[HN Gopher] The struggle of resizing windows on macOS Tahoe
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The struggle of resizing windows on macOS Tahoe
Author : happosai
Score : 410 points
Date : 2026-01-11 20:47 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (noheger.at)
(TXT) w3m dump (noheger.at)
| troupo wrote:
| From " _Safari 15 on Mac OS, a user interface mess_ "
| https://morrick.me/archives/9368 from 5 years ago:
|
| --- start quote ---
|
| The utter user-interface butchery happening to Safari on the Mac
| is once again the work of people who put iOS first. People who by
| now think in iOS terms. People who view the venerable Mac OS user
| interface as an older person whose traits must be experimented
| upon, plastic surgery after plastic surgery, until this person
| looks younger. Unfortunately the effect is more like this person
| ends up looking... weird.
|
| These people look at the Mac's UI and (that's the impression, at
| least) don't really understand it. Its foundations come from a
| past that almost seems inscrutable to them. Usability cues and
| features are all wrinkles to them. iOS and iPadOS don't have
| these strange wrinkles, they muse. We must hide them. We'll make
| this spectacular facelift and we'll hide them, one by one. Mac OS
| will look as young (and foolish, cough) as iOS!
|
| --- end quote ---
|
| At the time it was only Safari that they wanted to "modernize".
| Now it's the full OS.
| recursivedoubts wrote:
| tribunals
|
| the cherry on top is the delay between the drag start and the
| window begining to resize
| jasonvorhe wrote:
| Of all the Linux features to copy, they chose this.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Shortly after Windows 10 came out I was joking that Microsoft
| finally made a Linux distribution (by replicating all the
| jankiness we usually associate with it).
|
| Now I guess it's Apple's turn.
| Rygian wrote:
| Wait, they implemented Alt-Drag/Right drag?
| chungy wrote:
| I believe the parent is referring to how GNOME 3.0 had some
| really bad resizing grabs. Single-pixel widths at the edges,
| and almost impossible to hit corners.
|
| Latter versions significantly improved it.
| jasonvorhe wrote:
| Has been a major issue for me with Xfce and Gnome over the
| years, mostly just switched window managers.
| duskwuff wrote:
| Sort of! Cmd + Ctrl + drag moves windows now.
| OGEnthusiast wrote:
| I actually wish macOS would clone Alt-dragging from anywhere to
| drag and Alt-right clicking to resize from anywhere from Linux
| (at least GNOME and KDE Plasma have this built-in). That would
| certainly solve most of the complaints in the original post.
| duskwuff wrote:
| macOS has Cmd + Ctrl + drag to move windows. Alt + drag seems
| unlikely given that it's already often used for "copy"
| actions.
| OGEnthusiast wrote:
| I just tried that on Tahoe (26.2) and it didn't drag the
| window with Ctrl+Cmd+drag. Is it supposed to work on all
| windows?
| duskwuff wrote:
| Oddly, the one thing it _doesn 't_ work on for me is the
| main area of the System Preferences window. Everything
| else I've tried seems to work, though.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| KDE doesn't actually suffer from this problem.
| MattDamonSpace wrote:
| Darkest before the dawn
| herpdyderp wrote:
| Dawn of the year of the Linux desktop!
| VerifiedReports wrote:
| Apple's window management has always sucked, with the absurdly
| crippled resizing being a longstanding embarrassment.
|
| Into the 2000s, the only way you could resize a window on the Mac
| was to drag its lower-right corner. That is it. NO other corner,
| and no edge. So if the lower-right corner happened to be off-
| screen because the window was bigger than the screen, you were
| kind of screwed. You had to fiddle with the maximize & restore
| gumdrops to trick the OS into resizing the window to make that
| ONE corner accessible. Then you had to move the corner, then roll
| all the way up to the title bar and move the window, then roll
| back down to the corner... until you had the window sized and
| positioned as you wanted.
|
| When Apple grudgingly added proper window-resizing, it made it as
| obscure as possible. Since Apple remains ignorant of the value of
| window FRAMES, there is no obvious zone within which the resizing
| cursor should take effect. There is no visual target for the
| user. This has always made an important and fundamental part of a
| windowed GUI a ridiculous pain in the ass on Macs.
|
| And as the author here notes, it has gotten even worse. Not only
| will the window often refuse to resize, but you'll wind up
| activating whatever app lies behind the window you're trying to
| resize... hiding the one you were dealing with.
| lifetimerubyist wrote:
| i haven't resized a window with a mouse in almost a decade
| chipheat wrote:
| Curious, how do you resize windows instead?
| lifetimerubyist wrote:
| ....with a keyboard? on macos I use Rectangle, on linux I
| just use the built-in resizing keyboard shortcuts
| dhosek wrote:
| I use rectangle on my mac for window resizing and generally
| keep most windows in the sizes that come by default with
| that.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| "I downloaded a separate application to make resizing
| windows easier" is not a point in favor of MacOS's window
| resizing decisions.
| signal11 wrote:
| Tahoe is a macOS mis-step on par with Windows 8 or Windows Vista.
| If you're from Apple and reading this, my feedback is pretty
| succinct: "I don't recommend others upgrade. I wish I didn't."
|
| Luckily for Apple, Windows 11 is not exactly in a position to
| attract switchers.
|
| Let's see if Apple can turn things around. iOS 8+ did improve on
| iOS 7's worst bits.
| GrowingSideways wrote:
| Can you interpret this comment for those of us that haven't
| used windows? All i can recall from "vista" is that it looked
| good
| ianbutler wrote:
| MetroUI in Windows 8 was pretty universally panned. I thought
| it was pretty good on tablets and such, but it left a lot to
| be desired on desktops and hid a lot of functionality, it
| went too mobile for a lot of people's tastes.
|
| Disclaimer: I was one of the dozens who used a windows phone.
