“OS X Yosemite — the next version of Apple’s venerable desktop operating system — will bring a major visual overhaul to OS X for the first time in the software’s history,” AppleInsider reports.
“Overall, OS X Yosemite sits in an uncanny valley between its more detailed heritage and the spartan adornment of iOS under Jony Ive. Some icons have an odd mix of flat and three-dimensional elements, for instance, and new form control animations — such as the new slide/blink combination when switching radio buttons — are slow and give an impression of lag in the operating system,” AppleInsider reports. “This is not particularly surprising, given the huge amount of baggage OS X carries and the monumental task of rebuilding the entire user experience of two flagship operating systems back to back, but the Apple human interface group has a long road ahead.”
“Finder maintains a familiar layout, but all of the icons and controls have been redesigned. Icons are slightly thinner and sharper, while controls are now a stark white-grey gradient,” AppleInsider reports. “The side bar and toolbar are now translucent, allowing the background to show through.”
Read more, and see many more screenshots, in the full article here.
Love it. Long time coming!
Me too. Really impressed with the look.
am I the only person who never uses icons within a window? There is nothing faster to peruse than an alphabetized line list.
Depends on what you are looking at. 😉
I just said what I was looking at.
oh, you were joking.
Well Graphic design over the past 40 odd years would tend to disagree with you as does most imperial evidence of studies carried out in control conditions. But that is a generalisation, it depends on exact situation and the information being imparted to the viewer. It also depends on the the experience and brain of the user. There is no one design fits all Im afraid. Personally I find the Win8 solution to be the worst of both worlds where very basic uncommunicative icons are then combined with text heavy back up information to try to communicate what can be done far better with better graphics in the first place.
you meant “empirical.”
sorry ’empirical’
I use List and Column view options, depending on my needs. I find the user-controllable metadata (file size, etc.) in List view to be very useful. When I am browsing around for a file or want to duplicate a folder/file in a local area, then Column view is often helpful. I never use the Icon or Cover Flow view options in Finder.
nor I.
I, too, prefer list and outline view over icon and column views. But it does depend on the context. If I’m looking at a folder full of photos, I’ll have it set to icon view.
I agree; I always use a list view whether on a Mac or with Windows. An icon in the dock makes sense, but not so much elsewhere, and I never use LaunchPad.
I was and am not a real fan of the UI in iOS7 but this at first glance looks kind of nice.
I’ll be installing it on release day.
For developers, release day was yesterday! 🙂
Those buttons look like…buttons. That can’t be right. We know they are buttons so Jony says they can’t look like buttons. Oh wait, that’s iOS7. Maybe iOS8 will fix pOS7 so it makes sense again. Maybe Jony didn’t get as much input this time around. I mean he knows his hardware, but… Hoping.
Yes that is interesting isn’t it need to take a closer look but this on the surface looks to be a far better attempt at combining simplicity while retaining class and style.
Finally, a clean, simple and beautiful look for Mac! Thank you so much to the design staff !!!
I kinda like the 3D dock in Mavericks. I hope they leave that option in.
Yes need some convincing of that myself but we shall see. So much effort was made about the superiority of a 3D dock at the time we older users feel a little bit like we have been hoodwinked. Or shall we say the hoodwinking a little too obvious in this case. But if it works well that will soon be forgotten.
I need to watch the WWDC stream.. Haven’t had time.
But so far the dock is the only thing I don’t like. The rest I like (from the little I have actually read/seen)
The Dock in Mavericks is indeed very nice and there is no reason to destroy it, why do they change just for the sake of change, I know we are not allowed to have an opinon on these boards but that is my opinion. At least give us an option to use the current Mavericks dock and things will be great and to be perfectly honest, I didn’t see anything wrong with the look of Mavericks.
The white backgrounds really make the buttons stand out, and I think that the squared-off Search box looks a little better than the current rounded ends.
I am not sure about the translucency of the side bar and tool bar – that could get annoying. Hopefully, Apple will include user controls for some of these Finder/window changes.
Yes I very much enjoy the present look of the side/tool bar just distinguishes particular functions/ information from all the erst on a busy screen. Ironically took a bit to get used to when the original transparency went solid but then got used to it and accepted its better clarity between windows. Will be interested to see how this back to the future transformation will work.
I’m disappointed by the look of the Search field. Apple defined Search fields with rounded ends for a reason – to differentiate them from other fields. This has been very successful, and I’m sad to see it go away.
I don’t like the grey blobs for icons in the finder sidebar, they mean nothing to me. I have to read the text next to them. When they are in colour, I look at the icons instead of the text. Much faster. At least we get the Finder dark theme 🙂
Oh no….. so now the stupid little kids’ color scheme is coming to Mac also. Jonny Ive should be fired for ruining iOS and now OSX. So now more people will be forced to look at this stupid-ass processor heavy colored/transparency-ridden graphics. As for updating to Yosemite, I personally will wait to see if Garageband 6.0 (the last decent version for any musician who actually wants to do more than watch lessons and tap out practice lines) will still run on Yosemite. GarageBand 5.0 stopped working upon update to Mountain Lion forcing me to upgrade to 6.0. No Apple support for me there! I think it was their plan all along. I’ve learned my lesson to be wary of the evil company Apple has become.