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Apple love to preach "the UI gets out of the way of your content" with each new redesign, but how true is that in practice? Let's compare the total height of the Safari UI with a toolbar, favourites bar and tab bar visible, across the three latest Mac OS design languages – Yosemite, Big Sur and now Tahoe. I've added a red line for emphasis.

It sure looks to me like the UI is eating more into my content with each redesign.

https://mastodon.social/@tuomas_h/114672109542813969

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66 comments

  • Expanding like that usually is indicative of moves to make the UI more touch friendly. But since Apple seems to be firmly against touchscreen laptops for some dumb reason, who knows what their justification is. Probably something with the word magic or courage.

    • for some dumb reason

      ive never understood why anyone would want a touch screen on a laptop? If its a foldable to a tablet type laptop, sure. But a regular laptop? why?

      • Keyboard, mouse, track pad, track point, all of them have limits. Sometimes just touching what you want to do is more convenient. And if you don't want to use it, then you can ignore it with no adverse effect. It isn't something that's in the way or prevents you from using other input methods.

        And at this point the technology is so cheap there's no reason not to include it. Well unless your company's entire profit structure is based on charging exorbitant amounts for minor upgrades and making the lowest cost option almost always have some sort of glaring deficiency to try to push users to pay hundreds more than they need to for the "optional" upgrades that should have just been included and cost pennies on the dollar for the company. Then using your cult like user base to gaslight each other and outsiders into believing they don't actually want something you don't provide.

        • I don’t understand - what limitation does a keyboard and mouse have which is directly solved by a touchscreen?

        • Pushing buttons against a vertical surface or one leaned backwards when it's a keyboard's distance out of your way is very awkward.

          And at this point the technology is so cheap there's no reason not to include it.

          It's about $100 dollars plus support e.g. for dust accumulation especially for the cheap devices.

          Well unless your company's entire profit structure is based on charging exorbitant amounts for minor upgrades and making the lowest cost option almost always have some sort of glaring deficiency to try to push users to pay hundreds more than they need to for the "optional" upgrades that should have just been included and cost pennies on the dollar for the company.

          That sounds like all the more incentive to provide a touch screen. What's your conspiracy theory for them not providing it, if not just that it sucks?

      • It’s not a big power user feature, and one typically doesn’t sit there using the touch screen for minutes on end. It’s more useful for dismissing alerts or quickly focusing IM windows. It’s just nice in small moments where you’re juggling multiple things at your desk or just sitting back down. Being able to not think and jab your browser window to scroll down a bit is a natural gesture, even on a laptop.

      • As someone who has used both, it’s super cool being able to flip your laptop around into a tablet-like interface if you want to, and even use a stylus if you want to. I would love it if Apple laptops did this. Admittedly, I did not know how cool it could be until I actually used one on the daily.

66 comments