| The Nokia Lumia 920 was great, you can fight me.
| stevage wrote:
| I think a lot of people liked the Windows mobile
| experience. Shame it didn't quite get enough market share.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Resetting the app ecosystem 3 fucking times by breaking
| app compatibility didn't help. Windows Phone 7 - Windows
| Phone 8 -> Windows (Phone?) 10.
| ulbu wrote:
| i guess they needed to release all that pent up backwards
| incompatibility
| SuperNinKenDo wrote:
| You joke, but I honestly wonder if this period and
| projects didn't involve a bunch of Microsoft employees
| who got a little overexcited when they were told that
| they didn't need to maintain the insane, sometimes bug-
| for-bug, compatibility layers with 20-40 year old
| software that they had had to deal with their entire
| career there.
|
| Must have felt incredibly liberating, and maybe they got
| a little too into the whole idea of "fresh start"(s).
|
| See also Windows RT.
| its-summertime wrote:
| Windows 8 featured a notable paradigm shift from a menuing
| launcher (click start, programs, then the program you want,
| as an example), to a full screen launcher (Think Android and
| iOS). And also switched from floating windows (The default
| for most Linux distros and for Mac AFAIK) to rudimentary
| tiling windows (Think Android and iOS)
|
| https://youtu.be/RuuqEZnvEoU?t=30
| airstrike wrote:
| from my own personal experience, Vista was very slow and
| buggy at launch, but it did get better over time
| nntwozz wrote:
| Apple had one of the most successful and known ad campaigns
| "I'm a mac and I'm a PC" ridiculing Windows Vista, they
| pretty much summed it up in those.
|
| Getting to Windows 11 today, they have ads in the Start menu.
| Not exactly appealing to the Apple crowd...
| Gigachad wrote:
| They also ridiculed the permissions popups. But now when I
| plug my AirPods to charge on my MacBook it opens a
| permissions popup.
| dlivingston wrote:
| Microsoft's Copilot AI software has been integrated in every
| corner of the operating system, from the start menu to the
| notepad to settings. Beyond the intrusiveness of it, it also
| does not work very well. Other AI mishaps include Recall,
| which takes screenshots of your desktop every so often, and
| the original version of Recall stored these in an
| unencrypted, insecure database.
|
| On top of that, the OS feels more bloated and disorganized
| than ever, with something like six different UI frameworks
| all present in various spots on the OS; system settings are
| scattered across the Settings app (new) and various legacy
| panels like Control Panel and Network Connections.
|
| What else... Microsoft now requires an online connection and
| Microsoft account to sign in to your PC; no more local-only
| accounts allowed.
|
| I'm sure there's more I'm missing. It's not a pleasant
| operating system.
| Wistar wrote:
| I added a local-only account to a Win 11 Pro box just two
| days ago. Nothing seems different to me--the usual horsing
| around with the no online account stuff but it let me
| create the account.
| timpera wrote:
| I find that it is quite a pleasant operating system!
|
| Recall is turned off by default and Copilot never nags you
| to use it (like Gemini on Chromebooks/Google Search/Google
| Docs does).
|
| I completely agree with the UI frameworks thing though.
| They really need to remove the Control Panel.
| p_ing wrote:
| I don't have Copilot in my start menu. It's in Notepad, but
| that is the only place I've found it. This is on 25H2.
|
| > original version of Recall stored these in an
| unencrypted, insecure database.
|
| Why do you bother mentioning it, given that's been long
| rectified and that particular version never made it to the
| production ring?
|
| > six different UI frameworks all present in various spots
| on the OS
|
| Windows has always been like this. It wasn't until Windows
| 11 that the Font dialog was upgraded from a Win 3.x look
| and feel.
|
| > no more local-only accounts allowed.
|
| Just false.
| Novosell wrote:
| Windows 8 was when Microsoft tried to cater more towards
| Windows-on-tablet use cases. Which lead to everyone,
| including desktop users, having a fullscreen phone-style app
| menu take the place of the old start menu. This, for desktop
| use, is obviously quite disruptive and was hated by everyone.
|
| They addressed most issues in the 8.1 update, like a year
| later I think.
| doubled112 wrote:
| You know what was worse than desktop users? Server users
| via RDP.
|
| There was no start button. There are no screen edges to
| swipe in from. Hot corners are really hard to hit. I still
| can't believe somebody said "yes, good idea" to using that
| UI for Server 2012.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| I RDP'd into a Windows Server VM a year or so ago and got
| a full-screen popup for Edge or some shit like that.
|
| If that wasn't bad enough, the popup was a web view,
| meaning none of RDP's acceleration/client-side
| compositing was in play and I was greeted with a ~1fps
| slideshow.
| einr wrote:
| Off the top of my head: Windows Vista was slow and unstable
| on a lot of hardware of the time due to significantly higher
| system requirements than XP and a new display driver model
| that worked poorly at first, had a very polarizing look, and
| had quite overbearing UAC -- where XP would just let you do
| the thing, Vista would ask you three times if you're really
| really sure you wanted to authorize it.
|
| It had decent bones though -- arguably a lot of its bad
| reputation was due to hardware/third party driver issues and
| people trying to run it on old hardware that just couldn't
| hack it. Windows 7 was well received and is basically the
| same thing with small improvements and some of the UX issues
| smoothed over (i.e. less annoying UAC)
| overfeed wrote:
| Windows Vista was also notorious for going overboard with
| translucency effects in the default "Aero" style
| xmddmx wrote:
| My memory is that it was named "Aero Glass" which
| heightens the irony of "Liquid Glass" sucking.
|
| But I see many references to it being called just "Aero",
| but some call it "Aero Glass" [1]
|
| Does anyone know the truth?
|
| [1] https://www.pcmag.com/archive/rip-aero-glass-
| windows-8-stick...
