1. Too much white in the finder. Ouch. 2. Menu bars are hard to read and blend in too much with the content. Buttons don’t look like buttons. 3. Selected window state looks too much like the unselected window state. 4. Terrible translucent menu bar. I want an opaque one! Much easier to look at. I can’t do that because the “reduce transparency” setting completely ruins the dock in the process. 5. Uneven icon design. As an example the battery icon in the preference pane and the FaceTime & messages icons look like they’ve been made by an intern who applied for engineering but now has been placed in the art department. No even worse; like 12 separate teams worked on the designs and they got merged in the end. 6. Overall “toy look”. I want my desktop to be clean and minimalistic.
It all feels very uneven. As if it wasn’t rethought from the ground up but they “reskinned Catalina”.
1. Too much white in the finder. Ouch. 2. Menu bars are hard to read and blend in too much with the content. Buttons don’t look like buttons. 3. Selected window state looks too much like the unselected window state. 4. Terrible translucent menu bar. I want an opaque one! Much easier to look at. I can’t do that because the “reduce transparency” setting completely ruins the dock in the process. 5. Uneven icon design. As an example the battery icon in the preference pane and the FaceTime & messages icons look like they’ve been made by an intern who applied for engineering but now has been placed in the art department. No even worse; like 12 separate teams worked on the designs and they got merged in the end. 6. Overall “toy look”. I want my desktop to be clean and minimalistic.
It all feels very uneven. As if it wasn’t rethought from the ground up but they “reskinned Catalina”.
I think that people that jump around between iPhone, iPad, and Mac OS are going to like the upgrade, and there are a lot of people that have that workflow. Those that are primarily tied to the Mac OS are going to be unhappy until they adapt, but adapt they will. Most of them anyway.
By the next release, a year from now, we should see enough fine tuning to make almost everyone happy, same as it ever was.
I don't have any HDR screens to date, on my existing iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and I'm wondering if HDR impacts the new look.
The good news (for those of us who prefer it): Dark Mode is not so much affected. That is, most things are not translucent to the point of making them difficult to read. The menu bar is still an opaque, near-black. At least for now, that almost answers the preferences of those who complained to Steve Jobs when he introduced (and wanted to make mandatory) the transparent menu bar. So far, none of the app icons in mine have failed to show up: good work, devs!
I guess the candy store colors made it necessary (?) to put thin, black borders on the desktop icons for disks/SSDs, but the result is something that looks far cheesier than an outfit like Apple.And why do they have gradient color fills, when the menu bar icons have been flattened?
Speaking of the menu bar, why does it suddenly have, in dark mode at least, a white border? It just stands out like a sore thumb, without providing any advantage. At the very least, it should be a matter of user preference.
Everything substantive, except for one peripheral driver/interface (Brother's P-touch software) appears to be up and running, and also appear to be a bit snappier in response. Disk Utility, in particular, starts up pretty much instantaneously on my system; it used to take several seconds. Or is that just the result of a newly set up container?
I'm happy about everything, except for one thing: when a major patch like this is being installed I lose access to my computer for one hour. It takes that long for the patch to install when it reboots my Mac. I've used PCs before multitasking was invented, so I'm used to delays, but PC makers still haven't figured out a way to allow multitasking while OS's are taking long times to reboot. It seems like a small gripe, but I have three computers and other smart devices and it seems that every month I have to update one of them with an hour long patch. I don't think they'll solve this problem while I'm alive.
I'm happy about everything, except for one thing: when a major patch like this is being installed I lose access to my computer for one hour. It takes that long for the patch to install when it reboots my Mac. I've used PCs before multitasking was invented, so I'm used to delays, but PC makers still haven't figured out a way to allow multitasking while OS's are taking long times to reboot. It seems like a small gripe, but I have three computers and other smart devices and it seems that every month I have to update one of them with an hour long patch. I don't think they'll solve this problem while I'm alive.
