Last Year on My Mac: Look Back in Disbelief
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The latest macOS update, Tahoe, has sparked widespread discontent among users, with many lamenting the significant regression in UI quality and the introduction of a cluttered, rounded aesthetic. Commenters are vocal about their disappointment, with some abandoning their Macs for Linux distributions like Mint, while others are holding off on upgrading due to Tahoe's unappealing design. The debate rages on, with some arguing that Apple's design choices aren't driven by the typical "enshittification" motivations, but rather a misguided pursuit of a new visual style. As one commenter put it, Tahoe is "unbelievable" and potentially a sign of worse to come, fueling concerns about Apple's design direction.
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If this kind of software trend continues in 2026, it might be the first time I take a serious look at Linux distros on Mac.
While at it, nuked my old MacBook Pro and Air with Mint too - not like they are getting updates anyway.
It can be done, it should be done. These commercial operating systems have enshitified to a critical point and are beyond repair.
Sadly it's only a matter of time until everyone copies it because it's cool and it's what Apple does so they must be right!
Not a single update since 2019 has improved the UI more than it regressed it in my opinion. Too much whitespace, too little contrast, too big controls, and now too little readability.
It's almost like their entire UI department is under threat of being fired unless they invent a radical UI update every other year.
Even Vista was a readability zen compared to this and they aren't listening to feedback at all.
1/2 pixel strips everywhere, around tons of elements. Huge rounded corners. Slow showy animations.
This isn’t a UI for adults, this is a UI for a fake computer sequence in a cheap Netflix movie.
This force-upgraded a lot of Macs at work and we lost days of effective work across many engineers. The machines was practically useless for weeks.
They clearly don't care about power users anymore, and haven't for quite some time. It's so sad.
Also I've never seen so much hate on Apple on HN and barely anyone steps in to explain why Apple is right. They must've really fucked up this time.
The frustrating part is that even if you take the position that iOS 26 is just as awful, their incentives are so decoupled from what you’d hope they would be, that ruining your product isn’t really bad for the business! After all, Apple can just point to Windows 11’s embedded ads, three or four layers of different generations of overlapping settings panes, and inferior hardware and dare you to switch. Most of the customer base has only those two realistic options.
Famously, Jobs' demands pushed engineers to think and work harder to achieve what they think was impossible, which resulted in many of the most iconic designs of personal electronic devices in history.
On the other hand, we have butterfly keyboard and this.
Mac OS X 10.3, 10.4, 10.5, 10.6, and 10.7 all took over 12 months to develop, sometimes much more, and 10.5 was famously delayed out to 30 months.
It's hugely embarrassing how they've had to perform a screeching U-turn in bringing back Slide Over and dock-launchable Split View with the .1 and .2 updates - lest graphic artists and others who depended upon these features left their platform in droves. This is essentially an admission that iPadOS 26's touch-based UX had precisely zero thought put into it. They do not have a clue what they're doing
There are still many, many more nonsensical UX degradations and bugs that need ironing out
Maybe it's a good opportunity to consider whether you actually have to keep up with Apple's treadmill.
As a fairly typical example, getting Firefox on Linux to actually scroll smoothly takes googling and fiddling with settings. Gesture support is hit or miss. On macOS, Firefox behaves just like any other native app in this regard.
Actually now that I think about it, my visceral reaction is one of dread: a feeling the trouble will be more than the benefit of a new computer.
“Never tried a MacBook, my Linux machine trackpad always worked perfectly” is the usual response I get when I press for a response… but without trying Apple (on this one thing) you’ll never understand until you’ve experienced the downgrade.
I don't doubt you find something special about the macOS trackpad experience, but I've used a Mac every day at work for 3 years and I genuinely don't feel any more or less fond of its trackpad than I do the one on my Framework laptop running Linux. They're both trackpads that do trackpad things. Shrug.
One thing you might've missed is Linux relatively recently gained a new click mode that works like macOS does. One finger left click, two finger right click, two finger scrolling, etc.
Since it's Linux, it is very configurable and may not be enabled by default depending on your distro.
https://wayland.freedesktop.org/libinput/doc/latest/clickpad...
https://smarttech101.com/libinput-fix-your-linux-touchpad-us...
However, more user friendly distros will hopefully(!) do that configuration for you or present a nice UI to enable it.
One caveat is that I've never been a power user of trackpad gestures, so if that's central to your workflow I can't say how the platforms compare.
Overall I'm immensly happy about dropping Apple for Linux, it was definitely the right decision. The initial migration takes a bit to work out but the beautiful thing with Linux is that if you don't like something enough you can usually find a way to change or fix it; with Apple you're left screaming into the void.
In my case I'd add:
- Chassis that doesn't flex like crazy
- Battery life good enough that I typically don't need to think about AC outlet accessibility
- Can sit in standby for upwards of a week without battery drain forcing it to shut down
- Is inaudible except when maxing out CPU or GPU for several minutes
- Has a screen panel with a resolution that's either 1x or 2x UI scaling native
The number of laptops in the market that check these boxes is disappointingly tiny.
