Comment by bigyabai
6 days ago
The Apple customerbase never changes. When Apple hypes up a bad update, people apologize and say "wait for the next point release" as a healing salve. When Apple releases a flop like the Vision Pro, everyone has to point out that the Newton failed so the iPhone could run. Maybe, just maybe, Apple's characteristic product management results in blatant failures. Mice that put a charging port on the bottom. Serial cables that are a white-label USB with licensing fees. Lisas that inhabit landfills. We can't always argue that Apple exists independent of other marketing influences and can just do whatever they want as a result - they have to compete! Resting on laurels isn't good enough.
I'm willing to give Apple their credit, where due. Mojave and Catalina was polished to a professional sparkle, it was very believable as a professional OS back then. Big Sur wasted a lot of screen real estate without any good way to get it back, and now Liquid Glass is sacrificing visual clarity to Mammon in hopes that it sells more Macbooks. I don't think it makes sense, any way you cut it. Not everything has to be history repeating itself, Apple has proven more than adept at inventing new ways to fail. Apple Car and Airpower both come to mind - sometimes it just doesn't work out.
> Maybe, just maybe, Apple's characteristic product management results in blatant failures.
I know, I went through a couple of real lemons, like the 2nd-hand PowerBook 5400c I had as a kid, or the early MBP with a bad GeForce, and an overheating late Intel MBP with an awful keyboard. I also still have a hockey puck mouse somewhere. And again, Aqua had its excesses and I strongly disliked their turn to flat design.
All I am saying is that the concept of liquid glass is interesting and I am sure they will iterate over time to fix issues. All the legibility and readability concerns could be addressed by tweaking the opacity of the buttons whilst keeping the dynamic and kinetics aspects of it without throwing the whole thing away.
There are many precedents, it would not be really unexpected.
> Not everything has to be history repeating itself, Apple has proven more than adept at inventing new ways to fail. Apple Car and Airpower both come to mind - sometimes it just doesn't work out.
Yes indeed. I am not arguing otherwise.