I'm happy about everything, except for one thing: when a major patch like this is being installed I lose access to my computer for one hour. It takes that long for the patch to install when it reboots my Mac. I've used PCs before multitasking was invented, so I'm used to delays, but PC makers still haven't figured out a way to allow multitasking while OS's are taking long times to reboot. It seems like a small gripe, but I have three computers and other smart devices and it seems that every month I have to update one of them with an hour long patch. I don't think they'll solve this problem while I'm alive.
Update overnight, problem solved.
That would work well if I knew in advance that the reboot would take an hour, but there was absolutely no warning before I started the install how long it would take. Furthermore, there are several clicks you have to do to confirm the process, and you never know which click is going to start the process.
All this hullabaloo is why I wait for the .3 release before updating my macOS. Apple uses the initial release to enroll a humongous set of "beta testers" to assist in making the OS a decent piece of software.
All this hullabaloo is why I wait for the .3 release before updating my macOS. Apple uses the initial release to enroll a humongous set of "beta testers" to assist in making the OS a decent piece of software.
I've got news for you, buddy, that hullaballoo is from a bug that's in the current, x.3+ version of macOS right now.
The design is general is good: Widgets and Notification Center are great and most of the stuff I've been giving Apple feedback about. App icons are mostly good (QuickTime player icon is not), but the consistency of the shape of them works well. Rounded everything is great. System Prefs is improved.
What's not so great: bugs, contrast like iOS 7 is wrong, buttons don't necessarily need ever-present shapes around them, but need to be a darker shade of grey so they pop more. I tired turning on increase contrast but it turns the interface into a comical 1984 Mac experience. Fun for a minute but then get the hell out of here. Furthermore, there should be a way to selectively turns off or tone down transparency without changing the transparency of the dock which is fine (and is always in your face). I'd like to reduce the transparency of the drop down menus; just the menus.
Overall I like what I’ve seen so far. That being said, I noticed that you cannot make custom keyboard shortcuts for Finder any longer. That’s a bummer.
Also, when selecting multiple files or folders in icon view, the ‘Clean up Selection’ context menu option is not available.
Comments
1. Too much white in the finder. Ouch.
2. Menu bars are hard to read and blend in too much with the content. Buttons don’t look like buttons.
3. Selected window state looks too much like the unselected window state.
4. Terrible translucent menu bar. I want an opaque one! Much easier to look at. I can’t do that because the “reduce transparency” setting completely ruins the dock in the process.
5. Uneven icon design. As an example the battery icon in the preference pane and the FaceTime & messages icons look like they’ve been made by an intern who applied for engineering but now has been placed in the art department. No even worse; like 12 separate teams worked on the designs and they got merged in the end.
6. Overall “toy look”. I want my desktop to be clean and minimalistic.
It all feels very uneven. As if it wasn’t rethought from the ground up but they “reskinned Catalina”.
By the next release, a year from now, we should see enough fine tuning to make almost everyone happy, same as it ever was.
I don't have any HDR screens to date, on my existing iPhone, iPad, and Mac, and I'm wondering if HDR impacts the new look.
I guess the candy store colors made it necessary (?) to put thin, black borders on the desktop icons for disks/SSDs, but the result is something that looks far cheesier than an outfit like Apple.And why do they have gradient color fills, when the menu bar icons have been flattened?
Speaking of the menu bar, why does it suddenly have, in dark mode at least, a white border? It just stands out like a sore thumb, without providing any advantage. At the very least, it should be a matter of user preference.
Everything substantive, except for one peripheral driver/interface (Brother's P-touch software) appears to be up and running, and also appear to be a bit snappier in response. Disk Utility, in particular, starts up pretty much instantaneously on my system; it used to take several seconds. Or is that just the result of a newly set up container?
Apple uses the initial release to enroll a humongous set of "beta testers" to assist in making the OS a decent piece of software.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2020/11/macos-big-sur-launch-appears-to-cause-temporary-slowdown-in-even-non-big-sur-macs/