All of these seem to be fine on my thinkpad (true, I probably have somewhat lower standards for passable display). Battery life sucks a bit, what I can usually fine outlet somewhat to plug into.
Something as basic as scrolling feels slightly inconsistent in just about every app and keybindings are all over the place. There’s always the allure of getting the config ”just right” but after a while I swear I start seeing Sisyphus’ reflection in my screen.
But it doesn’t really matter, since the DE doesn’t determine how individual apps behave.
My baseline is OSX from decade ago OSX with native apps where everyone was following the Apple HIG so consistently that using a Java app felt like waking up in the twilight zone. macOS these days have fallen quite a bit from its UX glory days but there’s still quite a bit to go before it hits the level of Ubuntu or Windows.
On Linux it feels to me like every app exists in its own parallell dimension where you never know if even the basic laws of physics still apply.
Anyway sounds like you've already done what I suggested and it didn't out work you. I hope for your sake Apple comes to their senses soon!
Once you're spoiled by a macOS machine's smoothness, it's hard to use anything else, where cursors feel like they're literally lagging behind your trackpad movements and land somewhere imprecise, and scrolling feels like opening a rusty car door as it catches on itself and you feel the friction.
macOS on an Apple Touchpad is like using a well-oiled machine by comparison. These things really matter!
Immediately after spilling tea on it I shut it off, took off the bottom plate, rinsed it with water, and rinsed it again with isopropyl alcohol. I think I waved a heat gun over it for a bit and then left it in front of a fan. This was about 8 months ago and it still works!
The only lingering problem is that when caps lock is off, the light on the key is slightly illuminated. Weird, but I can tolerate that!
TouchID no longer works, Bluetooth reception is shit and various keys feel sticky/crunchy. I’d keep it as-is if it wasn’t my main work machine.
The issue is that they cannot be downgraded to Sequoia. So one has to decide on what’s preferable - a step up for HW but a step down for OS or vice versa?
One would hope that Tahoe improves with time but considering the trajectory of both macOS and iOS I fear that it will take years to resolve the UX and bug issues if it ever happens.
I like to disable SIP and gut my Mac OS but i know that's not a very safe choice
I believe that's how the designers at Apple came up with Liquid Glass
0. https://web.stanford.edu/dept/SUL/sites/mac/primary/intervie...
Companies need to make it optional until security updates are no longer available for the previous major version.
Even if you will intentionally hide all logos of A.. from A.. products u use, their design is very distinctive and widely known, so even looking on Xiaomi most people will think it is A..
Plus, A.. products usually deep integrated into their infrastructure, I mean A.. Wi-fi router, A.. printer, A.. speakers, A.. interfaces (Lightning), etc.
I suspect that they were rather shaken at how poorly AVP was received.
VR headsets ain’t it but I’m convinced the reason every company is working on them and developing AR stuff for their traditional devices (which are terrible to use for AR) is because they don’t want to still be at the starting line if someone figures out smart glasses.
I’m not sure when we’re started dismissing the elderly’s advice as “just complaining because they’re old” but it seems we’re hell bent on reinventing the wheel of misfortune with every generation.
If old people complain about something, maybe they have a point?
ps. I am a grandparent, on the edge of elderly.
They never did replace the productivity usecases. They replaced a lot of casual usecases, and created a bunch more usecases, mostly around media consumption.
But if you go to an office anywhere in the world, and you look around, it's not people on their phones. It's a sea of desktop computers, like it's 1995. Even at Apple. Not because everyone is out of the times, but because we did truly find the perfect form factor, and have chosen to refine it.
Apple vision pro wont replace the productivity suite, like the iPhone didn't. And it won't replace the iPhone, because it's way bigger and more inconvenient. So, I'm not sure where that leaves it.
It was bound to fail since day one.
Maybe you could port "I Am Rich" to it, and sell a few copies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Rich
But one of my big takeaways from e.g. https://www.tableau.com/blog/exploring-spatial-computing-and... (2024) was that some of the most basic UX research around 3D visualization was left to the market to discover.
> During Tableau Conference 2024 in San Diego, we recruited 22 attendees to help us assess the usability, learnability, and potential utility of Tableau on the visionOS platform, along with broader perspectives on the potential for HMDs to create engaging experiences around data. Participants were tasked with a series of analytical exercises using one of three datasets. These tasks included specifying filter settings, changing data fields, and interpreting trends across various visualizations, such as bar charts, line charts, and a 3D globe. Examples of tasks included identifying the country with the highest CO2 emissions in Asia and determining when poultry production first exceeded beef production in South America.
If you want to launch a $3000 device properly, why are you making Tableau do this themselves?
It’s not as though anything about Liquid Glass makes a meaningful difference in usability.
To move around safely with smart glasses on your face, apps need to be semi transparent from day one. It's not about superficial stylistic similarities this time. And it's not primarily about design either.
