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Comment by kevin_thibedeau | Hacker News Reader

> John Gruber wrote about this reversion back in June, including the fact that Apple’s new Human Interface Guidelines specifically call out Tahoe’s approach to menus as an example of what not to do on macOS.

Apple knew this was bad 20 years ago. They just don't bother to read their own documentation:

Apple Human Interface Guidelines (2008) [1] p. 170:

> If you do include icons in your menus, include them only for menu items for which they add significant value; don’t include them for every menu item. A menu that includes too many icons (or poorly designed ones) can appear cluttered and be hard to read.

[1] https://acko.net/files/zoomer/apple-hig-2008.pdf

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I don't love the insinuation that people making mistakes (especially mistakes like failing to read and retain one of probably hundreds of thousands of pieces of UI guidance) is somehow a character flaw. "Apple" isn't a person, and just because it's written down doesn't mean it gets memorized by every individual on every team.

Apple isn't a person. It doesn't need to memorize. Its a Apple failing because no process caught it, and because anything coming out of Apple that is bad is a failing by Apple.

“They don’t bother to read their own documentation” to me reads more like an indictment of people’s priorities than criticizing a business practice. It makes it sound like even though the business process says to do X, lazy employees did Y instead. If that wasn’t the intent then the wording could have been more carefully chosen. But it’s just a small gripe :)

Like the example they used in the blog is terrible. Weekdays wouldn't need any symbols. A cogwheel for settings is a great example.

> A cogwheel for settings is a great example

Though the cog for settings is, like the three-dots commonly used to represent a menu itself, is only recognised as such because it has often been used that way. The first time(s) it was used it would not have been obvious to people. So the rule isn't that a good icon should be obvious. A good icon is either immediately obvious or consistently used.

The common save icon is a good example of this in both cases: to those of us who have been around a while it is obvious because it looks like a floppy disk, to those who never used floppy disks it is obvious because that is what save icons (almost) always are.

I laughed out loud at the weekday example! How is that the best example they could come up with, haha

> Apple knew this was bad 20 years ago. They just don't bother to read their own documentation

This isn't really a case of someone overlooking previous guidance, but a symptom of an org where platform consistency is being prioritized over tradition. This means changes now cater to the lowest common denominator (iOS). Lots of recent updates this, like the new app icons, the macOS 26 implementation of liquid glass, etc. The priority is making macOS easier to adopt for people who's first devices were iPads.

It's unfortunate. Although what I find strange are some of the very obtuse patterns they refuse to change. It took them forever to add window snapping to macOS and Finder still doesn't have a cut command.

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