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Cool, I’m glad to see UI that makes tech look fun and hopeful again instead of barebones corporate-flat, spartan rectangles.
“Oo look, they come in muted pastels and you can round the corners!”
Pfftftfttft…
And it stills looks like shit. Idk, as much as I dislike Windows Vista asthetics, Apple managed to make them look good by comparison.
Necessary “BTW, I’m using arch linux” comment coming through!
Make way kid, I’m on my Gentoo flying through
Debian Trixie
NixOS
From day one of Windows 11, I wrote that Windows 11 felt like an unnecessary replacement for Windows 10. I’ve since changed my mind about that, in part because Microsoft has pivoted toward features like Windows Spotlight and adding AI capabilities like Copilot. MacOS Tahoe looks and feels somewhat like Windows Vista’s Aero Glass design language, but you can’t hold that against them—some of Microsoft’s early Windows efforts were fondly remembered for their UI.
Oh so he doesn’t know what he is talking about. How has 11 gotten better with ‘AI’ or anything else.
Copilot is literally the last nail in the coffin for me to finally switch. 365 has been bad for some time now, with copilot it’s basically unusable
Who’s “he”, and where did that quote come from? I only see an image, did I miss an article cross-posted or something?
EDIT: Apparently, it’s from PCWorld.
Source: him
“That’s what”
She
It’s got what shareholders crave
From day 1 I’ve been critical of Windows 11, but since then I’ve been told our sponsors don’t like that, so here’s why I’m now all in on 11.
blood of slave labour children from the rare earth metal mines?
Also, they don’t seem to remember that Mac OS X 10.2 used Aqua and glassmorphism in 2002 to match their iMac’ brand new translucent style 5 years before Windows Vista was released (2007).
Well, hopefully their opinion changed from “unnecessary replacement” to “replacement with degraded performance and unnecessary malware.”
Also, everyone hated the UI in Vista at the time.
Man I loved Aero and I’m excited for iOS and iPadOS 26. Shit looks beautiful.
I didn’t mind it at all, but I had decent hardware, which apparently made all of the difference.
I feel like I was the only person who liked vista. XP looked like shit, so I used win 2k instead and switched to Vista, never had any issues with it at all.
I hated XP’s FisherPrice UI as well…
Yeah, the classic UI was better (and saved you a couple of pixels of useful screen real estate).
Context I had no idea what was going on until I found this at the bottom of all the comments.
THANK you. Thought I was going crazy…
Didn’t Vista get a ton of hate for its new UI?
IIRC, vista got hate because to run it a massive number of users would have to…upgrade…their…hardware.
That, and it had a lot of technical changes that broke a lot of drivers and programs. All the technical changes also had lots of bugs that needed to be fixed. And also, Microsoft OK’ed Vista for 512 MB RAM when it should have had at least 1 GB.
When everything started to smooth out, bugs fixed, drivers and programs updated, and computers came with 2GB+ RAM, then Microsoft released Windows 7, based on all of this, and that made Windows 7 shine.
People say that Windows Vista should never had been made but without it, Windows 7 would have suffered the same fate as Vista.
Yeah, my mum bought a laptop that only had 512mb RAM and that ran like shiiiiiit. Trying to troubleshoot for her left absolutely certain that Vista was a dog.
Haha yes, I had to go to client with a new desktop with Windows Vista… that only had 512 MB. It was swapping all the time and was useless and I looked like an idiot for bringing a defective computer that we had selected for him. Upgraded to 1 GB and it was fine.
but without it, Windows 7 would have suffered the same fate as Vista.
Alternatively they could test their shit in advance. It’s not like Microsoft is too poor to afford an array of average computers and a dozen of testers.
Alternatively they could test their shit in advance
A big part of the problem was 3rd party programs that was not ready. A big change was introduction of the User Account Control (UAC) that more or less started to force programs to behave better: Install into program file, save stuff in user profile, don’t do dumb admin stuff if not needed, making programs start to behave more like they lived in a multi-user operating system. It was a change that had to be done and it was never going to be a good experience.
It’s not like Microsoft is too poor to afford an array of average computers and a dozen of testers
I think you underestimate how many testers and how much work actually goes into testing both Microsoft’s own software and work with 3rd party software vendors to make sure their software worked. This has changed somewhat, with Windows 10 and forward, where you have a lot more beta testing in the public.