| Nextgrid wrote:
| The Vista comparison is unfair. I think a lot of the bad rap
| Vista got was from trying to run it on underpowered hardware
| thanks to marketing XP-era machines as "Windows Vista
| Capable". I actually ran it on good HW (the kind that could
| run Crysis) and I didn't have anything bad to say.
|
| Yes, UAC could be considered as annoyance by some but it's no
| different than "sudo" on single-user Linux machines and we
| seemingly have no problems with that (I wish we'd move on
| past that because it is damn annoying and offers no security
| benefit).
|
| Comparing Vista to modern macOS is insulting. Vista didn't
| have that level of jank and the UIs were actually quite good,
| consistent and with reasonable information density, unlike
| "System Settings" or shitty Catalyst apps.
| ziml77 wrote:
| > Yes, UAC could be considered as annoyance by some but
| it's no different than "sudo" on single-user Linux machines
| and we seemingly have no problems with that (I wish we'd
| move on past that because it is damn annoying and offers no
| security benefit).
|
| It was wild to me when I was testing out if I wanted to
| move over to Linux as my full-time desktop OS how much it
| was asking for my password. And it didn't even have a
| mechanism to make it a little less painful such as
| requesting a short PIN (which I think is a fine option as
| long as a few incorrect PIN entries forces full password
| input).
| realusername wrote:
| You had way more issues than that on launch, performance of
| 3d games sucked compared to XP with the same hardware (I
| remember at least a 30% decrease of FPS) and usb file
| transfers were so borked you probably had half of the speed
| of XP transfering on a usb key (which was the primary
| method of transfering files at the time).
|
| The UAC wasn't even the main problem, the overall
| performance of Vista was, everything was so much slower.
| lunar_rover wrote:
| Vista had the right direction, Windows 7 merely continued on
| it and it became one of the best operating systems ever.
|
| Windows 8 design wasn't bad per se, but they shipped the
| start screen when it lacks even the most basic features, so
| you'll return to legacy desktop the moment you want to do
| anything.
|
| I don't think any of them are like Tahoe TBH.
| nntwozz wrote:
| Not to beat on my own drum but as a mac convert from the days
| of Tiger I saw the writing on the wall from miles away.
|
| Still on iOS 18 and macOS 15 (Sequoia). I was a day one
| upgrader up until now, never had any regrets but this time
| things seemed very different.
|
| It's worrisome but all is not lost, I'll start sweating for
| real if next year's releases don't improve things
| substantially.
| nextos wrote:
| The Tiger to Snow Leopard era was fantastic. Things were
| simple and worked.
|
| There was also a great boutique apps ecosystem.
|
| Right now, it seems that macOS is going through its
| enshittification phase, sadly.
| stevage wrote:
| I still remember Snow Leopard - I think that's when I
| started using Mac.
|
| Most of the upgrades since then I have resisted and not
| enjoyed, though I seem to recall liking Mavericks.
|
| A lot of the big features each time seem to be about tieing
| further into the Apple ecosystem, which doesn't interest me
| at all, since I have no other devices and don't use iCloud.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Tiger to Snow Leopard era was fantastic. Things were
| simple and worked_
|
| Was it also great for developers? (Genuine question.)
| billylo wrote:
| xcode has been getting better bit-by-bit. No major
| regression.
| zokier wrote:
| I'm not mac dev but wasn't apple all in on objc back then
| and these days it's more swift? that is pretty big shift,
| I'd assume for the better for most parts.
| wk_end wrote:
| Yeah, OS X was definitely the nicest native development
| experience at the time. Apple's documentation was
| considerably better and more searchable back then than it
| is now (especially as it is now for desktop, it
| particular). And even though they've introduced lots of
| niceties (including Swift), as Apple's piled additional
| features and APIs into Cocoa/Xcode I find it quite a bit
| less coherent or intuitive or ergonomic than it used to
| be.
| zokier wrote:
| I think also that Snow Leopard era (unibody) MacBook Pro
| design was peak Mac. It was really full-featured while also
| having clean intentional design.
| testfrequency wrote:
| Maybe you didn't catch this yet, but Apple pulled their
| latest iOS 18.7.3 update and they seem to only promote iOS 26
| now. They really want everyone off iOS 18 :/
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2026/01/07/hundreds-.
| ..
| cr1895 wrote:
| You can sign up for Apple beta and keep doing iOS 18
| updates.
| rconti wrote:
| Same I'm on iOS 26 and it's reasonably bad but I figured I
| might as well pull of the band-aid and have app
| compatibility.
|
| I can't see a single reason to upgrade to Tahoe. We'll see
| what 2026 brings.
| shawnz wrote:
| One huge benefit of Tahoe for me is that you can now hide
| any menubar icon, even if they don't explicitly support
| hiding. It's a small thing but that alone makes the upgrade
| worth it for me
| ValentineC wrote:
| > _Still on iOS 18 and macOS 15 (Sequoia). I was a day one
| upgrader up until now, never had any regrets but this time
| things seemed very different._
|
| I've tried and returned the iPhone 17 Pro. Love the hardware
| (especially the camera), but iOS 26 is inefficient (for lack
| of a better term), and the new camera UI hides too many
| things.
| foxandmouse wrote:
| > Luckily for Apple, Windows 11 is not exactly in a position to
| attract switchers.
|
| Yes, but Linux is finally in that position, not to mention
| we're seeing silicon from intel and amd that can compete with
| the M series on mobile devices.
| bsimpson wrote:
| I fell down the Nix hole this weekend, getting my corp Mac
| and my SteamOS Legion Go sharing a config. My corp device is
| a 5k iMac Pro that is going to be kicked off of the network
| when ARM-only Tahoe becomes mandatory later this year.
