This Hacker News discussion covers a range of topics, primarily revolving around macOS UI changes and the state of classic Mac system emulation.
macOS UI Nostalgia and Design Preferences
A significant portion of the conversation is driven by user "the_other," who expresses a desire for Apple to revert the macOS menu bar to a white background and a colored Apple logo. This preference is linked to an appreciation for a more user-centric and "fun" design philosophy, contrasting with what they perceive as Apple's current "showing off" approach.
- "the_other" stated, "I wish Apple would bring back the white menubar background and the coloured logo. The white menubar makes the whole computer easier to use in a small but constant way. The coloured apple icon would suggest they no longer have their heads stuck up their assess and might bring back 'fun' rather than 'showing off' to their design process."
This sentiment is met with alternative solutions and discussions about customization.
- "xenonite" suggested, "What about setting a white background, which yields a white menubar? A color logo might be added with an overlay app – or you reminisce a black&white screen."
- "trinix912" questioned the lack of built-in customization: "So are we supposed to make custom backgrounds with a 30px white bar on top instead of expecting this to be an option in the settings like in every other sanely customizable OS?"
- "celsius1414" offered a practical tip: "Turning ‘Reduce Transparency’ on in Accessibility > Display will solidify the menubar in both light and dark modes."
- "the_other" elaborated on their preference for the menu bar's appearance: "With 'reduce transparency' on, it's better, but the menubar still isn't white. It's a textured light grey that's closer to the look of an unfocused app window than the solid, dependable, flat thing I wish it still was."
The Inevitability of UI Change vs. Stability
Another prominent theme explores the nature of user interface evolution. Some users lament frequent UI changes as "churn," while others see it as natural and inevitable progress.
- "SkyeCA" expressed fatigue with UI shifts: "Are they really changing the UI up again? I am actually so done at this point. The endless UI churn drives me absolutely mad, but I suppose when there's nothing left to do, making it look different is easy."
- "jamwil" countered this perspective, arguing that UI changes are inherent: "Do you harbour an honest expectation that computer UIs will look the same in 2035 as they do in 2025? That would prove to be a silly thing to hope for if you were to backtest it. It’s not churn its change, and it’s inevitable. No sense getting worked up over it."
- "coldpie" provided a counterexample of UI stability: "Sure, why not? My desktop environment hasn't significantly changed since I first set it up in 2007. The screenshots here[1] span more than 20 years (XFCE 4.0 was released in 2003) and, aside from different user-selected theming choices, look substantially similar across that whole time."
- "jamwil" clarified their point, distinguishing specialized environments from general UI trends: "I like XFCE but you can’t cherry pick a niche DE that is designed for minimalism and extrapolate that to computer UIs writ large, which was the subject of my comment. Gnome, KDE, Windows, macOS… all evolve regularly."
- "hadlock" offered a more critical view on UI changes, suggesting they are driven by marketing and employment needs: "The only reason UIs would change at this point is to keep UI/UX folks employed and busy, and give the marketing department something new to talk about."
The State of Classic Mac Emulation and a Critical Blog Post
A substantial part of the discussion centers on a blog post that critiques the state of classic Mac system emulation, particularly focusing on emulators like Mini vMac. This triggered a debate about the author's tone, technical criticisms, and the value of volunteer-driven open-source projects.
- "thristian" provided context for the importance of hardware-level Mac emulators, contrasting them with established emulators for other classic systems: "For game consoles, we've had emulators like Nestopia and bsnes and Dolphin and Duckstation for years. For PCs, virtualisation systems like VMWare and VirtualBox have covered most people's needs, and recently there's been high-fidelity emulators like 86Box and MartyPC. The C64 has VICE, the Amiga has WinUAE, even the Apple II has had high-quality emulators like KEGS and AppleWin, but the Mac has mostly been limited to high-level and approximate emulators like Basilisk II."
- "xdfgh1112" expressed dismay at the perceived dismissal of developers' work: "That article is objectively true but .. I've never seen such a grotesque dismissal of the hard work people have done for free."
- "tom_" criticized the author's approach: "For the amount of time and effort that went into that article, the author could surely have fixed at least one of the things they complain about! And they don't seem to understand the C #include mechanism at all, so should we even pay attention to their technical criticisms in the first place?!"
- "ndiddy" pointed out that the author did contribute a fork of Mini vMac: "The author did make a Mini vMac fork to clean up the build system and code, she linked it at the end."
- "troad" offered a sharp critique of the blog post's tone and approach: "Stopped reading when we got to sarcastic hate-compiling. That whole part could be a thoughtful and compassionate discussion of the state of Mac emulators, and would be much more persuasive if it were, and instead it reads like a blog-length dunk tweet." They further elaborated on the perceived lack of courtesy: "You're asking for a courtesy here that you failed to extend to others... No, the issue here is that the piece boils down to bullying other people because their hobby projects don't meet your esoteric standards ('no Github releases!')."
- "InvisibleUp" (the author of the blog post) acknowledged the feedback: "I feel like that’s a bit harsh, but I’ll admit that it is needlessly inflammatory.... At some point I need to either rewrite it to be less hostile or just yank it entirely." They later updated: "Now that I'm off work, I’ve removed the big rant about mini vMac’s code and sanded off the snark from the rest. I should have done this years ago, and I never should have added that in the first place."
Technical Details and Alternatives in Emulation
The emulation sub-thread also delved into specific technical details and mentioned alternative emulators.
- "nmdeadhead" highlighted Executor as another option, noting its unique approach to avoiding Apple IP and its various ports: "In compatibility, it's MUCH worse than all the others, but there's also Executor... Executor was the least compatible because it used no intellectual property from Apple. The ROMs and system software substitutes were all written in a clean room--no disassembly of the Apple ROMs or System file."
- "homarp" shared a link to a more recent fork of Executor.