I agree that there should have been spent more time on testing Vista and given more time to 3rd party to test their stuff. However, 3rd party software and drivers took, in some instances, 1-2 years after Vista release, before they updated their stuff to work with Vista. There were just not a lot of companies interested in spending the money and time to make make it work as Vista got a (deserving) bad reception, but a big part of the problem was these companies. A chicken/egg situation.
We’ve seen all the window border/ui design cycles by now. You can have:
- Glassy
- Metallic
- Bubbly
- Flat
- Chiseled stone
They will just rotate every 7 years or so from here on out.
The exact same trends go round and round in web design too (and now apps).
At first things were square (because that was all the technology could do) then in the 2000s CSS exploded and everything went colour gradients and rounded corners, just because people could, then that became old-hat and everything went flat and square again, and then rounded came back (but without so many gradients)
Everything is cyclical.
You’re forgetting Flash. Flash every-fucking-where between 2002-2010 because fuck your CPU and your browser
Everything is cyclical.
Be me still waiting for that cozy skeumorphism and UI with depth to come back. =/
Color gradients weren’t a feature in CSS for a long time, people still wanted them and made them using images, same with rounded corners, same with shadows. All this was standardised in CSS in the 2010s.
- Burning
Bukakke
Oh, is THAT what that fucking blue splotch everywhere in win11 is? Just an appalling amount of smurf cum, spewing waves of blue jism into the UI at every opportunity?
“We’re… Getting things ready for you…”
Ohhhhhhhhhh I get it! They called it Vista like a view, like something you would see out of a window (I am not very smart)
And it’s called Windows 11 to remind us of 9/11, because both are fucking tragedies.
My throat hurts and you made me laugh too hard, I hope you are happy.
I like Windows 11. It’s the only OS currently in existence to actually implement HDR properly, and that’s just sad.
Nothing else works but hey the blacks are blacker!
I’m sorry you had issues. Win11 runs everything flawlessly for me. Not only that, every complaint I had about the OS was fixed by installing these two apps: StartAllBack and O&O Shut Up 10.
I’ll completely switch to Linux once it not only gets proper HDR support, but also better support for DAW and DJ hardware. Until then I’m stuck dual booting Arch, like I have been with the Latest Windows version—and whatever contemporary Linux distro is in vogue—since the 90s. Some things never change.
Nothing else works
With the exception of some UI elements I need third party tools to restore to their previous customizability, I’ve had no problems making anything that worked in 10 work in 11. Which isn’t surprising, 11 is 10, with a shitty UI redesign.
What doesn’t work?
I’ve only just now made the connection because of your post.
Because people don’t seem to remember that Mac OS X 10.2 used Aqua and glassmorphism in 2002 to match their iMac’ brand new translucent style 5 years before Windows Vista was released (2007).
Yeah and odd they don’t see the fundamental difference between these, Apple was always “glass widgets on/in a solid rectangle”
Only on Windows were windows windows
People spreading these memes most likely weren’t born before either release 😀
My back hurts
Get off my
lawnLemmy
fucking dumbasses ROFL hahahahaa
I’ve run into gen-z people talking very nostalgically about 2000s UI design trends. They’ve even retroactively dubbed the era as ‘futiger aero’.
I’m a bit older and don’t as fondly remember that era; I remember a lot of excesses like nonsensical reflections and calendar apps with leather textures. The 2013 turn to “flat” design felt quite fresh to me, and I haven’t really gotten tired of it yet.
The 2013 turn to “flat” design felt quite fresh to me, and I haven’t really gotten tired of it yet.
Man, I have. I liked it at first, but I’m so ready.
The processing power wasn’t there yet in 2007 for the level of refraction and skeuomorphism that makes this look work on a system-wide level. In Vista and 7 Aero was just fancy transparency with some blurring and flares. But this design language Apple is showing off is beautiful. I hope others copy it (which will probably happen, since everything in tech is everyone copying everyone else).
(That said, I would probably also take a return to the 9x/NT4/Windows 2000 2.5D grey UI over the flat stuff at this point, so maybe I’m not a good source of opinion. 😅)
(which will probably happen, since everything in tech is everyone copying
everyone elseApple no matter how good or bad their ideas are at the time.)FTFY although I wish it wasn’t so. ._. Lol
There was the unreleased Windows “Blackcomb”, basically prior to Redmond seeing Apple’s Aqua, which was like a bit Windows 2000, a bit ME, flatness, outlines, square corners, and it could’ve been metro.
But resolutions and anti-aliasing were getting (slightly) better, so copy Apple, XP instead gets texture and rounds everything.
