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macOS Tahoe: A Pattern of Poor Usability and Design Regression
- Thread starter Deuce2
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Second screenshot was long before Tahoe's official release, so what was it, developer beta?
And this looks fine to me:
Was the intention of this screenshot to show Remind Me Later is the default (only) choice, with Continue greyed out?
I’m someone who does a lot of professional work and spend all day everyday working on my Mac.
I have never experienced this many issues on any previous macOS release ever. However, virtually none of them are Liquid Glass related, nor are they ever “work stopping”. For example when working in Xcode with Apple Music backgrounded, the audio will begin to distort. This happens more when compiling, but it’s a bug that I’ve reported since the first developer beta and still hasn’t fully been fixed (it used to be a lot worse though!).
I digress. I love Liquid Glass. Does it have flaws? Of course. Can it be significantly improved? Absolutely. Are there things I don’t like about it!m? Yes.
One of the issues - and I believe this what OP has experienced with Messages here - is that, occasionally when in Dark Mode, toolbars, search bars, and tab bars, will appear with light backgrounds when they shouldn’t. To fix this, most of the time you just have to “jiggle” the content a little in the ScrollView (quick swipe up and down).
As a designer as well, I also understand fully that no design will ever make 100% of users happy. However I do believe that within in a few years, most of these issues will have long been ironed out and most people just won’t care anymore. We’ll see.
I have never experienced this many issues on any previous macOS release ever. However, virtually none of them are Liquid Glass related, nor are they ever “work stopping”. For example when working in Xcode with Apple Music backgrounded, the audio will begin to distort. This happens more when compiling, but it’s a bug that I’ve reported since the first developer beta and still hasn’t fully been fixed (it used to be a lot worse though!).
I digress. I love Liquid Glass. Does it have flaws? Of course. Can it be significantly improved? Absolutely. Are there things I don’t like about it!m? Yes.
One of the issues - and I believe this what OP has experienced with Messages here - is that, occasionally when in Dark Mode, toolbars, search bars, and tab bars, will appear with light backgrounds when they shouldn’t. To fix this, most of the time you just have to “jiggle” the content a little in the ScrollView (quick swipe up and down).
As a designer as well, I also understand fully that no design will ever make 100% of users happy. However I do believe that within in a few years, most of these issues will have long been ironed out and most people just won’t care anymore. We’ll see.
Today just now, I factory reset my M1 Max Macbook Pro and downgraded to Sequoia. Up to now, I never downgraded the latest OS to previous one ever in Mac world. (I did install Win2000 on my Win ME machine several times. that's only time).
My MBP feels like a new machine, and all the UI and whole experience feel like I'm back to Mac.
My MBP feels like a new machine, and all the UI and whole experience feel like I'm back to Mac.
Sequoia FTW
Thank goodness M4 Macs can be downgraded.
I already feel sad for those on M5 and beyond.
Thank goodness M4 Macs can be downgraded.
I already feel sad for those on M5 and beyond.
No one said there’s something wrong with having options. The problem is the main design has so many issues that the options are there to patch up
The issue of accessibility (that Apple claims to prioritize) is not something that you should "tip" us to "learn to code, and write some code/app that fixes it."
Accessibility does apply to "the wider community." Sheesh.
The inconsistencies in the way Mac OS 26's "liquid glass" has been implemented annoy me more than any particular design decision or direction.
None of these annoyances are earth shattering; I'm still getting my work done. My Macboook Pro / M4 Pro is still sure and smooth and hella quick. But together these little misses all suggest nobody at the 3-trillion-dollar "design company" is paying close attention to how any of this "design" is actually coming together.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- Some of Apple's apps have the exaggeratedly-round window corners (Safari, Mail) some don't (Pages, Numbers, all the pro apps / now "creator studio" apps). Major third party vendors don't respect this at all (Adobe, Microsoft, etc.)
- Some of Apple's overlays respect the "tint" option and some don't. Notifications do get tinted, right-hand-menubar control icon pull-downs don't. Some app sidebars tint, some don't.
- Automatic text and control border color selection can go two different ways in the same app when confronted with neutral / middle-grey tones. So you'll get black "chrome" text with white menu options, or white "chrome" text with black menu options, over the same color wash. How about they set a threshold and pick single, consistent direction to handle it, you know?
- Now that main-menu drop-downs are populated with icons next to every single option, we note that the same options / functions available in many different apps ("open," "close," "save," "cut," "copy," "paste," etc.) have different little icons next to them in each app. How can these little nonsense icons add any navigational meaning or recognizability to options if they aren't consistent?
