Tahoe seems to be so full of straws to break the camel's back for so many macOS users who have been slowly annoyed by the grind of version ~10.10 to 15.7
I’ve seen this in a ton of video players. This is an especially bad example. But it’s so common for the entire top third of the screen to be blurred or darkened just to display a single small UI element in a corner. Stupid design.
The reason it’s especially stupid for Apple is because half of their new design system is about making content front & center.
I love having to install Deno so I can run yt-dlp to download a video that I want to see a brief or small detail in when that small detail happens to be in the lower third of the video because when I pause, it puts a stupid gradient over the video or blocks it entirely with the controls.
That's why the entire thrust of Liquid Glass was bad and dumb from the start. "The controls will get out of the way of your content....so we put them floating in front of your content" just absolutely braindead. There was a way to get them out of the way, give them their own space!
I’ve been on Mac for about 30 years. I’m planning my switch to Linux (probably KDE) and GrapheneOS. I can’t keep giving so much money to a company that clearly doesn’t have my interests in mind.
So much of the ecosystem doesn’t “just work” anymore and now instead of fixing those issues, they are actively working to make my computing experience worse. I’ve hade enough.
The more I investigate the current state of Linux desktops, the more excited I get. It seems like Linux is actually good for general use now, and I’ll have so many more options to make my technology fit me instead of the other way around.
It’s comical how you can copy and paste these same comments anytime there’s been a new macOS for probably the last 10 or so years. Hell maybe longer.
Every. Single. Year. “Apple is taking away my laptop I’m switching to Linux.”
I’m grateful to you all though — I think your constant griping every year probably does at least apply some pressure on Apple to focus on keeping macOS good at what it does: provide a pleasant but still powerful desktop experience for those who just want to do stuff and not spend hours under the hood making some Linux flavor usable.
Apple internally must be a constant battle between those who want to unify iOS and macOS and those who understand they’re different systems with different purposes, and need different treatment.
Craig Federighi was a strong proponent of the latter camp but maybe he’s just getting on in years. Goes to show that key people being good and caring a lot can be all that stops things from backsliding.
So the battle for macOS is being slowly lost. Lucky we have KDE.
If it keeps going this way my next laptop won’t have that fruit logo. And that is a real shame.
Mojave was the last macOS version that had any features I cared about. Now each release is about how bad did they trash the macOS UI. Switching to Linux has been great.
I’d love to switch to Linux but it seems impossible as someone who relies on macOS / logic for music production. I’m in too deep and feel like the floor is coming out from under me with all these insane changes and the direction Apple is taking
Actually lately iPadOS is the one getting most of its features from macOS. iPadOS 26 introduced a menu bar, just like macOS, and a new windows manager that's just the same as macOS.
I think this change makes sense on both platforms. If you're gonna use it as an example of why merging the platforms is bad, I think you just strengthen the opposite argument.
I recently went down a rabbit hole on how researchers make mice depressed so they can test antidepressants on them. The short answer is they disrupt the mouse's environment in ways that are unpredictable and uncontrollable. It's a standard protocol. We know that this causes depression.
The culture of products not under the control of the customer does the same thing. A culture that sees this as normal is a depressed culture.
To test whether the mice are depressed, researchers give them something rewarding that requires a little effort to get (e.g., sugary water vs. plain water).
The depressed mice give up. They are apathetic.
I imagine the mice believe that there is no way to change things. That might be true for the mice but it's not true for us.
> The short answer is they disrupt the mouse's environment in ways that are unpredictable and uncontrollable.
For example like will my wifi work today. Will my laptop still have any battery when I open it. Is today the day I surprise boot to tty and have to figure out what changed before I can start working.
I'll stick with the year-to-year unpredictability of apple over the day-to-day unpredictability of linux.
Agreed. If I weren't a computer nerd I probably wouldn't feel this way, but on Linux I feel more empowered. Even if there are more things to tweak/fix (which is not necessarily true these days), there IS probably a way to do it.
On MacOS, I more often have to give up and live with the annoyances.
Hardware is the the big exception. None of my PCs have had nearly as good build quality or battery life (on Linux, at least) as a Macbook. Maybe I should try a Framework.
Apple is quietly but surely increasing its control on macOS. That definitely makes it a less desirable desktop OS.
Today when you generate a PDF from you own content (from Apple Notes app) you are asked about opening links you click on. I thought that they were surely joking and there would be a way to disable that behavior.
But no, this is intended and there is no way to disable that.
It makes the Preview app a pain in the ass as a PDF reader, which means you have to replace it and begs the question of even using Apple software in the first place.
