed 'the point' when am sure you meant 'my point'... since not everyone sees this the way you do. opinions... we all have them 🤷

You would not be correct. I was referring to the post from @kagharaht above: I should have said I believe the point of
that post...

If I have misquoted anybody, let me know, and I will correct it.

 

[fisherking]

Quoting is not working for me, so I had to go old school 🙁

Not sure if it's the site or Tahoe's version of Safari??? Which is a topic for another thread!

@kagharaht said:
I really don't understand how such a goofy thing is allowed on Apple Music UI with Tahoe. Look at this...it's just stupid.

@Kal Madda said:
It looks fine to me. 🤷🏼‍♂️. The playback control bar is finally where it is in basically every other media player on every other platform… 👍🏻

@DCIFRTHS states: It's not the placement, it's the stupid transparency that serves no function other than being optical nightmare. In my opinion, that is 😉

@fisherking said: you typed 'the point' when am sure you meant 'my point'... since not everyone sees this the way you do. opinions... we all have them 🤷

You would not be correct. I was referring to the post from @kagharaht above: I should have said I believe the point of
that post...

If I have misquoted anybody, let me know, and I will correct it.

in which case: you typed 'the point' when am sure you meant 'the previous poster's point'... since not everyone sees this the same way. opinions... we all have them 🤷

 

[Cape Dave]

It solved the problem of an over decade old flat design language that was becoming visually stale, antiquated, and boring… And it provides less distraction in several apps I use all the time, the UI stays out of my way and feels less intrusive between me and the stuff I’m working on. 🙂👍🏻

Intelligent incremental updates would have solved that problem much better. With a whole lot less time wasting bugs. Yearly rollouts for an OS just do not make any sense except from a marketing and profit point of view.

 

[Kal Madda]

Intelligent incremental updates would have solved that problem much better. With a whole lot less time wasting bugs. Yearly rollouts for an OS just do not make any sense except from a marketing and profit point of view.

I completely disagree with everything you said there. I think one big intelligent update is way better. I didn’t encounter any major “time wasting bugs” on any of my devices, even though I’ve been running the developer betas, which puts me at a far higher risk of encountering such bugs… I’ve had near perfect performance even on older devices running these developer betas for the past year, which is very impressive for a beta cycle.

And I like yearly rollouts, I look forward to them every year. I even mark WWDC on my calendar every year, and try to watch live whenever possible. I love the yearly rollouts. And they mean I get great new features every year. I would never want a different setup… Apple develops features several years ahead of release in the background anyways, so changing the update cycle would likely have zero impact on “software quality” or whatever you want to call it. Apple puts out very high quality software, that still doesn’t mean it’s perfect or that nobody will encounter bugs given the myriad of potential factors that can cause bugs for some individuals and not others. It’s practically impossible to create a software so complex that millions or trillions of people use on a daily basis, and not have the potential for any single individual encountering a bug due to a corrupted file during install or something… I don’t really believe it’s practical or reasonable to expect a perfect software, or really even any higher of quality of software than the high quality Apple already delivers… 🤷🏼‍♂️

I respect your opinion, I just strongly disagree. To each their own. 🙂👍🏻

 

[Cape Dave]

I completely disagree with everything you said there. I think one big intelligent update is way better. I didn’t encounter any major “time wasting bugs” on any of my devices, even though I’ve been running the developer betas, which puts me at a far higher risk of encountering such bugs… I’ve had near perfect performance even on older devices running these developer betas for the past year, which is very impressive for a beta cycle.

And I like yearly rollouts, I look forward to them every year. I even mark WWDC on my calendar every year, and try to watch live whenever possible. I love the yearly rollouts. And they mean I get great new features every year. I would never want a different setup… Apple develops features several years ahead of release in the background anyways, so changing the update cycle would likely have zero impact on “software quality” or whatever you want to call it. Apple puts out very high quality software, that still doesn’t mean it’s perfect or that nobody will encounter bugs given the myriad of potential factors that can cause bugs for some individuals and not others. It’s practically impossible to create a software so complex that millions or trillions of people use on a daily basis, and not have the potential for any single individual encountering a bug due to a corrupted file during install or something… I don’t really believe it’s practical or reasonable to expect a perfect software, or really even any higher of quality of software than the high quality Apple already delivers… 🤷🏼‍♂️

I respect your opinion, I just strongly disagree. To each their own. 🙂👍🏻

I am the type of guy that when I get in my car, I like the steering wheel to be at least somewhat round. I like the brake on the left, the go pedal on the right. And no effing "ipad" blocking my windshield. Any change to that setup cannot possibly benefit me.Like, when all car manufacturers decided we did no longer need to actually see out the window so they covered it with a disgusting ipad like screen that tries to TAKE ALL MY ATTENTION from the road, where it belongs. And other than "getting out of my way" I do not need any additional "features" from my OS. And yes, we strongly disagree. But that is what makes for an interesting horse race.

