Tell HN: Apple Broke Fitts' Law in Tahoe
22 dmd 11 9/18/2025, 12:49:50 PM
In every MacOS version - all the way back to the Lisa, even - items on the menu bar could be reached by clicking on the very first row of pixels on the screen. ("Rule of the infinite edges". - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitts%27s_law )
In Tahoe, they broke that for 3rd party menu bar icons (and some Apple ones) See video: https://shot.3e.org/ss-20250918_074040.mp4
This worked fine until Tahoe.
It gets stranger, though - this is only broken if the menu bar is light-colored. That means it's broken if Reduce Transparency is turned on - OR if it's off, but you're using a very light (white or light gray) colored desktop background.
This isn't just the canary in a coal mine. The miners are dead. The mine has collapsed.
This reduces cognitive load when operating the mouse. I miss that on macOS.
I absolutely love the machine. It’s by far the best hardware I’ve used and it makes up for everything and then some. But I’ve got to say the OS really sucks.
I’m not surprised they’ve also broken the pointer for anyone using a trackpad or mouse.
Of course the competition is the folks who made the logo for their OS a trash can and are oblivious to what that means. That's how they can get away with it.
What do you mean? I honestly have no idea.
https://yamato.fandom.com/wiki/Analyzer_(OS)
and he looks like a half-walking, half-rolling trash can. (All of Star Wars was a rip-off of Space Battleship Yamato)