|
| I work at Google, which issued a Gubuntu workstation by
| default when I joined. I exchanged it for a Mac, which I've
| spent a literal lifetime using, because I didn't wanna fall
| down a Linux tinkering hole trying to make Gubuntu feel like
| home. Every corp device I've had has been a Mac.
|
| I'm reading this from a coffee shop. On my walk here, I was
| idly wondering if I should give Glinux (as its now called) a
| try when I'm forced to replace the iMac. SteamOS is making
| Linux my default environment in the same way Mac was for
| decades prior.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| > not to mention we're seeing silicon from intel and amd that
| can compete with the M series on mobile devices.
|
| [[citation needed]], benchmarks please, incl battery life,
| not promises. "We are seeing" implies reality
| Saline9515 wrote:
| Linux isn't in position regarding display/UI. It doesn't
| handles HiDPI (e.g 4K) screen uniformly, leading to a lot of
| blurry apps depending on the display abstraction used
| (Wayland/X11) and compositor (GNOME, KDE, etc, all behave
| differently).
|
| Let's not even talk about the case when you have monitors
| that have different DPI, something that is handled seamlessly
| by MacOS, unlike Linux where it feels like a d20 roll
| depending on your distro.
|
| I expect most desktop MacOS users to have a HiDPI screen in
| 2026 (it's just...better), so going to Linux may feel like a
| serious downgrade, or at least a waste of time if you want to
| get every config "right". I wish it was differently, honestly
| - the rest of the OS is great, and the diversity between
| distros is refreshing.
| jhasse wrote:
| GNOME still has some problems with fractional scaling, but
| KDE works perfectly. I'm using two displays, one with 150%
| and one with 100%. No blurry apps and absolutely no issues.
| Have you tried it recently?
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| KDE is in better shape than GNOME, but there are still
| some nits. Nearly all the available third party themes
| for example are blurry or otherwise render incorrectly
| with fractional scaling on.
| blinkingled wrote:
| I am a full time KDE/Arch user and since Plasma 6 haven't
| had any HiDPI issues including monitors with different DPI
| or X11 apps - of which there are very few nowadays.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| It also doesn't offer a Mac-style desktop environment,
| which is one of the things keeping me away.
| KDE/Cinnamon/XFCE lean more Windows-style, GNOME/Pantheon
| (Elementary) is more like iPadOS/Android in desktop mode.
| My productivity takes a big hit in Windows-style
| environments and I just don't enjoy using them.
|
| I hope to put my money where my mouth is and contribute to
| one of the tiny handful of nascent Mac-like environment
| projects out there once some spare time opens up, but until
| then...
| greenavocado wrote:
| You're supposed to use KDE with Xorg if you want things to
| just work. KDE with Wayland if you're adventurous.
|
| Therefore newcomers should use Kubuntu or the likes of it
| cherryteastain wrote:
| Not a problem on my Fedora Silverblue 43 machine with dual
| 4K 27" screens at 125% scaling. Zero blurry apps, including
| XWayland ones.
| lovasoa wrote:
| I use linux at home (with a HiDPI screen) and MacOS for
| work. The screen works well with both computers. I mostly
| just use a text editor, a browser, and a terminal though.
|
| Linux has bugs, bug MacOS does too. I feel like for a dev
| like me, the linux setup is more comfortable.
| chocochunks wrote:
| MacOS doesn't handle HiDPI screens that well either. The
| most common and affordable high res monitors are 27" 4K
| monitors and those don't mesh well with the way macOS does
| HiDPI. You either have a perfect 2x but giant 1080p like
| display or a blurryish non-integer scale that's more
| usable.
|
| And god forbid you still have low DPI monitor still!
| jdejean wrote:
| Tahoe is uniquely bad in so many ways, so I tried the Asahi
| Fedora Remix with Gnome on my M2 Mac Mini. Aesthetically I
| was more attracted to Gnome, it feels like what we lost with
| Tahoe. Tahoe to me feels like a really chopped Android skin
| or something. I made it a few weeks on the Fedora Remix but
| ended up having to switch back to Mac over missing webcam
| drivers and other random hardware issues. Plus there's little
| OS things that Mac does that make it really hard to go
| elsewhere.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| >ended up having to switch back to Mac over missing webcam
| drivers and other random hardware issues
|
| This has been my experience every time I try Linux. If I
| had to guess, tracing down all these little things is just
| that last mile that is so hard and isn't the fun stuff to
| do in making an OS, which is why it is always ignored. If
| Linux ever did it, it would keep me.
| tuckerman wrote:
| I think this is true with an arm mac (and would be tricky
| to fix that, props to the Asahi folks for doing so much)
| but for a lot of other hardware (recent dell/asus/lenovo,
| framework, byo desktops) I find Linux complete. I'm sure
| there is hardware out there that with struggles but I've
| not had to deal with any issues for a few years now
| myself.
| ryang2718 wrote:
| It can be very device specific unfortunately. Thinkpad
| _tend_ to work quote well. I had a Framework that my wife
| took from me and it 's truly fantastic, works out of the
| box.
| CSSer wrote:
| Yeah, and gaming aside from anti-cheat isn't a broken mess
| anymore either. Valve has made sure of that.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| > "I wish I didn't."
|
| Can't you do a factory reset/recovery on Mac that lands on the
| version of macos shipped with the device? Then you could re-
| upgrade to the os you wanted, without trying it it seems
| Sequoia is still available in the app store
| trollbridge wrote:
| Yes, you can install any version of macOS that was ever
| supported for your Mac. (It's been a long time since they
| used System Enablers.) I'm so frustrated with Tahoe that I'm
| about to do this.
| valleyer wrote:
| But you cannot, in general, migrate your data backwards.
| Apple's system apps will upgrade their data stores forward
| only. This isn't a problem if you are willing to e.g. re-
| download all of your (Mail.app) mail.
| trollbridge wrote:
| I generally just "reload" everything.