The answer is that there are fewer and fewer reasons. I mean if you are OK feeling like a child biking around on a cycle with training wheels while an overbearing parent keeps nagging you, it might be for you. Otherwise, the experience is really more like a prison/walled garden and the funny thing is that you paid for it !
last time i tried to set up a new android phone. the built in phone app asked me permissions to use the built in contacts app.
people complain if the apps don't all have fine grained permissions. and then complain when they have to agree to stuff all the time. and then complain they got "hacked". damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Which makes it even more important for Google to take accessibility seriously so that disabled people aren't stuck being the only ones that have a hard time switching from the play pin.
> I mean if you are OK feeling like a child biking around on a cycle with training wheels while an overbearing parent keeps nagging you, it might be for you.
That's exactly why I encouraged my parents to get iPhones.
> Apple is quietly but surely increasing its control on macOS.
This is certainly happening. However, as long as you can still install your preferred browser with its own rendering engine or a different PDF reader, the situation isn't so bad.
I'm getting great mileage out of LibreWolf on macOS (currently running Sequoia). I don't know who at Apple thought it was a great idea to permanently kill off ad blockers in Safari, but it was a terrible idea that made the world a worse place.
Of course I say macOS is getting along fine for me, but I'm posting this comment from my workstation PC running Ubuntu 24.04. I'm pleasantly surprised by how much better my Linux experience is now than it was in 2013. It seems from my personal experience so far like a free desktop OS that can run a web browser and play games better than the paid alternatives is a solved problem. I find this machine much less frustrating than my M4 Macbook Air- many of the "security" behaviors are just annoyances.
> Apple is quietly but surely increasing its control on macOS. That definitely makes it a less desirable desktop OS.
I mean this has been the conversation since the early days of Mac OS. I didn't get back to Mac until Snow Leopard but I remember the uproar over removing Java in 10.7
> Today when you generate a PDF from you own content (from Apple Notes app) you are asked about opening links you click on.
Or they don't have any usability studies. A hard regression in efficiency in many places.
E.g. Safari in iOS 26 forces you to do 50% more button presses. E.g. if you want to close a tab, you need to press one button more these days. Also one button press more to see the current tabs. These are likely the most used scenarios when you use the browser and they add one button press more?
"They pass more time with this! They like it a lot! Engagement achieved!!!11one11eleven" said the developer.
"Why is this slower? Why do I have to burn time massaging the interface instead of doing it fast and continuing with my life? What a waste..." said the user.
Over the last two decades "the user is the product, milking machines to 110%!!!" has leaked all over the computing world, infecting where the user is (and will be forever, let's hope) the user.
I don't think I've ever appreciated a video player putting gradients above and below the controls or darkening the entire video when the controls are active. It's extremely annoying when you're trying to scrub through a video and read a particular bit of text. Why do UI designers from Apple to YouTube to Amazon think this is necessary?
This is one of the main reasons why I left the Macintosh ecosystem several years ago. Apple is, has been, transitioning from a computer company to a computing appliance company for many years now, and I just couldn't take it any longer. I have happily been a full time Linux user since then.
The fact that they synced up the version numbers (macOS 26, iPadOS 26, iOS 26) is a signal that they intend to unify all OSes.
My experience with iOS 26 + liquid glass (ew) on my phone has been terrible. Feels like a step backward. I am dreading upgrading my macbook bc I love it the way it is. Regrettable.
The criticism here is a bit overblown. What happened is: on recent iOS versions, when you tap a video in Safari to show the controls it slightly dims the video until the controls hide. In the latest macOS release, macOS Safari has adopted this behavior.
The argument apparently being that any change at all, if it was first made on iOS, must inherently be a sign that the two platforms are merging. Now, I don't really have an opinion about this behavior (I imagine it makes it easier for the controls to always be legible, regardless of what the video content looks like?), but I'd assume that any logic that holds for it being a good idea when applied on iOS would apply just as well on macOS. It doesn't have to be a sign that they're merging, just that similar reasons to make a change can exist in both places.
As such it seems like a particularly strange adjustment to hang a "macOS is turning into iOS" rant on. Particularly when there's things like "iPadOS just got macOS-style windowing and menu bars!" sitting right there.
Apple also built a custom video element for web they use for their events. See the Apple Events page[0] and click "Watch the event". It also seems to dim the video when mousing over. I kinda like the design, but the animations seem a tad bit slow.
the liquid glass video controls on iOS absolutely does obscure more of the content than the pre-26 players did and it's not even close. it's just UI chrome for its own sake
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[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 78.3 ms ] threadThe reason it’s especially stupid for Apple is because half of their new design system is about making content front & center.
That's why the entire thrust of Liquid Glass was bad and dumb from the start. "The controls will get out of the way of your content....so we put them floating in front of your content" just absolutely braindead. There was a way to get them out of the way, give them their own space!
