Things went downhill rapidly when Jony Ive’s team took over software design. I wasn’t a huge fan of the gaudy extreme skeuomorphism of the late Forstall era, but at least you could tell what was a button. What you could do with a piece of software was much clearer.

The current team are insistent that simplicity is when controls are hidden behind hover and tap states, or inside overflow menus in a toolbar only 5% full.

Finally I can get rid of the tagging button in Finder and replace it with a New Folder button. And I can ditch all of those buttons I don't use at the top of the Mail app to keep the "search" bar open at all times.

The general lack of visibility into what is actually happening is incredibly annoying. Anything that involves syncing is in dire need of “stop and start again” button.

Funnily enough, I remember many, many tech reviewers in 2014, 2015 criticizing the MacBook Pro for that "ancient" design. And Apple eventually gave in and redesigned both the laptops (yuck) and OS X (maybe even more yuck). UI/UX is tricky, I think, because in an industry where folks move around every couple of years to maximize their salaries, people aren't rewarded for being good, iterative stewards of an existing system. Instead, they change jobs, someone new comes in, and they try to make a name for themselves by redesigning everything through a big bang redesign. And then they move on a couple years later, and then someone else comes in and redesigns... etc. etc.

Sidenote: Holy cow, this also explains why the government sucks so much.