Joe Kissell 🇨🇦Mar 20
John Gruber
Perfect MacOS 26 Tahoe screenshot from the Journal app. Apple shipped this.
Mar 20 at 2:01pmIvory for Mac
Show threadJohn GruberMar 21
Another Tahoe gem. Are these buttons ("Update", "Open", "Update All") enabled or disabled? Are they even legible?
Show threadStephen FoskettMar 21
@gruber they’re certainly not legible!
Show threadgurpleMar 21
@gruber I love this picking Apple everyone is doing on little layout issues. It’s the hard core usability issues that really piss me off. …the inconsistent non-front ’click through’ behaviors in Music.app, the 'where do I grab the corner to resize' windows, the Finder window sliders being activated when trying to select a bottom item when in column views, etc. It’s insane. Let’s talk more about those.
Show threadgurpleMar 21
@gruber Let me bring the mini-Music.app window to the front. Oops. I just made the up-next queue sliding pane expand. Oh, but I can’t click through to the play/pause icon (even though I CAN see it) without first clicking the window to bring it to the front and active. And so on.
Show threadAaron  Mar 21
@gruber This is approaching a modern day Apple Maps level of debacle.
Show threadJosh BiggsMar 21
@gruber I helped my 85 year old parents fill out their NCAA brackets on Wednesday night. We used my mom’s old touchbar MacBook Pro which hadn’t been updated in years. Pretty sure it was on Yosemite. It looked amazing to my eyes.
Show threadbutternutMar 21
@biggsjm @gruber the earliest Touch Bar MBP shipped with Sierra, 2 releases after Yosemite. But there weren’t that many significant design changes since the Yosemite redesign was only 2 years old.
Show threadJosh BiggsMar 21
@butternut @gruber Thanks - I love the CA names but I lost track of what came out when after the cat releases :)
Show threadGSStamasMar 21
@gruber “A chaotic situation where everything seems to go wrong. It is often caused by incompetence, communication failure, or a complex environment.” AKA Clusterfuck.
Show threadAndrewMar 21
@gruber Well, they certainly do vaguely look like buttons...
Show threadLaurent BoileauMar 21
@gruber That reminds me of when I tried using the Graphite accent color. That same App Store screen made me switch back instantly.
Show threadChris GlassMar 21
@gruber I have my OS Theme set to "Multicolor" and for the longest time I thought there was an error loading my calendar... Actually, I still think there's an error.
Show threadDr Keith Wilson 💭Mar 21
@glass @gruber Same. This has caught me out several times in the last week alone (there *was* an error—just not the one highlighted by the red text!).
Show threadKayMar 21

@gruber I think this is the BorderedButtonStyle that has been around on iOS for a few years. It’s definitely not new, though maybe it wasn’t used on macOS before. So, I assume it follows the old iOS rule: it uses the tint color so it’s active. Otherwise it would be desaturated.

Legible? Definitely not.

Show threadConlan SpanglerMar 21
@gruber Is this the default “highlight” color? I think they need to disable the “choose your own” preference and just make it blue or whatever until they get their shit together.
Show threadJohn GruberMar 23
@conlan Default color on Citrus Neo.
Show threadConlan SpanglerMar 23
@gruber Ah, even more unforgivable.
Show threadBruce ElrickMar 21
@gruber That's hostile.
Show threadnetop://ウィビMar 21
@gruber This looks disgusting
Show threadScott GrahamMar 21
@gruber is "Update All" even a button? Why is it so different from the others?
Show threadTimo GrünMar 21
@gruber
Just for funsies, I booted up my old PowerPC G4 PowerMac in the cellar for half an hour. Lots of online incompatibility, but oh those user interface guidelines taken seriously... 🙃
Show threadGreg PierceMar 21
@gruber at least you’ve got good taste in apps
Show threadTuomas Hämäläinen 🇺🇦Mar 21
@gruber I hate to be fair to Tahoe because it needs to burn at a stake, but in this particular instance, Sequoia does not seem to fare better at all.
Show threadMindaugas RudokasMar 24

@tuomas_h @gruber Yep, sadly nothing new — just more of untested, fresh, and exciting colors.

Graphite was mutilated for a while now, I stopped using it long ago because of contrast issues. As designers are the primary audience, you would think it would get attention at the supposedly design heavy company.

Yellow also always was more or less a complete disaster.

Show threadJohn GruberMar 24
@mrudokas @tuomas_h I swore by Graphite for years in the early days of Mac OS X. Maybe for the first entire decade. It used to be very usable, and high contrast. The current look is so washed out. It's ... gross.
Show threadDr Keith Wilson 💭Mar 21
@gruber WTF? And it looks even worse when choosing the yellow ’theme’ in Appearance Settings! Seems like nobody tested it… 🤢
Show threadJimmyMar 21

@gruber We’re all old enough to remember Kaleidoscope and other tools when customization and giving the ability to users to make their Macs utterly unreadable was a feature.