| ValentineC wrote:
| > _But you cannot, in general, migrate your data
| backwards. Apple 's system apps will upgrade their data
| stores forward only._
|
| One huge reason to use third-party programs where
| possible. I dislike Apple's tight coupling of utilities
| as it is.
| testing22321 wrote:
| Thanks for the advise. I have not upgraded, and have no plan
| to.
| layer8 wrote:
| At least on Windows 11 it's possible to disable the rounded
| corners.
| taminka wrote:
| first time i used tahoe to help a friend w/ their laptop i
| legit thought it was like a knockoff macos or something,
| genuinely the ugliest macos version and even in the brief time
| that i've used it, i've encountered annoying bugs, QC at apple
| is dead lowkey
| iLemming wrote:
| [delayed]
| Xiol wrote:
| Another thing to add to the list of reasons why I'm not
| upgrading.
| AndrewSwift wrote:
| FWIW: option double click sny corner to make any window full-
| screen without going into full screen mode.
|
| Double click any side or corner to move it to the edge of the
| screen, and hold down option to make the effect symmetric.
| euazOn wrote:
| Ah yes, the classic Apple move of hiding basic functionality
| behind obscure shortcuts. Thanks for the tip.
| phoronixrly wrote:
| That's genuine 2000s Linux experience there. Ironic that these
| days Linux provides a more refined and _consistent_ UX than both
| MacOS and Windows.
| lynndotpy wrote:
| This post is very well presented and it highlights how absolutely
| bizarre the latest update was. The video demonstration was also
| very well done.
|
| I remember a few years ago, people complained when Apple merely
| made the entire operating system uglier. (Something about a
| gradient on the battery?) A lot of people would talk
| hyperbolically ("apple KILLED macos!"), and that's
| indistinguishable to an outsider when an update like this brings
| other people out of the woodwork to say, "Hey, these changes are
| genuinely bizarre and absurd, what happened?"
| MyFirstSass wrote:
| Does anyone know if Stephen Lemay replacing Dye will potentially
| "save" the increasing mess that is OSX, at least UX wise, or is
| it more of a meaningless figurehead swap in a big org?
|
| Tahoe is tragically bad by almost every UX measure, and following
| various Apple subreddits i wonder if they just don't care anymore
| - since the majority of people are shocked by the amateurishness
| of both bugs and design choices in the latest update - this comes
| on top of literally every major bug being ignored from the alpha
| to releasing anyway then continuing to ignore feedback.
| OGEnthusiast wrote:
| He will prevent it from getting much worse than it would have
| under another decade of Dye, but I don't think he can totally
| reverse the trend.
|
| I think this is just what happens to companies as they get
| older. Most of the people who pioneered the Human Interface
| Guidelines aren't at the company anymore, and management
| doesn't see much financial growth in Mac sales compared to AI
| and services.
| afandian wrote:
| Question for people who have installed Tahoe. Of the regions in
| the article, which bring window focus / key window? Is it area
| clipped to the round rect? Or is it similarly weird?
|
| If there was a background window in that area outside the corner,
| would it receive the click event?
| latexr wrote:
| > Of the regions in the article, which bring window focus
|
| Just did a quick test in a VM, and it seems all of them. I.e.
| if you could resize the window, clicking that space (even if
| empty) brings it into focus. But then I also tested on Sequoia
| and the same happens.
|
| It seems then that basically everything remained the same
| except for the _visual_ presentation of the corner.
| afandian wrote:
| Thanks for going to the effort!
|
| > everything remained the same except for the visual
| presentation of the corner
|
| This either seems very well-researched change, or very
| shallow one.
| 1over137 wrote:
| >It seems then that basically everything remained the same
| except for the visual presentation of the corner.
|
| Which just goes to show how holistic design is utterly
| lacking. They seem to think just swapping bitmaps is "UI
| redesign".
| Aaargh20318 wrote:
| Never noticed this change, but unlike the blogger I never try to
| grab the window inside the corner. I tend to aim for the edge
| itself.
| gatkinso wrote:
| Its not a great update and hopefully with Dye out they will make
| some changes, but personally I don't have this issue.
| afandian wrote:
| Do you mean you don't observe the same thing? Or that it
| doesn't cause you difficulty?
| gatkinso wrote:
| I observe the same thing but it doesn't cause me difficulty.
| I think I more or less aim for the edge, vs the inside or
| outside.
| jonwinstanley wrote:
| Also, the cursor changes
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Most of the Tahoe and Liquid Glass related gripes are
| overstated or sometimes just against the idea of changing
| anything well-established
| dajt wrote:
| I disagree. I generally don't get too upset by UI changes -
| having been programming since before Windows I've seen many
| of them - but LG is a loser.
|
| I upgraded my mac to Tahoe and I don't like any change to
| the UI that I have noticed.
|
| I upgraded my phone the other day, thinking it was just an
| update to whatever it already had, and ended up with LG on
| there and it is a disaster. I enabled the 'more opaque'
| feature and it did almost nothing.
|
| LG is an awful experiment IMO. I'd put it at worse than
| Vista (which I skipped) and Gnome 3 which didn't bother me
| because I don't expect anything from linux desktops. I also
| skipped Windows 8 so not sure about the ranking there. But
| I'd say it's that level of disaster.
| internet2000 wrote:
| That's funny. I perceive resizing windows as easier now, because
| the cursor change is more dramatic when it gets in the resizing
| area. Pre-Tahoe, the diagonal one in particular looked almost the
| same, except with an arrow end in the bottom. Now it splits into
| two triangles.
|
| I still operate off muscle memory, so it's not actually easier or
| harder, of course.
| robomc wrote:
| Yeah the really misleading part of the screenshots in this
| article is that it doesn't show the "resize cursor", which
| basically makes this a non issue.