 

[fisherking]

I am the type of guy that when I get in my car, I like the steering wheel to be at least somewhat round. I like the brake on the left, the go pedal on the right. And no effing "ipad" blocking my windshield. Any change to that setup cannot possibly benefit me.Like, when all car manufacturers decided we did no longer need to actually see out the window so they covered it with a disgusting ipad like screen that tries to TAKE ALL MY ATTENTION from the road, where it belongs. And other than "getting out of my way" I do not need any additional "features" from my OS. And yes, we strongly disagree. But that is what makes for an interesting horse race.

wait... are we talking about mac OS? or cars? or horses?

there's a world of difference between the importance of how your car functions and how the GUI on a computer functions. on that note, am pretty sure that no one has ever been run over by a mac 🤔

 

[BSDnostalgia]

Any change to that setup cannot possibly benefit me.Like, when all car manufacturers decided we did no longer need to actually see out the window so they covered it with a disgusting ipad like screen that tries to TAKE ALL MY ATTENTION from the road, where it belongs.

I know. Unfortunately, I'll never be able to buy a car built after-- 2022? Not sure when they ALL got those dumb screens that block your view. In some cars, you can't even adjust the HVAC settings without stopping the car and fiddling with the dumb screen for five minutes. This massive change was done absolutely without any human factors experts in the loop.

And, back on topic, I wonder if human factors had any input in Liquid Glass? I suspect that the main input came from designers from the function-follows-form school.

 

[Cape Dave]

I know. Unfortunately, I'll never be able to buy a car built after-- 2022? Not sure when they ALL got those dumb screens that block your view. In some cars, you can't even adjust the HVAC settings without stopping the car and fiddling with the dumb screen for five minutes. This massive change was done absolutely without any human factors experts in the loop.

And, back on topic, I wonder if human factors had any input in Liquid Glass? I suspect that the main input came from designers from the function-follows-form school.

I have good news. There ARE a few cars without that monstrosity blocking the window. You got to search for them 🙂 I have recently been watching documentaries on how they build various super cars. Awesome show! And..... not a freaking iPad screen on any of them! Gee, I wonder why? Maybe because it is among the three stupidest thing humans have ever done?

 

[Kal Madda]

I am the type of guy that when I get in my car, I like the steering wheel to be at least somewhat round. I like the brake on the left, the go pedal on the right. And no effing "ipad" blocking my windshield. Any change to that setup cannot possibly benefit me.Like, when all car manufacturers decided we did no longer need to actually see out the window so they covered it with a disgusting ipad like screen that tries to TAKE ALL MY ATTENTION from the road, where it belongs. And other than "getting out of my way" I do not need any additional "features" from my OS. And yes, we strongly disagree. But that is what makes for an interesting horse race.

So, we’ve determined that we also disagree on cars… 🤷🏼‍♂️. I like the iPad-style screens on the newer vehicles, it’s great for navigation systems and such, and it being larger means a driver would spend less time looking away from the road than with a smaller screen. I think pedal placement is regulated, if it isn’t, it’s definitely pretty standard in vehicles anyways.

Then again, I love iPads, so it’s hardly surprising. I would probably add an iPad to just about everything if I could… 😂😉

From my perspective, much of what Apple has done with macOS 26 and Liquid Glass is standardizing and correcting weird inconsistencies of macOS vs basically any other platform (including their own). Before, the Mac for whatever reason had the gas pedal and brake pedal switched around vs what was standard on all their other devices (and all the competitors as well)… Case in point, they decided randomly to slap the playback controls in Apple Music at the top, even though all their other devices (and basically every other platform) places those controls at the bottom… Never made any sense to me. Now, thankfully they fixed it. The same app on the Mac had a weird and needlessly different UI in many cases for no good reason. Apple has thankfully fixed that. To me, what Apple has done is brought far better consistency across Apple’s platforms and adopted more modern standards that everyone uses.

macOS especially was the one switching pedals around needlessly, and making the system far less appealing to new users (and to existing users like myself)…

That’s my opinion, obviously we disagree, and I respect that, but I think Apple has fixed the very problem you’re talking about with your analogy. 🙂👍🏻