macOS Tahoe windows have different corner radiuses

This one really bothers me. Whenever maximizing or tiling my windows (which is all the time), I see multiple layers of oddly rounded corners.

I think if there's any upside to Tahoe, the grievances may push me into blogging for the first time ever, because I can't keep these to myself.

I actually feel sorry for Apple's developers because there's no way you ship software this bad and inconsistent unless you've been handed a terrible design spec from Dye's team.

edit: On my screen, three layers' corners https://hcker.news/tahoe-corners.png

The justification by Apple is that it keeps the concentricity between window corner and the red/green/yellow window controls. Which, as you may notice, it does.

It's wrong though, because the window is the higher element in the hierarchy (container) and should not be affected by what is inside. It creates a larger inconsistency than the "consistency" it supposedly brings.

Mac OS's UX design has been in free fall the last 5-10 years (ever since the "iOS-ify everything" zeitgeist took root). Sincerely hope that they one day revert back, because the current UX is just godawful for any usecase I can imagine.

It is difficult to put into words how much I dislike macos 26. I held out on upgrading for a long time since there were so many horror stories, but to my surprise both iOS and ipadOS 26 aren’t really any different than 18. Maybe because you don’t really do any proper work on it? The graphical differences aren’t anything major when the apps fill the whole viewport anyway.

But macOS? Good lord. I can only hope 27 will unfuck things somewhat, there are so many small annoyances and all of them add to a constant sense of unhappiness throughout the day. I’m really tempted to downgrade back to Sequoia. At least the M4 will be good enough for years if this truly is the new path Apple will take.

Apple is no longer about Jobs' "simplicity as the ultimate sophistication". It feels like a bunch of kids with no proper design education competing for the security of their salaries. Apple is dead without Steve. The company has no focal point. They're running solely on the inertia from Mac OS X and the first generations of the iPhone.

It just seems to me that that Macbook Neo is basically them telling us that come next year they will unify iOS and MacOS and they are testing the waters at the moment.

All this version alignment, the blurring of "here is a laptop with A processor and iOS" points to that direction.

The errs of Tahoe are basically a result of the rush on that direction

This was one of the very few advantages of moving from Linux => MacOS, that at least most of the software was beautiful and consistent by default. I'm saddened to see that this is not true anymore. Been holding the Tahoe upgrade, and might just keep my macbook air m1 much longer than originally intended because of this.

The rounded corners is such a key element of apple design. They patented rounded corners on the iphone for precisely this reason. They wanted to trademark this but got a design patent instead. And then samsung notoriously copied this one almost verbatim same radius which pissed off apple.

don't know why this bothers me but apple is losing attention to detail

Feels sloppy (is sloppy) but I think the idea is to prioritize OS unification for hardware reasons, and UX across product suite — devices can share data, apps, screens, everything.

There is a work around if you don't mind lowering the Security settings: https://github.com/aspauldingcode/apple-sharpener

I dislike Tahoe too, but this particular thing is not new.

I just did an image search for "classic macos" and one of the first hits was from https://www.versionmuseum.com/history-of/classic-mac-os. Look at those System 1 screenshots, from 42(!) years ago -- round corners on Puzzle and Calculator, square corners on Note Pad and Control Panel! No consistency at all, isn't it infuriating?

I hadn’t noticed this before, but now I can’t unsee it. UI inconsistencies like that tend to stand out once someone points them out.

Finally, the update we've all been waiting for

I will never upgrade from Sequoia and when I'll have no other options migrate to another laptop!

This feels like one of those "done for backwards compatibility and we tested not doing it and it was worse" things where everyone assumes incompetence over good-faith trade-offs being driven by release schedules.

It keeps annoying me, too. How can their developers not see this?!

I actually really like that certain windows have a different corner radius. It wraps around the chrome of the app properly.

If you made it this far, know I am totally messing with you. It really is unnerving.

Why should the two window varieties have the same corner radius? There's no design analysis here, only conservatism.

read somewhere that maybe they’re preparing for OLED screens

Im gonna go against the grain here, so hold your pitchforks please, but I think its better than if it were consistent. Let me explain:

The author notices that adding a toolbar changes the radius, and to me it makes sense. If theres a toolbar, I know how much I can cut the corners, because the icons in the toolbar are not gonna be in far corner. At the same time, when I am unsure about what type of content might get cut by the corner, I will reduce the cut slightly to give that content more space.

I couldnt care less that one radius is not the same as another, I guess my OCD levels are not that high (yet?).

And I say all of this as someone who dislikes the glass design, and especially hates the small, slowly fading in volume/brightness indicators in the corner replacing the mid screen beautiful instant indicator.

Containers with different contents look different?

I don't see the big deal. That seems like a reasonable design choice. Make nice rounded corners when content allows, but rectangle them up as needed?

Seems like a nice adaptive design choice.

Honestly making different apps slightly more visually identifiable in a sea of sameness doesn't seem like a big deal.

Maybe this is intentional? Either way, doesn't look bad.

This is one of those stories that I read and I'm like, "Someone wrote an article about that? I am definitely among my people, but I smell a front end developer."