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Discussing older Mac OS X Design Language

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The design language of OS X / macOS has changed significantly since 2014 when Yosemite gave us our first OS X version to borrow heavily from iOS. The dock went from 3D to 2D and became flat again, some icons changed completely, moving away from the abundant skeuomorphism in past OS X versions. In this thread you can voice your opinions about what you like from past versions compared to what we have now in Monterey/Ventura.

This iTunes 12.2 icon with the color gradient is my favorite iTunes icon of all time. Now it's just red, kind of like the 2014 12.0 version but in the "rounded square" treatement that all of them get today.

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Was glad when they got rid of the CD icon many years ago.

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it was better when steve jobs was at apple. the cd icon is the best.
 
it was better when steve jobs was at apple. the cd icon is the best.
Here's what Steve said when they changed it from the CD disc to the musical note without the disc.

 
Here's what Steve said when they changed it from the CD disc to the musical note.

... 2010 Steve while trying to rest recover from his severe physical health wellbeing
 
... 2010 Steve while trying to rest recover from his severe physical health wellbeing
Did you mean that Steve Jobs said something stupid because he was ill?
 
The older iterations of MacOS/OSX used a lot more skeuomorphic design, even win xp/vista/7 did this, but in a more cartoonish way. well xp, more than 7. its just natural progression in graphic design trends. the whole flat design sort of hit its peak last year, we are now on a curve where its heading back towards realism, but not to the degree it was previously. more softer colours. not as glaring highlights, like everything was made out of jelly. The flat look really came about with Google and there material design trend a few of years back, and Microsoft jumping on the bandwagon along with Apple.

Graphic design wise, Apple used to lead from the front, these days its more following the pack. and from what i can see, graphically Ventura isn't going to shift that perception. Its sorta lost its way in that respect. Im a graphic designer by profession. when i was training and at uni in the early 2000's.. hell half the photoshop tutorials you could find were on recreating that glossy, overly saturated icon, and nav button look to slap onto your nice shiny HTML 4 transitional, and CSS 2 templates.. times have moved on, alas Apple is lagging a little.
 
As the subject of Typography and macOS has come up, can I just point out how ugly and sloppy the new 'About this Mac' window is!. I do like the format, I just wish they'd make it just a little wider so that words aren't left alone on a unnecessary second line.

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Yep, the new "About This Mac" screen is totally ugly. It follows the ugly dialog design introduced on Big Sur.

Aesthetically unpleasant, primitively centered, elements don't align with each other. The windows are bizarrely narrow for no reason whatsoever.

Apple should return to the normal, pre-Big Sur dialog design.
 
Just be thankful that we can easily change any icon to whatever we want!




(for now)
 
The future of Mac is ugly icons ( the cool looking trashcan is now a medacine cup ) and subscriptions all over the App Store ( what ever happened to buying apps at decent price ).
 
Imho apple's lowest point was when they lost the design battle from google. Up until 2011~2012 apple was still giving the pace. Then the extreme success of the "google model" brought material design to the top. I find MD boring and uninspired, google a company with a great search engine, no ethical limits and bad taste.
So mavericks for me was the last great one.
How big SJ's shadow could be as well as his absence (

Still this topic made me so happy i am surrounded by people who can pull real joy from a well calculated padding and give every pixel the attention it deserves.
 
Are we seeing a return to 'Glass'?!. I've just noticed the new desktop pictures in Monterey, a homage to the MBA M2 ad campaign. New screensaver incoming perhaps.

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