|
| Also, for anyone reading this who hates the general aesthetic,
| go into Accessibility and hit "reduce transparency". This has
| been a desirable setting for last few OSX versions.
| indymike wrote:
| After using Tahoe for a week, I've found I leave it in my bag.
| Window operations are painful and it feels like a bad try at a
| tablet os without a stylus or touch screen. Fortunately, my Mac
| is now the auxiliary laptop and I can do everything I need to do
| with my linux laptop.
| bikelang wrote:
| Should we crowdfund some billboards in Cupertino expressing how
| big a misstep we collectively think Tahoe/iOS 26/Liquid glAss
| was?
| 1over137 wrote:
| No. Direct that money to open source projects and let Apple
| ruin itself.
| Aeolun wrote:
| I mean, I don't hate it, but it seems like a clear step back.
| 9dev wrote:
| If you do, make them play that scrambled egg GIF from TFA in an
| endless loop. They'll eventually get it.
| layer8 wrote:
| If they didn't realize how broken things are by themselves,
| mere pressure from the outside won't be turning the ship
| around.
| brailsafe wrote:
| please yes, they could use some real world roasting
| lateforwork wrote:
| Yes, I would gladly contribute $25. You can rent partial time
| on an electronic billboard on Highway 101 for under $2K per
| month.
| le_meer wrote:
| Aerospace is the answer :)
| Avi-D-coder wrote:
| Yep, came here to say this. It's the only thing that makes
| macos useable.
| dutchCourage wrote:
| I wish I found out about it earlier. Aerospace is a tiling
| window manager for MacOS. As someone who prefers keyboard
| navigation over mouse navigation, I can't recommend it enough.
| lateforwork wrote:
| This behavior is similar to Windows 11. You have to position the
| mouse just outside the window. It is non-intuitive and awful.
|
| These are problems humanity solved over 35 years ago (see
| NeXTSTEP). Why are these designers breaking basic features that
| worked for over 35 years?
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| This is probably not a coincidence. I can pretty much guarantee
| you a developer said something to a designer like "hey, most of
| this is outside the window, is that fine?" and the designer
| said back "well, I think so, but let's check what Windows did,"
| and then they okayed the decision at least in part because
| Windows did it.
| flohofwoe wrote:
| Which is all the more bizarre, because historically it was
| usually Windows which copied MacOS ;)
|
| That the roles got reversed became painfully clear when macOS
| copied the Windows Vista style popup mess for access
| permissions.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| The macOS style popups are arguably worse.
|
| Windows Vista may have been plagued by programs assuming
| administrator access for everything but at least it
| isolated the security prompt.
|
| You can verify that you're interacting with a real UAC
| prompt (by pressing ctrl+alt+delete for instance, which can
| be configured to he required before approving a prompt).
|
| Any program can replicate the macOS security dialogs. You
| just have to hope that you can safely enter the password to
| your account into one, or activate TouchID when prompted.
| 1over137 wrote:
| History always repeats itself. The young generation always
| thinks the old generation was rubbish and they have nothing to
| learn from them and can do better.
| rectang wrote:
| And the elder generation is always convinced that the young
| generation is degenerate, incompetent, and destined for ruin.
| 1over137 wrote:
| Yup! And the cycle continues.
| Y_Y wrote:
| > overall, the young copy the elders and contend hotly with
| them in words and in deeds, while the elders, lowering
| themselves to the level of the young, sate themselves with
| pleasantries and wit, mimicking the young in order not to
| look unpleasant and despotic.
|
| "Socrates", in Plato's _Republic_
|
| None of us are immune to cycles in fashion, and the need to
| differentiate ourselves and our work from what came before,
| even if what came before was pretty much a solved problem.
|
| Maybe it's humanity's way of escaping local minima, or maybe
| it's an endless curse which every generation must bemoan.
| asaddhamani wrote:
| Call me cynical but I think designers need to occasionally
| break things that were already solved long ago to justify their
| continued relevance. Explains a lot of redesigns that make
| things only worse, reshuffling interfaces, hiding things behind
| menus in form over function redesigns, etc.
| em500 wrote:
| Non-tech people tend to think similarly about developers,
| breaking things that worked fine until yesterday / last week
| / last month, for no user-visible benefit.
| betaby wrote:
| Sometimes that's true.
| rhet0rica wrote:
| Fun fact: NEXTSTEP went 10 years without shipping a basic
| design refresh, except in prereleases (4.0PR1 and traces in
| 4.0PR2.) This was because it was a good fucking GUI that did
| its fucking job, and had "usability before aesthetics" as a
| core design tenet in its developer documentation.
|
| Steve's brain fell out when he got back his throne at Apple.
| Aqua was a mistake.
| wk_end wrote:
| Engineers (hopefully) come to learn the value of Chesterton's
| Fence young, because engineering failures tend to make
| themselves known quickly and loudly.
|
| Designers probably have perverse incentives. Showy new designs
| get promotions. Even when they hurt usability, it's often only
| in insidious ways.
| Lammy wrote:
| Compare to Aqua and Platinum where every resizable window/pane
| had a big square drag target _clearly labeled as such_ with some
| diagonal lines:
|
| https://guidebookgallery.org/pics/gui/system/managers/filema...
|
| https://guidebookgallery.org/pics/gui/system/managers/filema...
