John SiracusaI hope I live long enough to see this style philosophy come back around. https://mastodon.social/@realmacdan/113792374380828124
As requested by @rvr, here's a control sample from Lion, the reimagined Lion by @realmacdan, Sequoia, and Tahoe beta 2.
To be more fair to Tahoe, here's a version where I re-aligned the controls to accommodate the new metrics. I've also included Yosemite in this one. (I'd add more, but there's apparently a four-picture limit.)
Here are some great “reimagined” Retina-resolution images of some older versions of Mac OS X created by @kylehalevi
Trent Shell@siracusa If you had to choose one of these styles to go back to (with Retina-quality, of course), what would you choose? I think Lion might actually be my favorite in some ways.
Benjamin Schmidt@trentshell @siracusa I know my favorite would be Snow Leopard. It's the most refined version with the pill buttons and feels the most Aqua.
@trentshell They all had their own issues, but I think Tiger would be a fun balance of nostalgia and usability.
Thomas Brand@siracusa @kylehalevi I would take pinstripes over Liquid Glass any day.
Buck@siracusa @kylehalevi I will take any of them over Liquid Gl**ass**
Megamoose@siracusa In my opinion Lion was perhaps the best UI of all time. It took the visual distinctiveness & fun of original Aqua and made it clean & elegant yet still a joy to use.
Atelerix@siracusa @kylehalevi oh, that Tahoe dark mode is a delight, but the snow leopard is lovely too. Honestly, I’d take any of these!!
Logan Highlen@siracusa was Mavericks considered Aqua? I remember I upgraded from my 2008 15” MBP to a late 2013 15” and Mavericks just felt really good and stable.
@LoganHighlen Apple's use of the term "Aqua" faded once the buttons stopped looking like clear candies, but you'd still hear it from time to time (and it appeared in Apple's code constants).
Jordan Kennedy // Indie Maker@siracusa @kylehalevi Damn these look good
Brandon Butler@siracusa @kylehalevi I can’t decide between Lion or Snow Leopard.
papryk@siracusa @kylehalevi I think folks at Apple were already working on high DPI/"Retina" back in Tiger days - you could increase the user interface scale using Quartz Debugger: https://www.interact-sw.co.uk/iangblog/2005/05/20/tigerresolution
@siracusa @kylehalevi Ah crap, I had a feeling you probably covered this back in the day, but quick Google search on "mac os x tiger high dpi" pointed me towards that blog instead of your articles at Ars Technica. Sorry. 😅
Paul McGrane@siracusa @patryk @kylehalevi back especially with 10.5 Leopard, HiDDPi seemed perpetually and frustratingly just over the horizon.
It did only take … uh oh … another 5 years until first Retina MacBook Pro!
Jeffy 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈🇺🇦 ❤️🇱🇺@siracusa @kylehalevi definitely the Snow Leopard era of contrast and separation of concerns era for me.
Nick from Toronto@siracusa @kylehalevi Snow Leopard so good.
Norbert Heger@siracusa @kylehalevi What’s really great about these early Aqua designs (the buttons in particular) – they looked translucent without actually being translucent. So they looked cool and glassy but also had perfect legibility at the same time.
John Appleseed@siracusa I didn’t realize how much I’ve missed the rounded buttons of the earlier UI designs
ChancerubbageSuch subtle differences.
Val Packett 🧉@siracusa @kylehalevi hehe just had to waste a half hour in Workbench just for the memes :) #GNOME
(oops, only after posting i've noticed that the tab switcher wasn't centered after i gave it margin, lmao)
FineFindus@FineFindus none of this is supposed to be idiomatic Adwaita/HIG design, it's replicating the original in a silly way hehe
Proficiency@valpackett @siracusa @kylehalevi Is it just me or the color palette here are just a little bit different than what actually GNOME is using?
Also, damn it looks nice!
@proficiency the window itself? it is stock adwaita in 48.2, accent reset to blue for the screenshot.
the screenshot background gradient is whatever :)
@valpackett I think the graphical high anti aliasing just plays a trick on me, kinda weird seeing how not-jagged the fonts and the edges are.
Yury Molodtsov@siracusa @kylehalevi I got iPhone 5S that came with iOS 7, then I got a MacBook Air that immediately updated and removed all skeuomorphism. Was a bit sad to miss this era with Apple.
