I know it’s just a joke, but I always saw this era of UI design as more inspired by concrete and stone than by metal.
this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2025
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Brutalist you mean?
Sure, that fits! Everything felt very solid and chiselled. There were a lot of stone textures on the early web in that same period, too.
We called it "battleship grey", back then.
I wouldn’t mind going back to a System 7 era UI. There’s a little bit of color, but it’s not all gradients and reflections.
System 7.6.1, I love you and I miss you. Whatever I did I’m sorry, please come back.
I have a basilisk process running just so I can switch over and tinker a bit. Wish it was more connected to the rest of the system...
You just reminded me about https://infinitemac.org/, check it out if you haven't already. Your comment has inspired me to go see if Basilisk will run on my Mac Mini 4.
Great site!
Solid Metal... Gear
Was always a fan of Next/GNU/Open/AfterStep and WindowMaker. WindowMaker becoming an active project again is really cool.
My dream is for a modern, Wayland/HDR ready window manager based on Platinum or NextStep (I do use Windowmaker on a non gaming laptop but it looks mostly abandoned at this point).
Hell even...whatever Windows9x is called would work.
Which modern, and modern-looking, UI is closest to this?
This actively tries to clone the NeXT environment, which is what this screenshot is.
Nice :D 2023 & more relevant of an answer than I expected to hear!
If Apple got rid of glass and transparency, I would sell all my Apple products on the same day as the announcement.
We got the same work done, but I don't miss it. I suppose we needed this transition period of on-screen buttons that looked like raised buttons until we all got used to interpreting what could be clicked on without the visual clues. The bevels just took up space, I'm glad they're gone.
iirc studies have shown the opposite. Interfaces that use visual cues for buttons such as bevels and other 3D skeuomorphism cause users to operate interfaces significantly faster and with fewer mistakes. You personally may not like the aesthetic, but the data is very clear that skeuomorphism makes people use their devices faster and better
Scott Forstall, is that you?