While I won’t go that far, arguing that macOS with a Windows 95 UI is a good idea, I do agree that Big Sur’s current UI is a mess.
Traditional macOS users valued the Mac user interface deeply, and IMO that was why while iOS 7 got a big refresh, macOS got a much smaller one, only with flatness refinements. Big Sur feels like the iOS 7 for the Mac, and I’m very sad that I’ll have to wait at least 4~5 years to see the new interface improve in a better state.
Some of my key annoyances (except for bugs):
* The new control center now requires more clicks, but due to the padding getting bigger, I can’t put all of the shortcut icons in the menu bar
* The new control center and notification center’s UI is so foreign from other parts of the macOS. It’s just… so custom.
* There are now multiple variants of the title bar thickness, and all of the Apple apps now use all four. It just feels ugly. The title ban of the Photos app and the Calendar app are almost the same — why does one use a .unified one and one uses a .unifiedCompact one? And why does Safari uses a .unified one when it doesn’t really have any information to convey?
* This is from Catalina, but the NSSwitch stuff collides with checkboxes… but well I’m guessing that’s for Catalyst trying to look native
I can go on and on… but my general feeling of Big Sur’s UI is that it would take multiple years to make this better.
I don't even care about the UI flourishes and whatnot, I just want them to observe their own HIG and preventing 3rd parties from abuses, and that would be a huge win.
It used to be that focus stealing on OS X was a cardinal sin and now no one cares. If they only fix a single thing in the entire OS, it should be this.
This is actually how I feel about modern iOS too. Why is it a swipe there, a modal there...none of it has a rhyme or reason that makes sense to me. Ok, to get what I want here, do I need to force push, swipe, or tap some icon somewhere? There’s no consistency, everything is hidden, and each little thing to use the OS better is a “trick.”
On my personal iPhone, you swipe from the bottom to get Control Center, and on my work iPhone, you swipe from the top corner. If you want to send the output of one program to the input of another, you click share, move past a bunch of Contacts and Airdrop etc that I don’t think I’ve ever used in this way, swipe left/right to find an app, don’t find it, and either need to click an “Add” or “Other” button OR you need to swipe further down to click More..., until you can select thing you actually want.
I have so many gripes with the whole system. I almost believe that they are trying to make the thing harder to use so that they can create a dark-pattern around feeling a sense of mastery...but when I was trying to walk an elderly relative through the menus over the phone, it became especially obvious just much specialized knowledge the iPhone requires in order to do the very most basic of things, and almost NONE of it is discoverable.
> Traditional macOS users valued the Mac user interface deeply
I'm on the developer side and I don't know if I count as traditional macOS user but I've personally bought 3 macs (including the current M1 one) and use another mac from my company to work.
IMO I have almost 0 interaction with mac user interface. My time are either spent in terminal or in a browser. There's little need to 'interface' with whatever UI mac comes with.
I love mac mostly because of its hardware form factor and its shell. I can't tell you any GUI gimmick despite using it as my main driver for years.
Traditional macOS users valued the Mac user interface deeply, and IMO that was why while iOS 7 got a big refresh, macOS got a much smaller one, only with flatness refinements. Big Sur feels like the iOS 7 for the Mac, and I’m very sad that I’ll have to wait at least 4~5 years to see the new interface improve in a better state.
Some of my key annoyances (except for bugs):
* The new control center now requires more clicks, but due to the padding getting bigger, I can’t put all of the shortcut icons in the menu bar
* The new control center and notification center’s UI is so foreign from other parts of the macOS. It’s just… so custom.
* There are now multiple variants of the title bar thickness, and all of the Apple apps now use all four. It just feels ugly. The title ban of the Photos app and the Calendar app are almost the same — why does one use a .unified one and one uses a .unifiedCompact one? And why does Safari uses a .unified one when it doesn’t really have any information to convey?
* This is from Catalina, but the NSSwitch stuff collides with checkboxes… but well I’m guessing that’s for Catalyst trying to look native
I can go on and on… but my general feeling of Big Sur’s UI is that it would take multiple years to make this better.