Tahoe's Terrible Icons

[fuchsdh]

Every time I have to use System Settings, I'm just amazed by the magnitude of regression from the classic Preferences. It was one of the nice things about mac, tbh. Not that I'm constantly in preferences, but it was one of the things Mac did really well.

I'm not sure if System Prefs was ever good, as they really had an issue trying to figure out where to stuff new features or how to rename groupings as the OS evolved... (the random grab bag of 'general' or the Mission Control stuff being the worst offenders.) But I've also not heard anyone who likes the Settings app more now. Even searching for what I know something is called is maddeningly inconsistent.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I can't stand how the Settings App hasn't been built with more flexibility in mind. I should be able to widen it and have it expand and reconfigure to show a LOT more at once.

It's one of the most "this is clearly a concept just ported over from iOS" Apps out there.
I hate that feeling on a Mac.

 

[Makisupa Policeman]

The Finder window is terrible now. Why does everything have to have a floating element with a bold border? It’s so busy and cluttered. And don’t get me started on the new window dragging icon.

 

[TumbleDryer]

Regarding the window dragging icon it's 50/50 whether I get it to be able to drag a window. I know that's not specifically because the icon is different it's more to do with the hit state of the window edges most likely changed with Tahoe. But for me it's VERY finicky trying to get the icon to appear to allow me to resize a window. Not had that issue before Tahoe.

 

[TruthAboveAllElse]

Then zoomed into the first icon and here is what I was told.
"Not sure, at first I thought is was just a glass but I looked closer and thought it must be a magnifier of some sort like one of those guys uses in movies to look at diamonds.".

To be fair, the thing people use to look at diamond is, in fact, a loupe.

 

[canukstorm]

You're complaining about icons when they spent a decade on Swift instead of modernizing ObjC and keeping the performance improvements and dynamic capabilities

In hindsight, this would have been a better way to go. A lot of bugs can be chalked up to SwiftUI as well.

 

[nmt1900]

And don’t get me started on the new window dragging icon.

What is a "window dragging icon"?

 

[maflynn]

What is a "window dragging icon"?

This:

I have to thank our benevolent AI overlords for allowing me to create this image

 

[mac57mac57]

I've been using Macs for thirty years, and (some people will roll their eyes at this) but GENUINELY since Steve Jobs died the whole experience has gone down hill. Coincidence maybe but with his dedication to perfection I'm thinking not. Those who haven't experienced the decline from genuine intuitive 'you just knew how it worked' to 'what the hell is this' won't understand.

Absolutely!!

I remember when I changed over from Windows to Mac OS X in 2006 (after an interim year using Linux as my daily driver), I was initially confused. I was still, in my way of thinking, a Windows and Linux user. Nothing was easy in either of those worlds, and when I started working with Mac OS X, I could barely figure out how to do anything.

Then it struck me - what would be the easy, straightforward way to do what I wanted to do?... and that was how you did it on a Mac. Install an app? Just drag it to the Applications folder! So simple! No ten-billion step installer that usually failed, no DLLs scattered all over the machine and so on.

Steve Jobs' obsession with perfection shone through the Mac OS X GUI from every corner. Everything just worked, and it worked in simple, obvious ways, no matter how complex "it" was.

When I have to turn to Google to figure out how to do something on my Mac (and on my Sonoma M3 MBP, I have to do this all too often) Apple has failed. It has failed it's users and it has failed it's heritage.

My opinions on this have been oft stated, so I will just say that I love my G5s under Tiger and (Sorbet) Leopard, and wherever possible I do most of my real world work on them now... I find even Monterey to be less productive than Leopard.

 

[mac57mac57]

On every other Apple platform, “General” held things like “Software Update”, “Date & Time” and “Storage”.
Meanwhile, in system preferences on the Mac, general was… Appearance settings? Huh?

A little history may be helpful here. The "General" preference pane has existed since Macs first began, way back when... and what you would find there, way back in the mid to late 80s, was things like Appearance, Cursor blink rate and so on.

Keeping things like this under "General" isn't jarring, it is continuity. If you are a long time Mac user, you KNOW where this stuff will be, and you EXPECT it to be there... and it is a comfort and a joy when it is. When it isn't (read "today's preferences") THAT is jarring, to a Mac user at least.

If you started out with Apple products on an iPhone, you may reasonable wish that all Apple products had GUIs that looked like the iPhone GUI. However, if are a long time Mac user, you will reasonably want your new Mac's GUI to look like ... a Mac GUI!

Macs and iPhones are different devices and are used for different things. It is more than OK if they have different GUIs. The IOS'ification of macOS will be the death of it, or at least the cause of many, many Mac users refusing to "upgrade" - really, a usually downgrade!