Aaron Priven@siracusa @kylehalevi I’m wishing for Retina 7.5.5
Riccardo Mori@siracusa My favourites are always the oldest ones. It’s true that the deeper blues in the newer versions add more contrast and what’s active stands out more, but the UI of the older Mac OS X versions didn’t need all that contrast to begin with. The active state of buttons and checkboxes was pretty much evident in context.
Thanks for posting these!
Gareth Simpson@siracusa Tahoe dark mode looks a lot better than Tahoe light mode which is kind of disappointing given that I hate dark mode.
Brett Walker@siracusa I think Snow Leopard’s UI with the legibility of Mavericks would be perfect.
Alphacheez@siracusa not having translucence on controls that were previously translucent when you're trying to promote your design as "liquid glass" seems like a pretty major miss with Tahoe. The buttons, progress bars, and stoplight controls are so flat and boring
@siracusa Also, they cannot be described as "lickable", the true hallmark of OS X design!
John Wilson@Alphacheez @siracusa Agreed. The traffic lights not being made of Liquid Glass is a huge miss for [1] UI legibility, [3] "looks cool" consistency, and [3] candid throwback/nostalgia.
Stories of Apple@siracusa Tahoe beta 2 dark mode looks like a discarded theme from a Kaleidoscope 13 years old enthusiast…
Jimmy Callin@siracusa is everything a lot more cramped now or is the scaling playing tricks on me?
@callin Some of those images are Retina and some are not, so that probably accounts for what you’re seeing.
j@siracusa I *loved* the "lick-able" Aqua UI. Panther/Tiger was peak Aqua days.
alex.tm@siracusa I really prefer how defined and readable everything is in the Lion/Mavericks versions. Aqua was so refined looking at that point.
David Beck 
@siracusa I forgot how much Lion refined Aqua.
leemorgan@siracusa what about Platinum? 😉
Ben Munson@siracusa it’s like they’re using one of those bags you put clothing in and vacuum all the air out, but for detail, whimsy, and usability.
Thomas P. Moonis@siracusa I miss the Snow Leopard era so much. I feel like that's right when they had Aqua fully optimized and began to move on.
Jack Wellborn@siracusa The enabled but not selected button looks disabled. I wonder how it compares to an actual disabled button.
Andrei Torres@siracusa thanks for the updated version. Now my mind can focus on hating Tahoe's lack of contrast and the vertical alignment of the date field 
Götz Hoffart@siracusa Now in Tahoe the “Button” in the middle row is barely detectable as such, just tiny bit of contrast makes the button. Similar with the “Test | One | Two“. Someone should read the AHIG.
And I hope that “high contrast” “disability mode” fixes this.
Buccia@siracusa Tahoe is the worst for legibility.
Stan James 🏳️🌈@BucciaBuccia @siracusa It really is terrible for legibility. The lack of contrast is boggling. Everything after Aqua has been a downgrade, even taking into account some of Aqua's excesses (and even that is debatable).
b-loved dreamer@siracusa Lion was really the pinnacle of Apple’s UI. So fresh, clean, and easy on the eyes. Makes me wonder how it would’ve looked with dark mode back then.
andymandias@siracusa the combo box and date text field are the only ones that retain dimensionality? or is there AppleTV-style interface where the controls tilt around as you mouse over them?
@andymandias No change on mouse-over, as far as I know.
Greg Kaplan@siracusa I physically feel ill looking at Tahoe. I wish that was an exaggeration but something about it is so unpleasant. It feels all over the place.
I like Sequoia a whole lot. I think most balanced and cohesive. Yosemite maybe would be next pick.
Jarrett@siracusa What I get most from these is a nice recognition of my 7th birthday.
Jay@siracusa In practice Sequoia never looks as good as that, unfortunately. Too many places actually use the flat, gray, borderless variants of buttons, checkboxes, etc. Tahoe seems to be making that terrible variant the only choice—except for that dead-man-walking combo box.
Konrad Kołakowski
somethingvague@siracusa Why do the Tahoe controls look so incongruent with each other? When you put them all in the same window, they don’t feel harmonious. It’s also true, but not as bad, with the Big Sur controls. All of the older OS’s feel like those controls all go together in a set.
ziplyne@siracusa Did you make the Tahoe ones in SwiftUI or AppKit? Or did you just draw it yourself?
@potatoDOTzip AppKit in Xcode.