Vista was another interesting take, especially weird was the window controls. We are still living with those weird long controls with a margin below, but not above them, a lot of the time, even in flat land Windows 11.
If they are really nostalgic for that, tell them to use react os.
I miss the glass and translucent looks, the flat boring look of today is very bleak and dystopian looking imo. Don’t miss vista though, that was what started my move to Linux (with Compiz fusion and as many of the ridiculous effects as my poor $300 laptop could handle).
I feel the same way! I think a lot of hate for Vista was just instability and high system usage.
I feel like things have definitely come a long way, where my KDE machines can have pretty glassy UI without crunching the whole system.
I also really liked ME before XP, where there was a heavy emphasis on personalizing and theming.
flat boring look of today is very bleak and dystopian looking imo.
100%. It feels very corporate and like any artistic touch was forcibly extracted from it because trends say that aesthetic hurts readability or something. Blegh.
It’s like the UI equivalent to that “Memphis techbro” art style with the freakish flat purple people with wonky arms and tiny heads.
I mean, I’m not entirely opposed to some translucency and gloss if it doesn’t get in the way of legibility. For me early Mac OS X ‘Aqua’ circa 2003 is the peak of that aesthetic.
Any UI theme should also be applied consistently. What I hated about Vista is the Aero theme was only surface deep. You were always only a few clicks away from some program that look liked it hadn’t been updated since Windows 95.
You were always only a few clicks away from some program that look liked it hadn’t been updated since Windows 95.
That remains true for 10 and 11 too. For a quick trip back to 1995, just do something that you probably haven’t done this millennium, change your mouse pointer. Instant nostalgia. Device manager in general hasn’t changed much either.
I wouldn’t even count that against them, working functionality shouldn’t be changed without good reason, except that it exposes how much windows is a patch job on a fundamentally flawed design. If it were a boat or car, it would be more Bondo than metal at this point. Why are these dialogs so stuck in the past? Shouldn’t it be a simple matter to have them use the latest design elements to at least look consistent, even if the functionality hasn’t changed a bit.
IMO, it’s all about giving the user control. KDE’s transparency/translucency controls are the bare minimum. Apple hates giving users choices, though, so I hope they do ok for those folks.
Apple hates giving users choices, though, so I hope they do ok for those folks.
They’ve definitely improved on this front. It’s fun comparing my iPhone homescreen (a user who moved to iPhone after over a decade of Android customization and arrived at almost just the right time) to people who’ve used iPhone all along. They don’t know what to do with themselves, they’re still pages of app icons.
Meanwhile I’m sitting here with a single beautifully minimal screen with some folders and a big ‘ol weather widget, a swipe gets me to a page full of useful widgets, a swipe the other direction gets me to my app drawer or whatever the hell Apple calls it.
Yeah, I’ve always hated that about Apple, and I primarily use Apple products. They have opened up a little bit in the last few years though. Like in macOS you can choose from a few different accent colors, you can turn borders on around buttons (I think that’s a contrast setting in accessibility), you can turn off transparency, and you can change the color of your mouse cursor (mine is now hot pink—never lose sight of it).
Hell yeah I love that shit. Gimme unnecessarily textured UIs, frosted glass effects and all the skeuomorphisms you can manage.
skeuomorphisms
No joke, that kind of design was super useful for touchscreens. Especially if the buttons animated like a button and visibly depressed upon being tapped. Made it real easy to tell if you mistyped or of the touchscreen was fucked up and registering your tap in a slightly different spot.
I got tired of it in 2013. While it does work in some places (Android does it reasonably well), I haven’t yet seen a good flat design on the desktop.
Windows 8 and 10 looked garish and hard to read, especially since everything is a rectangle with a one-pixel outline. Is it a button? Is it a text field? Maybe a thick progress bar? Who knows, they all look extremely similar.
While Apple did overdo it in the later big-cat OS X releases, I’ll take a felt-textured widget panel and a calendar bound in leather over an endless sea of hairline rectangles.
Windows XP was the peak of Windows’ UI.
Disagree. 2000, Vista, and especially 7 all looked better than XP. XP was childish.
Aged badly.
However, the Embedded Edition theme looks fine.
I am definitely older (my first programming job involved a mac plus) and personally, I can’t stand the flat look era.
It would be fine if it had more ways to differentiate elements from each other - darkening around the edges of windows, buttons that actually look raised so they aren’t identical to a text box, scroll bars that aren’t SO FUCKING TINY that it’s clear MS is embarrassed that they exist in the first place, etc. etc.