This is absolutely about core usability, just not for macOS or iOS.
So I don’t think I necessarily buy that apps have to have any transparency at all. If I’m walking around doing things in the real world with a Vision Pro on my head, that itself beggars belief to me. It’s wildly impractical for that with its 2-hour battery life, super heavy weight, and hilarious appearance, and all those will continue to be true long after the 5-year window when the “26” OS aesthetic will likely persist.
So, might some future glasses or something benefit from transparency? Maybe. But if I find myself walking down the street with a screen on my face, I’d personally prefer to just close the apps that I don’t need, rather than look through them. If the glasses are going to highlight place names, people’s names, etc. they can do that with text floating in midair, like a subtitle.
I don't. I'm just guessing what Apple may have in mind.
>But if I find myself walking down the street with a screen on my face, I’d personally prefer to just close the apps that I don’t need
Of course, but what about the apps you do need? Say you're in a shop, taking notes, browsing the shop's website, scanning barcodes with something like the Yuka app, maybe even keeping an eye on messages at the same time.
I kept wondering what's the point of covering things in this semi-transparent sludge that doesn't actually allow you to see through but still makes the things in the foreground harder to see.
Well, here's your answer. Avoiding collisions and maybe getting a vague idea of where we want to turn next.
Note that I'm not saying this is a good idea. It's just what I think Apple has in mind. I don't think we can know at this point how or if we really want to use smart glasses.
The goal is most likely to unify the experience around iPadOS, so that one codebase ports down the phone and watch and over to the Mac and AVP.
The delta between Mac and iPad UX elements goes down every release. The latest one gave the iPad a menu bar and multi window support.
Looking at it from a certain angle, the iOS codebase is the only one which has a native team for a lot of large companies - they might not even create larger views for an iPad native version, and may instead ship Electron for the macOS release. Apple is trying to recruit the native mobile team to be able to support native releases for the whole ecosystem.
Except Liquid Glass looks nothing at all like visionOS. If they had just taken a carbon copy of the visionOS UI and put it on Mac and iPhone, I doubt there would have been any controversy. Buttons don't look like they hover way higher than the UI. Sidebars and toolbar buttons are indented, they don't scream "LOOK AT ME!".
Dye is just a moron.
It is equally aggravating to err on either side: Windows 3.1 clunk to the left, Tahoe's operationally useless (indeed, operationally detrimental) visual fireworks to the right.
Apple needs to hit a sweet spot of crisp, but the priority must be fast, logical interaction that lets me operate at the speed of thought. With Tahoe, Apple tried to gild the lily.
i really missed snow leopard for about 10 years all the way up to when i moved on from my macbook circa 5 years ago.
But then Gruber said that the HIG was dead and the decline gained more and more momentum...
That's only true for desktop productivity apps and widgets. Apple and 3rd party "creativity" apps never followed the HIG religiously, if at all.
My personal feeling on it is just "meh." My productivity with my laptop hasn't changed. I'm not a huge fan but it's not a deal breaker. I still find it better than Windows 11 for the most part, and Linux has other issues as a daily driver for me.
IMHO Apple needs a "tick" release where they only polish and fix bugs and usability issues with an almost total feature freeze. I've heard they may be doing that.
Also who uses MacOs beaides developers? Majority are creative prosumers in arts/design and they are even more annoyed by messed up designs. What you are left with are lawyers, writers, students? I guess they might like it.
Students - all of them.
Of the people I know only old folks, gamers and some techies own PCs. A lot of people will however just use whatever wintel laptop their employer provides them with.
But worldwide Chromebooks are more numerous than macs in education.
Chromebooks dominate K12 here so it kinda depends on what you mean by "students". Once people start buying their own computers however my impression is that Macs are quite common of not dominating.
Marketshare of MacOS is like 15% worldwide (curiously declining in US). That's a minor platform.
Also stop with Chromebooks. It might dominate schools in US (often mandatory) and it is popular in specific countries like India. But in majority of the world it's absolutely unknown with global marketshare of like 1%.
And I’m not arguing that Mac’s are the common man’s choice. All I said was that the statement about Macs being seen a luxury environment in every country except the US is plainly false as I know at least a couple of other countries where Mac’s are quite common even among the non-affluent classes.
And I made sure to not bias her with my or HN's opinion about liquid glass. I patiently waited for her initiative to comment on the update.
My partner doesn't like it, and outside of excel she is not a technical person.
You used to be able to count on the basics working smoothly, but stuff like the camera and messaging are frequently broken for me
Definitely an “to each their own” kind of situation.
There is no true passion in MacOS, and the marketing has come face to face with reality in 2025.
I shouldn’t be surprised given that the mac save as dialog box has a name field that is still hard coded to 32 characters visible. Whenever I bitch about it I get pushback that filenames shouldn’t be longer than that! Um hello - tell me you have never worked in the real world outside your iphone bubble without telling me.
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