None of these annoyances are earth shattering; I'm still getting my work done. My Macboook Pro / M4 Pro is still sure and smooth and hella quick. But together these little misses all suggest nobody at the 3-trillion-dollar "design company" is paying close attention to how any of this "design" is actually coming together.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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just to differ, accessibility implies a certain level of knowledge, some reference material I own is accessible to everyone but requires some addition knowledge to use - the ability to access the information exists but the ability to use the information requires extra knowledge - so it seems that accessibility's definition is insufficiently delineated
I hope that Apple has enough decency to admit their mistakes and fix everything. It’s one thing not to release new AI features that people aren’t using yet, and it’s a completely different thing to break an operating system that millions of people use every day.
I've seen Liquid Glass light/dark mismatches like OP, where the background and content colors indicate the system appearance is dark mode while the glass material is still in light mode, or the inverse. Scrolling the view underneath it usually fixes it by triggering whatever computations happen to improve contrast vs. the content behind the glass. I've seen this with both Clear and Tinted settings for Liquid Glass.
I think it happens more often if the display is off when switching between dark/light mode, like my Mac does automatically at sunrise when I'm usually not awake yet, but I've yet to go out of my way to confirm. Frankly, I'm not sure why I should need to do that kind of testing on Apple's behalf to file a bug report.
Obviously, that's the hope, even if the timeframe seems a little long to me... 😂
Let's say that while the graphics may be refined, the other issues listed show that, compared to previous versions, there are significant changes under the hood. It would be nice if Apple were a little more transparent about what changes it is making that could impact performance.
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There's a number of new bugs and performance issues I encounter on iOS 26 that are unlikely to be related to Liquid Glass, but Apple's secrecy will never tell you why. Unless they're just breaking stuff for fun. (The Journal app update that's now on iPad and Mac now has data loss bugs and performance issues to the extent that's it's literally unusable in certain very normal situations.)
I'm beginning to feel, that most of the issues people describe, are from the use of dark mode. As someone who doesn't use dark mode, I don't really understand why people do. I don't spend much time using windows, but there version is very much darker.
One of my biggest complaints with the light mode is the amount of white space. Tahoe really amped this up and I’ve found it harsh on my eyes.
Yes, there are some issues with LG, but you do have some power to improve the situation. When you run across specific settings in specific apps that make something impossible to read, then report the issue to Apple. I did this for several similar issues in iPadOS 26 and they fixed them. They didn't fix them immediately, but did in a couple later updates. Report them as bugs, which they are.
I suspect that issues that are reported by many users will be addressed more quickly.
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i've been on dark mode since it first showed up in OS X, and have not experienced most of these issues (ie white on grey in messages). we're not all having the same experiences...
Lots of reasons, both aesthetic and for accessibility. It's much easier on my eyes to use light mode during the day and dark mode at night, especially on devices with reflective screens. For some people, it's easier to read white-on-black regardless of time of day.
am sorry you're experiencing those things 🙏
I think there's a strong difference between 'These UI elements are inconsistent/look bad and I don't like it' and 'there are many bugs in this OS that makes using my computer harder.' But writing off people's actual experiences, screenshots, videos, and so on as 'opinions' is exactly why we have so many of these threads.
Every time someone posts an issue they're having, there's a constant stream of condescending 'That's just your opinion, it's fine for me so it's a you problem why do we even talk about this?', then more people chime with similar issues and we get great conclusions of 'Ok fine yes, there are some bugs in your opinion but just live with it since Apple knows best.'
That thread gets pushed down after the fanboys shout down everyone else through endless 'polite' (read: condescending) posts. Someone else has the same issue, and they post a new thread instead of reviving an old one. Do we think Apple added a 'tint' switch to the display settings instead of accessibility just for fun?
I've been pretty open that I like the way LG aims to look (my homeassistant dashboard has been doing something similar with CSS for a few years now), but the bugs that I've experienced (not being able to use TimeMachine, buttons moving or vanishing, confusing visual hierarchy, and so on) are about the actual OS functions not working as well as they could.
It's one thing to upgrade from an OS to a new look and not like it, I think that happens to everyone at some point. It's another to upgrade and immediately have trouble reading the same menu text and tooltips as the old OS in the new OS or having your first time machine backup balloon to several hundred gigs (and never actually backup, even after a new drive/fresh OS install), or just completely refuse to work with your dock.
Guys if you don't like macOS, switch to windows that's it...
there's a world of difference from people posting about a legitimate issue, and people ranting about how 'wrong' rounded windows are (for example).
bugs should be squashed, issues resolved. and one of the things i love about this place is... when people ask for actual help, others step in with ideas, workarounds.
opinions are opinions, and worthy of discussion, but no one's opinion is more valid that anyone elses.