Notification Center in Sonoma
Reminder that Design should be not just about how it looks but also how it works…
I was hoping since we can move Widgets onto the desktop that perhaps we’d get more spacing for Notifications but nope… 😒
[Look] at how useful it used to be! Everything was clear, legible, none of this “on hover” bs… and look how many notifications you can have in the list view… wow!
Why does macOS continue to just regress?
Both Growl and Notification Center in previous macOS versions (before Big Sur) worked better than what we have now.
My running theory is that Apple is bad at retaining talent, and shifts people around too often. There’s no way there’s a “Notifications Team,” and instead we’re seeing some work to bring things into visual alignment, then moving on to something else. Like all software, the problem is ultimately mismanagement because you KNOW people in the company are bothered by this, too!
I think my favorite are Shortcuts error notifications, because they don’t stack at all. When my Apple TV (home hub) reboots and my thermostats can’t connect I get a new, non-stacking notification every 10 minutes. Who designed that?
Previously:
- macOS 14 Sonoma Announced
- Options in macOS Update Notifications
- UNAlertStyle Restricted
- Improving macOS Widgets
- Ventura’s “Open at Login” vs. “Allow in the Background”
- Ventura Notifies User of New Login Items
- macOS 12.0 Monterey Released
- Shortcut for Tapback in Messages
- Dismissing Big Sur Notifications
- Retiring Growl
- Big Sur Notifications
4 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon
Point the finger, as with most things, at "Decorators" having taken over "design" as a discipline at Apple.
Why do we have notches and dynamic islands? Because there is a *decorative* value to equal top and side bezels, that is prioritised over the *design* value of maximising the largest contiguous rectangle and providing the most space for status indicators and menus.
Equal bezels has no functional, no design purpose, it is pure moulded plastic fascia on a 1990s compaq beige box PC.
Why are notifications all visual tricks, but you can't have a functional calculator widget any more? Because motion graphics *decorators*, or rather Graphics Artists who were formerly designing packaging for the boxes the products came in, and who are now using motion graphics tools, are bringing the same "make it look cool and show off what the animation tools can do" (probably believing themselves to be virtuously dogfooding Core Animation) decorative ethos to the UI.
Design at Apple is how it looks, and it has been that way since about 2012/2013 (guess why).
I agree with Nathan Bowers's reply. Scott Forstall's firing can now be seen to have been the sharp historical boundary between Jobs's Apple and Cook's, and the respective design priorities of both.
@Someone
Don't get me started on the notches, rounded screen corners, and home bar cutting into my content and making gestures needlessly error-prone.
Notifications on macOS are puzzlingly annoying. I’d love a “oral history” type article describing the chain of events that led them to be so bad.
PS: Unlike previous commenters, I like the dynamic island, and I see value in making things that are aesthetically pleasing.