 

[TumbleDryer]

What is a "window dragging icon"?

This little doohickey...

 

[TumbleDryer]

Absolutely!!

I remember when I changed over from Windows to Mac OS X in 2006 (after an interim year using Linux as my daily driver), I was initially confused. I was still, in my way of thinking, a Windows and Linux user. Nothing was easy in either of those worlds, and when I started working with Mac OS X, I could barely figure out how to do anything.

Then it struck me - what would be the easy, straightforward way to do what I wanted to do?... and that was how you did it on a Mac. Install an app? Just drag it to the Applications folder! So simple! No ten-billion step installer that usually failed, no DLLs scattered all over the machine and so on.

Steve Jobs' obsession with perfection shone through the Mac OS X GUI from every corner. Everything just worked, and it worked in simple, obvious ways, no matter how complex "it" was.

When I have to turn to Google to figure out how to do something on my Mac (and on my Sonoma M3 MBP, I have to do this all too often) Apple has failed. It has failed it's users and it has failed it's heritage.

My opinions on this have been oft stated, so I will just say that I love my G5s under Tiger and (Sorbet) Leopard, and wherever possible I do most of my real world work on them now... I find even Monterey to be less productive than Leopard.

Reading this kind of makes me wish I kept hold of my G5 and Snow Leopard. I still have the install disk!

 

[CasualFanboy]

This little doohickey...

Even the cursors are a regression. 😭

 

[TumbleDryer]

Even the cursors are a regression. 😭

It's ok. Naughty Mr Dye has left now. You'll be alright.

 

[Big_D]

Try to find Disk Utility. Woah.

Cmd+Space Disk, Enter, jobs a good'un.

 

[Big_D]

I personally like that the scroll bars auto hide. I always found them hideous looking. A giant grey bar down the side of the screen.

That is the only thing that really annoys me, I usually have Teams running on the internal display on my MacBook Air and the Dock on the main screen. Because the scrollbars autohide in Teams, when I try and scroll horizontally (E.g. Planner pane), the mouse has to go right to the bottom of the window and by the time I've found the scrollbar, the Dock has switched to the internal screen and covers the bottom of the Teams window...

Edit: Found the option, displays have spaces turned off and now it stops jumping back and forth, although maximising a window causes the other display to go blank... and if I go full screen on the internal display, I can't get back out of it... I'm really not sure which is more painful.

Other than that, I don't really have any problems with the changes, to be honest, I hardly even noticed the "Glass" when I upgraded my devices. I kept looking for it and not really seeing any difference, unless I really looked closely.

Anyhooo... is it just me or is it MUCH more difficult to grab the edge of a window to resize it in Tahoe? The 'hit state' must be tiny like 1 or 2 pixels wide. I can take me a few attempts to get it and sometimes its simply not there, especially on some corners.

Maybe smaller corners would help?! 🤔

Yes, I sometimes have problems, macOS will even show the "grab" cursor for resizing, but clicking doesn't resize, it either activates the window or what is behind it, or activates Exposé...

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

A little history may be helpful here. The "General" preference pane has existed since Macs first began, way back when... and what you would find there, way back in the mid to late 80s, was things like Appearance, Cursor blink rate and so on.

Keeping things like this under "General" isn't jarring, it is continuity. If you are a long time Mac user, you KNOW where this stuff will be, and you EXPECT it to be there... and it is a comfort and a joy when it is. When it isn't (read "today's preferences") THAT is jarring, to a Mac user at least.

If you started out with Apple products on an iPhone, you may reasonable wish that all Apple products had GUIs that looked like the iPhone GUI. However, if are a long time Mac user, you will reasonably want your new Mac's GUI to look like ... a Mac GUI!

Macs and iPhones are different devices and are used for different things. It is more than OK if they have different GUIs. The IOS'ification of macOS will be the death of it, or at least the cause of many, many Mac users refusing to "upgrade" - really, a usually downgrade!

That sounds like a lot of nostalgic fluff that doesn’t really mean anything.
The iPhone is significantly more popular than the Mac.
The majority of people who are purchasing their first Mac are coming from an iPhone.
It makes sense that the iPhone would set the standards going forward, and that Apple would try to aim for as much consistency between the platforms as possible.

 

[TumbleDryer]

That is the only thing that really annoys me, I usually have Teams running on the internal display on my MacBook Air and the Dock on the main screen. Because the scrollbars autohide in Teams, when I try and scroll horizontally (E.g. Planner pane), the mouse has to go right to the bottom of the window and by the time I've found the scrollbar, the Dock has switched to the internal screen and covers the bottom of the Teams window...

If im reading that correctly just hold shift when you scroll it will scroll horizontally. No need to find the bars.