Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Tahoe's Terrible Icons
- Thread starter turbineseaplane
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
And apple barely paid attention to that HIG back in Jobs’s days either.
Daring Fireball: Brushed Metal and the HIG
daringfireball.net
And infamously, it violated all sorts of rules of the HIG.
Steve apparently absolutely loved it. He was apparently the biggest proponent of its spread throughout Mac OS 9 and X throughout those nine years, even in places where the HIG explicitly states that it is *not* to be used.
And the exact same thing happened with the new application designs of Lion, the book in contacts and the leather calendar and the green Game Center absolutely violated several aspects of the HIG.
Why all of a sudden, would you expect Apple to treat the HIG any different today?
They haven’t really ever followed it 100%.
At least the brushed metal never made it impossible to read text. I also don't think the argument "they didn't follow it before" should be used, just because it wasn't perfect before doesn't mean they should just trash it today.And apple barely paid attention to that HIG back in Jobs’s days either.
Brushed metal was the longest running texture during the Steve Jobs days, starting in 1999 and spreading to almost every default application until being discontinued in 2007 with Leopard.Daring Fireball: Brushed Metal and the HIG
And infamously, it violated all sorts of rules of the HIG.
Steve apparently absolutely loved it. He was apparently the biggest proponent of its spread throughout Mac OS 9 and X throughout those nine years, even in places where the HIG explicitly states that it is *not* to be used.
And the exact same thing happened with the new application designs of Lion, the book in contacts and the leather calendar and the green Game Center absolutely violated several aspects of the HIG.
Why all of a sudden, would you expect Apple to treat the HIG any different today?
They haven’t really ever followed it 100%.
Personally, I preferred windows having more colors than white and "very very light gray"; iOS 7/Yosemite onwards has been awful if you didn't like staring at a 90% white screen.
semi-on topic: check out the icon for the new 'affinity' app on my desktop: next-level LG? 🤯
Last edited:
it's weird, it's just the alias (and it does it every time). so i cut & pasted the actual icon onto the alias, and all is well 🤪Looks perfect!
On the other hand, you could use the exact opposite argument.
If it was too restrictive in 2003 for Steve Jobs, too restrictive in 2011 for Forstall, too restrictive in 2014 for Johnny Ive and too restrictive in 2025 for Alan Dye, maybe it’s not as important as people want it to be.
I concur.
Furthermore many of us long time Apple customers bought into the ecosystem because it was well thought out, nicely designed, highly functional and efficient.
Fast forward to today and it seems that some changes disguised as upgrades are made simply for sake of change, or to draw in new customers, or who knows why.
Makes one wonder who's in charge and what are the companies true values beyond being a revenue generating behemoth.
In my large Apple using circle of friends and colleagues, only the shareholders are truly satisfied. Those passionate about the product are losing interest.
That's true. Preview's icons exemplify the limits of skeuomorphism: for me Preview is essentially a PDF reader.
But in the real world, there's no such a thing as a PDF.
There are printed documents and books. I don't need any tool (app) to open books and documents. OK, I wear glasses, but a pair of glasses as an icon would be only slightly better than a loupe (which virtually nobody uses for reading a document). In fact, if I were using an unfamiliar system for the first time, the best icon would be a square with written "PDF".
The truth is, Preview is a perfect example of an app for which there can't be an immediately recognizable icon. And it doesn't matter, because on any OS, if I want to open a PDF document (or an image) I double click on the file, I don't look for the app first. And this is true for a variety of files (and their apps).
And if, for some reason, I wanted to find what is the application to open a PDF or an image (and it's not obvious that it must be the same for both), going through all the icons would be the least efficient way, and I would probably fail so many times before finding it.
i don't know of anyone who opens preview, then works with it. as above, i double-click a pdf, jpeg, png, screenshot... and preview opens. i do remember the last time i started by opening the app; it was never 🤣
I didn’t know the new Calendar icon didn’t have the actual date on it (a smart touch from the Jobs era), and yeah, I think it’s quite a loss…
It does, unless you launch it from the Application folder instead of the dock.
Particularly when you consider that most folks using it as some sort of disparaging characterization are probably a shareholder of whatever it is they're upset about.
Most anyone with a 401k, IRA, 403b, whatever probably have some AAPL in there.
The new Preview icon is just soul-crushing. Sorry AI overlords for embarrassing you!
If you have a 401k that happens to include apple shares, you probably don't even know about it and you're not one of the people making demands on the company.
The shareholders who get into that level of interest are vultures and parasites who care nothing about what customers want, the interest of employees, or even the company itself. So the disparaging characterization is well earned.
Now I’m imagining Forstall Lives spray painted in a company bathroom somewhere at apple hq.
I'm confused. I'm not sure you were quoting me or the message you were trying to get across in your post.
This is only true until you open up the App Switcher and are greeted with an unrecognisable icon that has no resemblance to anything (it is supposed to be a loupe, but most loupes that I have used have a handle) and you start wondering what is this app that you don't even remember opening.
I have now used Tahoe for a month and I still can not get over this stupid icon. Just another generic blue blob out of 10 others. I used to drag files on icons in the dock (another way to open files, that is quite common). Now there are 5 blue blobs in the dock - which one is the right one?
All the previous changes to MacOS seem to increase the mental load on the user. Generic monochrome toolbar symbols lacking colour require mental focusing to pick out the right one. Now they are coming for the icons.
Why is it that in Software everybody thinks that throwing out muscle memory is a good thing? Cars have the accelerator pedal on the right and the brake on the left. Yes, it is incredibly boring, but it builds really good muscle memory, so much so, that accelerating and stopping the car becomes an seemingly effortless task, that lets you focus on more important things.
lol, no worries. I read it loads of times and thought what am I missing.
That is exactly the point - recent changes to the GUI make the system harder to use, not easier. That is counter-productive.
I stand by my contents on the "disappearing scroll bars" issue. Yes, you can turn this very questionable "feature" off, but you shouldn't have to! Why is this feature "on" by default??? In its default state, it reduces productivity, not increases it. This isn't an esoteric discussion of artistic expression, this is real work, and that real work is impacted by misguided design choices like this.
The lack of dedicated title bars is another permanent annoyance to me. If you regularly use apps with busy button bars, or whatever, at the top of their windows, it can become very difficult to find a spot to click and drag. Nine times out of ten, I end up activating some feature of the app, not moving it's window! Again, this reduces productivity - it is a huge step backwards! I don't understand the rationale either. It is not like we are all using 14" or 15" monitors these days... we all have oodles of display space. A title bar doesn't consume that much of it!
We can argue all day about what looks better, but when looks triumph over usability, everyone suffers. This is just plain wrong.
I continue to love the Tiger look n feel, even as I use Sorbet Leopard daily. Leopard is not as visually attractive as Tiger, but it is close, and it is more functional for my needs, so I use it.
At least for me, productivity wins every time. I am an unabashed computer nerd, and I love to tinker with them just for fun, but I also have real world work to do on them, and they HAVE to support that. Tiger and Leopard do that waaaay better than the macOS of today.
I think we have some generational change that is impacting a lot of this.
I, like you, care most about highly thought out, functional, legible and even customizable workspaces and applications. I'm trying to "do things" and do them in a way that works for me and makes sense to me.
Somewhere along the line, "designers" decided that everything should be a sexy brochure (even actual UI) and/or resemble futuristic non functional, but "cool", interfaces seen in TV/Movies.
It's like we need a return to first principles here or something.