Now it’s something we all complain about.

Show threadAAPLMar 21
@gruber Mine seem normal. Are you sure there's not an odd setting in Settings/Appearance somewhere?
Show threadJohn GruberMar 23
@rogerschutte My screenshot is from a Citrus MacBook Neo using the default citrus accent color.
Show threadzkarjMar 21
@gruber the default tint colour on the indigo MacBook Neo makes all buttons look disabled.
Show threadPaul McGraneMar 22
@gruber It certainly is more obvious in Dark Mode … one wonders if that is the mode the "designers" mostly use now
Show threadPete Prodoehl 🍕Mar 20
@gruber So readable!
Show threadSteveCMar 20
@gruber STILL not upgrading to Tahoe. For the first time ever I may skip a macOS release, while I hope that the upcoming version of macOS fixes this kind of crap.
Show threadGareth PotterMar 20
@Thrint @gruber Likewise first time ever and hoping I can hold out until the next release.
Show threadEliza MBMar 23

@garethpotter @Thrint @gruber

Me too. Tho' I'm not optimistic about the future direction if 26 is any guide.

Show threadDave MarkMar 20
@gruber I have SO many examples of this. Text fields that are cut off, text color choices that render text completely unreadable. In this regard, Apple design has lost the thread.
Show threadBob PetersonMar 20
@davemark @gruber The only possible explanation is that Alan Dye and his team are space aliens who see in different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum than humans.
Show threaddonkeyMar 20
@HootenHaller @davemark @gruber I’ve wondered a few times if he was a Zuck plant years ago to destabilise Apples product lines..
Show threadKen KociendaMar 20

@gruber So many notes. Where to start? Let’s even forget the transparency. I wonder, is it:

- Dec 13, 2025
- 12/13/2025 (with looser letter spacing)
- 12/13/2025 (with tighter letter spacing)

Show threadyertleMar 23
@kocienda @gruber that’s some fugly spacing with the /s 🤢
Show threadGabriel NMar 20

@gruber yesterday, a huge iPhone hack for iOS 18 involving Safari began to be mentioned in the press.

I’ve been unwilling to update to iOS 26, due to all the problems with the new design language.

I was hoping that iOS 27 would fix all of this issues, but it seems that Apple will not be changing Liquid Glass, that they’re quite happy about it.

I think I’ll be forced to move to 26, in all the devices, soon:

Show threadtripleman, a 🇨🇦 in 🇩🇪Mar 20
@wtrmt same, saw this too. None too happy about this
Show threadMarkMar 20
@wtrmt no need to update to iOS 26 because of this. There are fixes for iOS Version 15 to 18
Show threadMarkMar 20
@wtrmt admittedly apple does not make it easy to install the 18.7.3 update
Show threadGabriel NMar 20
@bosonen how do you get it? It does not appear in my updates.
Show threadMarkMar 21
@wtrmt Turns out I was misinformed. Sorry. While it would be possible to install an unsigned ipsw for your phone model with some hacking effort, the Version of iOS one would need (18.7.3) is not available. So if your hardware is eligible for iOS 26, you are forced to use that version.
Show threadJordan KrahnMar 20
@gruber let alone trying to pick a new wifi network when there are a lot of them
Show threadMichael SolisMar 20
@gruber
Show threadNumeric CitizenMar 20
@gruber and so many examples here: crafted.numericcitizen.me/apple-liq…
Where Apple’s Liquid Glass Crashes the User Experience

Show threadJulian Mar 20
@gruber first thing that bothers me here: No correct date format!
How can they allow to put month first…
Show threadPaul MisonMar 20
@Loredo @gruber that’s just Americans being American. Language & Region would fix that. The rest, though…
Show threadJulian Mar 21
@paulmison oh I know, just couldn’t resist to point out the irony
Show threadImthazMar 20
@gruber
Show threadfamousringoMar 20
@gruber now imagine trying to do remote support through a compressed video stream on a low resolution monitor.
Show threadN4RSE - JimMar 20
@gruber sLime!
Show threadChris Gervais 🎸🥁💻Mar 20
@gruber You gotta get out of Light Mode. I can't use Tahoe in anything but Dark Mode as it's just a massive glassy smear on the screen
Show threadkΔMar 20
@gruber I bet it’s all Europes fault isn’t it John 🤪
Show threadJonMar 20
@gruber So disappointing. I have to use Accessibility > Reduce transparency on the Mac.
Show threadPaul McGraneMar 21
@gruber but is somebody just screwing around with that "Accents" app and the MacBookNeo Citrus color? (i agree, it should never allow itself to be illegible)