[stavros]

I agree with you. Buttons were immediately identifiable as such, menus had keyboard shortcuts visible everywhere, all items always looked the same across all apps, and everything was really snappy.

We've really gone backwards since.

[TillE]

Aqua (in early versions of OS X) did a fantastic job of combining all this clear usability with a lot of fun visual flair. Even the old Qt/GTK themes which emulated that look were pretty good.

It really is incredible how flat and boring modern macOS is.

[cubefox]

At some point "skeuomorph" design went out of fashion, and everything had to be flat and simple. I think it all started with the Microsoft Zune (an MP3 player), which influenced Windows Phone, which influenced Windows 8. Then came iOS 7, and finally Android 5. I actually don't know when Mac OS went "flat". I only know ever since that time it is regularly unclear what a "button" is, as it doesn't look like a button.

[sbuk]

If you're interested, see https://hn.algolia.com/?dateEnd=1388534400&dateRange=custom&...

Ironically, back in 2012 I remember people were expressing their distaste for the skeuomorphic design of iOS and macOS.

[Lammy]

> I think it all started with the Microsoft Zune (an MP3 player)

And its companion desktop application ca. 2009: https://www.neowin.net/news/flashback-microsofts-zune-hd-tur...

[steve1977]

And it even matched the hardware back then. You could have the colorful blue Aqua theme to match for example the iMac G3 or the graphite appearance to match the design of the Power Macs back then.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2010/09/macos-x-beta/4/

[stavros]

Ah, I didn't have a Mac back then, but I can definitely believe that.

[bestham]

I always loved the Solaris Nimbus GTK theme. It was one of the most polished GTK2 themes around. https://www.gnome-look.org/p/1080244