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| Better in that it was clear, but worse that you had to resize
| from the bottom right. Made expanding to the left, or up, very
| annoying. I'd take the current situation over this.
| AkelaA wrote:
| It also - as seen in that screenshot, had large, always visible
| scrollbars where it was easy to see how far down you were in a
| folder or document, and could easily click and drag to scroll
| to where you needed. Now in the service of minimalism we have
| scrollbars that consist of a thin, semi-transparent line that
| fades out after half a second and is nearly impossible to click
| and drag due to how small it is.
| bsimpson wrote:
| The default modality changed.
|
| Classic Macs were designed for the mouse or trackball. Modern
| Macs are designed for multitouch scrolling. When it's easy to
| get the scrolling infrastructure on demand, the desktop might
| not need the same click-first affordances.
| masklinn wrote:
| > Now in the service of minimalism we have scrollbars that
| consist of a thin, semi-transparent line that fades out after
| half a second and is nearly impossible to click and drag due
| to how small it is.
|
| You can make them always on still. I've done so ever since
| their disappearing act started. It's not even much hidden,
| it's in the "Appearance" setting pane.
| Lammy wrote:
| They're still too small and too light. Some times when a
| document is big enough I'm actually not able to find the
| scroll thumb on macOS Sequoia. Some times wiggling the
| scroll thumb around by scrolling slightly back and forth
| with my mousewheel/trackpad helps to make it visually
| appear, but other times I just have to give up.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Also I've noticed sometimes things don't even work
| correctly with "always on". Some developers don't test it
| because it's not the default.
| masklinn wrote:
| It should be noted the drag handle was removed back in Lion.
| And the square cutout was removed in Panther, both of which
| were iterations of Aqua.
|
| (and yes Lion was garbage, first upgrade I skipped since Tiger,
| and definitely the first "what the fuck are they doing").
| kenanfyi wrote:
| I have been using Moom for a long time for especially two things:
|
| - moving windows without holding from any particular position
|
| - resizing windows without grabbing a particular corner
|
| Life changing small things.
| ervine wrote:
| I didn't realize it was moom giving me my "move app to other
| monitor" hotkey, and moom didn't launch on startup after
| upgrading to tahoe. I've been using that hotkey for years.
|
| That's when I realized there's no default hotkey for moving an
| app to an external monitor. That is absolutely wild. (Happy to
| be wrong)
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| I love how this information is produced. Succinct, excellent and
| simple visuals, clear argument, and a solid amount of sarcasm and
| cynicism to keep us entertained and to provide an air of senior
| technical person.
| kristopolous wrote:
| I swear, this reign of visual artists as dictators has to stop.
|
| I'm sure people noticed this issue internally and brought it up
| but some thing by some designer was seen as biblically sacred and
| overruled all reason.
|
| I've been at companies were you get severely punished...
| sometimes fired for subordination for fixing an obviously broken
| spec by a designer emperor.
|
| It's normal to be "I guess 2+2=5 here, whatever" as if the
| designer went in a tiny room, had a seance with the divine...
|
| Yo, newsflash, everyone makes mistakes. Failure is when you force
| them to stay uncorrected.
| robbies wrote:
| I know enough people at Apple who are at the mercy of the
| overlord design teams, and it sounds exactly like what you
| described
| kristopolous wrote:
| I've met some great designers as well. They usually come from
| more modest backgrounds.
|
| It's kinda the rule for programmes too.
|
| The ones that went to a small liberal arts school you've
| never heard of doing programming as their second career are
| statistically more effective to work with then the
| Stanford/MIT crowd.
|
| The problems start I think, when you have an expectation that
| your collaborators are somehow either superhuman or subhuman
| and not peers.
|
| Humility and mutual respect gets things done.
| gedy wrote:
| I think the mistake comes from when UI/UX started calling
| themselves a part of product leadership, vs basically being one
| of the team.
| kace91 wrote:
| >I swear, this reign of visual artists as dictators has to
| stop.
|
| Visual artists and graphic/ux designers weren't exactly
| claiming for Tahoe either.
| valleyer wrote:
| The point is that Apple's _own_ design team was.
| ValentineC wrote:
| > _I swear, this reign of visual artists as dictators has to
| stop._
|
| > _I 'm sure people noticed this issue internally and brought
| it up but some thing by some designer was seen as biblically
| sacred and overruled all reason._
|
| Funny how Apple went from Jony Ive sacrificing hardware
| usability for "beauty" (touch bars and butterfly switches) to
| Alan Dye mucking up macOS and iOS with Liquid glAss.
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| Windows is following the same path. In both it's getting harder
| and harder to tell the window boundary and where to drag it
| resize.
| erickhill wrote:
| That egg scramble plate GIF is pure gold.
| treetalker wrote:
| Yeah, but to be fair to Apple, the guy wasn't even trying to
| grab the shadow of the plate.
| jamesjyu wrote:
| I highly recommend Moves, which makes it possible to resize with
| a modifier key drag within any part of the window:
| https://mikkelmalmberg.com/moves
| semiinfinitely wrote:
| I will never update to tahoe. if it becomes forced I'll switch to
| linux idgaf
| hermitcrab wrote:
| All that 'glass' eye candy is a sheer sign that looks is more
| important to Apple than usability. And I don't even care for how
| it looks.
| asaddhamani wrote:
| The iOS compass redesign is particularly egregious
| ickelbawd wrote:
| I thought this was going to talk about the struggle of sizing
| windows to arbitrary widths. I often try to keep slack and my
| email windows side by side and Mac OS seems to go out of its way
| these days to frustrate my efforts and maximize the one window or
| the other.
|
| The resize corners grab area is also very frustrating though.
| jonwinstanley wrote:
| I've used Rectangle for years so I can arrange windows more
| quickly. Not good for arbitrary sizes, more for set positions.
|
| https://rectangleapp.com/
| thenaturalist wrote:
| This is so simple.
|
| This makes me angry.
| g947o wrote:
| Imagine Steve Jobs allowing this to happen.
| mbrumlow wrote:
| Idk. I don't resize windows with the mouse at all. I use the key
| bindings to move to a tile position or fill screen.
|
| I almost always never use a mouse for more than maybe moving a
| tab to another window.
|
| So I am wondering, are people fighting using a Mac in the most
| effective way simply because of old patterns and habits?