This is an irrational and especially dishonest and rant article.
So much of the ecosystem doesn’t “just work” anymore and now instead of fixing those issues, they are actively working to make my computing experience worse. I’ve hade enough.
The more I investigate the current state of Linux desktops, the more excited I get. It seems like Linux is actually good for general use now, and I’ll have so many more options to make my technology fit me instead of the other way around.
Every. Single. Year. “Apple is taking away my laptop I’m switching to Linux.”
I’m grateful to you all though — I think your constant griping every year probably does at least apply some pressure on Apple to focus on keeping macOS good at what it does: provide a pleasant but still powerful desktop experience for those who just want to do stuff and not spend hours under the hood making some Linux flavor usable.
Craig Federighi was a strong proponent of the latter camp but maybe he’s just getting on in years. Goes to show that key people being good and caring a lot can be all that stops things from backsliding.
So the battle for macOS is being slowly lost. Lucky we have KDE.
If it keeps going this way my next laptop won’t have that fruit logo. And that is a real shame.
The culture of products not under the control of the customer does the same thing. A culture that sees this as normal is a depressed culture.
To test whether the mice are depressed, researchers give them something rewarding that requires a little effort to get (e.g., sugary water vs. plain water).
The depressed mice give up. They are apathetic.
I imagine the mice believe that there is no way to change things. That might be true for the mice but it's not true for us.
For example like will my wifi work today. Will my laptop still have any battery when I open it. Is today the day I surprise boot to tty and have to figure out what changed before I can start working.
I'll stick with the year-to-year unpredictability of apple over the day-to-day unpredictability of linux.
On MacOS, I more often have to give up and live with the annoyances.
Hardware is the the big exception. None of my PCs have had nearly as good build quality or battery life (on Linux, at least) as a Macbook. Maybe I should try a Framework.
Today when you generate a PDF from you own content (from Apple Notes app) you are asked about opening links you click on. I thought that they were surely joking and there would be a way to disable that behavior. But no, this is intended and there is no way to disable that. It makes the Preview app a pain in the ass as a PDF reader, which means you have to replace it and begs the question of even using Apple software in the first place.
The answer is that there are fewer and fewer reasons. I mean if you are OK feeling like a child biking around on a cycle with training wheels while an overbearing parent keeps nagging you, it might be for you. Otherwise, the experience is really more like a prison/walled garden and the funny thing is that you paid for it !
people complain if the apps don't all have fine grained permissions. and then complain when they have to agree to stuff all the time. and then complain they got "hacked". damned if you do, damned if you don't.
That's exactly why I encouraged my parents to get iPhones.
This is certainly happening. However, as long as you can still install your preferred browser with its own rendering engine or a different PDF reader, the situation isn't so bad.
Of course I say macOS is getting along fine for me, but I'm posting this comment from my workstation PC running Ubuntu 24.04. I'm pleasantly surprised by how much better my Linux experience is now than it was in 2013. It seems from my personal experience so far like a free desktop OS that can run a web browser and play games better than the paid alternatives is a solved problem. I find this machine much less frustrating than my M4 Macbook Air- many of the "security" behaviors are just annoyances.
I mean this has been the conversation since the early days of Mac OS. I didn't get back to Mac until Snow Leopard but I remember the uproar over removing Java in 10.7
Or they don't have any usability studies. A hard regression in efficiency in many places.
E.g. Safari in iOS 26 forces you to do 50% more button presses. E.g. if you want to close a tab, you need to press one button more these days. Also one button press more to see the current tabs. These are likely the most used scenarios when you use the browser and they add one button press more?
"Why is this slower? Why do I have to burn time massaging the interface instead of doing it fast and continuing with my life? What a waste..." said the user.
Over the last two decades "the user is the product, milking machines to 110%!!!" has leaked all over the computing world, infecting where the user is (and will be forever, let's hope) the user.
My experience with iOS 26 + liquid glass (ew) on my phone has been terrible. Feels like a step backward. I am dreading upgrading my macbook bc I love it the way it is. Regrettable.
The argument apparently being that any change at all, if it was first made on iOS, must inherently be a sign that the two platforms are merging. Now, I don't really have an opinion about this behavior (I imagine it makes it easier for the controls to always be legible, regardless of what the video content looks like?), but I'd assume that any logic that holds for it being a good idea when applied on iOS would apply just as well on macOS. It doesn't have to be a sign that they're merging, just that similar reasons to make a change can exist in both places.
As such it seems like a particularly strange adjustment to hang a "macOS is turning into iOS" rant on. Particularly when there's things like "iPadOS just got macOS-style windowing and menu bars!" sitting right there.
[0]: https://www.apple.com/apple-events/
Question: does anyone have anything good to say about Liquid Glass?