iOS 19 and macOS 16: The biggest UI revamp since iOS 7 and macOS Big Sur

Bloomberg article, https://archive.is/gxaYw

> the company is working to simplify the way users navigate and control their devices.. The design is loosely based on the Vision Pro’s software.. will mark the most significant upgrade to the Mac since the Big Sur operating system in 2020.. For the iPhone, it will be the biggest revamp since iOS 7 in 2013... 2 billion devices in use around the world.. when Apple revamped its Photos app last year, legions of users complained. With the entire operating systems changing, the stakes are much higher.

Vision Pro sold less than 500K devices and v2 was cancelled. There have been reports of iOS/macOS instability, possibly due to annual feature churn consuming engineering resources. Apple Intelligence failed to meet iOS 18.4 ship target and Siri may need to be rewritten with relaunch in 2026-2027. Siri shortcomings have delayed the 2025 launch of smart home tablet and iPad-on-robot-arm.

Do the above starting conditions support once-a-decade user interface and workflow productivity changes for 2B people, based on a failed launch with 0.025% of customers?

But I hope that delta updates are still not being implemented - I really don't expect Apple to make an update that doesn't require a factory reset on their base devices before update. That would be very futuristic. Just like reliably fetching my emails - though it was stable like a concrete block in iOS8, I understand that times change.

I personally don't care much about cosmetics. I mainly save articles for review and process tons of photos I take. I don't use a photos app because I don't want to lock my files in some database or a tree built on date. Holy WTF! Where are my photos? They used to be in a file system, and a separate branch for each camera.

I curse the Finder app hundreds of times a day. Three main gripes.

1. It never sizes windows right. Just fit all my damn columns so I don't have to horizontally scroll. A hack app called "cols" did this but stopped working. I am looking for the source.

2. When I drag a file over anything,the finder starts treating it as a drop event and puts up the beachball of death. Just wait until I get to where I'm going.

3. Search ALWAYS reverts from my working directory to the main disk. This is user-hostile.

These are not cutesy UI things. They have been aggravating for a very long time.

A Computer has always been a tool for me. A hammer or table saw that makes its own decisions is not a tool. It's outsourcing to an agent that writes its own spec's by mind reading. If I want a friend, I'll find a friend. And have a beer with them.

Sirius Cybernetics. It's fiction!