| flohofwoe wrote:
| Maybe you don't use the mouse because it just doesn't work as
| expected? ;)
|
| > So I am wondering, are people fighting using a Mac in the
| most effective way simply because of old patterns and habit
|
| "Most effective" doesn't mean "most intuitive". I don't want to
| learn keyboard shortcuts just to move or resize a window.
| That's the entire premise of graphical user interfaces.
| charleszw wrote:
| That omelette does look delicious though.
| droopyEyelids wrote:
| I agree it makes using my computer worse, but I'd like to see how
| far Apple is willing to go here.
|
| They won't do perfectly circular windows, that would be crazy--
| but I think we all know they can go further than this.
| rajivjain wrote:
| My biggest peeve with macOS Tahoe is the App Launcher redesign.
|
| It seems like a clear regression in usability. By moving from a
| high-density, full-screen experience to a constrained, scrolling
| window, they've increased the interaction cost for launching apps
| via the mouse. It feels like a 'unification tax. Sacrificing
| desktop utility to align with non-Desktop modalilties. Does
| anyone see a functional upside here, or is this purely aesthetic
| consistency?
| Ringz wrote:
| Yep. I hate it. Its easier to open the Finder and use the
| shortcut to open the application folder.
| dajt wrote:
| I was shocked when I first hit this. I'm also confused as to
| why the settings app constrains the window size but I think it
| did that in the previous version too - not a justification!
|
| I complained about it to a team mate and he thought it was fine
| and I was weird for using the app launcher and not cmd-space.
| Although on Windows I always use win-r to run stuff.
|
| Tahoe UI changes and LG are such a mistake and Apple being
| Apple will probably just double down on it.
| deafpolygon wrote:
| I don't have this issue _at all_. I have a very generous amount
| of space to grab the corner with and it changes mouse pointer to
| the diagonal arrow.
|
| Edit: despite all the negative feedback, I'm quite happy with
| Tahoe and I enjoy the visual changes. I think some of the subtler
| changes is more intuitive and Spotlight's improvement is quite
| nice.
| elcritch wrote:
| I'm hoping something like this takes off on FreeBSD:
| https://github.com/gershwin-desktop/gershwin-desktop
|
| I've only owned macbook laptops but have run Linux at work since
| 2002. The lack of cohesion and non-stop changes in Linux is just
| as tiring and this MacOS Tahoe stuff. Gnome 3 cared just as
| little for users. FreeBSD + KDE Plasma is pretty good now, but
| lacks feeling and design.
| ubercow13 wrote:
| Also the resize cursor is completely unreliable, the cursor often
| doesn't change to the resize one when the mouse is over the
| correct resize areg. So it's even harder to tell if your cursor
| is in the right place before clicking. If you click in the wrong
| place it can have frustrating consequences, like activating
| another window or even clicking something inside it.
| re wrote:
| I have had issues with resizing Quick Look windows with their
| rounded corners on macOS for the last several major versions,
| well before Tahoe. The resize cursor indicator there also
| doesn't seem to appear at the correct location for the actual
| resize handles.
| userbinator wrote:
| Rounded corners are ironically symbolic of the dumbing-down
| that's affected the software industry. Instead of the sharp
| precision of 90-degree corners, we get vague curves that don't
| make sense anymore as though the corners have been worn away.
| DevKoala wrote:
| I have been using Rectangle and Spectacle before it. Wanting to
| resize windows like in this article isn't natural to me anymore.
| titzer wrote:
| Tahoe is proof is that UX for desktop has finally jumped the
| shark.
|
| In all my years using computers I have never been so disappointed
| so profoundly by a 36 gigabyte operating system upgrade.
| areoform wrote:
| Apple is at the point where they need a Jobs-ian correction
| again.
|
| Steve Jobs would have had a fit over this product line. As '97
| era Jobs put it, "The products suck! There's no sex in them
| anymore!"
|
| My modest proposal for Apple diehards (especially employees) is
| to feed all the data that exists on Jobs into a multi-modal model
| so that Apple can hear just how much their shit sucks from Jobs'
| digital ghost.
|
| A good starting point would be the https://stevejobsarchive.com/
| hrdwdmrbl wrote:
| I would highly recommend Magnets to anyone users who prefer
| shortcuts anyway: https://magnet.crowdcafe.com/
| st3fan wrote:
| This 100%
|
| Please please please make this better Apple. Or just give us an
| option for square windows.
| mrcwinn wrote:
| I started with an Apple Lisa. I've never enjoyed Apple products
| less than I do right now. And there were some rough days in the
| 90s! I switched from a AW Ultra 3 to a Garmin. Considering an S26
| because of the semi-matte screen. The Mac, though, I probably
| can't replace, but man Tahoe/Liquid Glass sucks.
| chmaynard wrote:
| This controversy could have been avoided if the GUI changes in
| Tahoe had been opt-in only. In other words, the Sequoia GUI
| should have remained the default, with the option of choosing to
| switch to Liquid Glass.
| BoneShard wrote:
| Maybe I'm too old and every modern computer is a marvel to me,
| but as someone switching between win/macos/linux all these
| complaints amuse me. While in windows I'm using powertoys and I
| can move/resize windows using any space inside a window. It's the
| same with linux/gnome - a couple of config settings. Then, when I
| started using macos I looked for a similar solution - found
| BetterSnapTool and just started using it.
| john_alan wrote:
| Tahoe is a nightmare. I'm Literally not buying a new Mac because
| of it.
|
| Dye destroyed macOS. I don't know what they do, but they have to
| backtrack.
| blinded wrote:
| I game on windows because of anti cheat software requirements.
| Windows is garbage. The windows + tab order is never consistent.
| Not having a good built in shell and don't get me started if you
| ever have to edit the registry for anything. Super poor
| experience.
| jdkee wrote:
| Steve Jobs would never have let this ship.
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