not since the 90s have I interacted with a system UI whose animations were apparently designed to be as distracting as possible. I just looked at a masto notification and wondered why it had a weird tattoo (it was the UI of my active app showing through in bright blue, and I’ve got liquid glass on the “tinted” setting)

all my icons are fucking ugly now but the updated ones are worse. the calendar widget is a weird blob now. everything on my widget page is a weird blob.

what in the fuck did they do to the calendar, in general

who in the fuck is this for

holy fucking shit they made the CarPlay UI’s buttons smaller and made the daytime theme a set of colors that maximizes reflections and glare

I’d ask who decided this but “our users want smaller controls, more buttons, somehow also more whitespace, and less visibility for their driving interface” is a thoroughly LLM-brained decision

so who prompted ChatGPT and followed its instructions? I just want to talk (I’m going to run you over with my fucking car)

here I am severely disliking Apple’s UI for being materially the worst modern UI I’ve ever personally used (none of my computers run windows 11 and none of them ever will) and also disliking the macbook neo for being, by the numbers, a bad deal for everyone except Apple

maybe we can stop rewarding this company that’s doing a shit job of everything but increasing their share price with lipservice and thonkpieces about how the neo is great actually?

(I submitted the previous post too early because of liquid glass jank!)

maybe when we see a company like Apple capitulate to fascists in front of our own eyes and fuck up on security (the exploit kit that pushed me onto liquid glass) we shouldn’t reward any of that?

and like, you can punish Apple without leaving their ecosystem if you must stay. I get it. buy a used device. they’ll fucking hate if you buy a used macbook and it’s better and cheaper than the neo.

nah I must just be a hater

all I see when I look at this dreadful fucking UI is the big boy trophy they gave that fucker when they capitulated

and you want me to clap when they do things that increase their share price

also I still cannot get over how the new CarPlay UI made everything I use CarPlay for harder

the “go home” button is gone because now I guess I want to scroll a dreadful list of nearby food or gas or whatever?

app switching is fucking tiny for no reason

if I want to “end route” in maps, a thing I do constantly because maps can’t ever tell when I arrive (self-driving any day now I’m sure) I now have to swipe up on my arrival time (what) and tap a tiny end route button

sometimes the iMessage send button just glows instead of sending the message and I have to tap it again??

like I get it probably wants me to open the context menu I never use but like, I’ve tapped that button a lot and it never had this bug before and now it just keeps happening

oh dear fuck I opened the context menu and it can’t be closed by tapping the background, you have to find the tiny little close button and tap that or else you’re trapped

believe it or not Apple I don’t use these

@zzt I remember Apple used to design for the 90% of users — as in, what would work for most all people most of the time? Sometimes, still, this is annoying to nerdier “power” users because things can’t be customized; it’s Apple’s way or the highway.

But this aspirational simplicity is at odds with [market demands / “innovation” / upgrade cycle / enshittification].

I’m not saying anything new here, but I hear you and I feel this all over the place — UI elements that used to be simple, as in they worked one way consistently (like a SEND button), thus lower cognitive load, low friction. But now many times a day while attempting tasks that were simple muscle memory, now it’s “are you sure?” and “oops we renamed that” and “haha we changed the entire conceptual model so good luck GTFO!”

I don’t know if Linux is any better but I swear I’m almost ready to try it. 😤