design aesthetics Archives

Winsage

August 22, 2025

Surface Pro 12-inch vs iPad Air? Sales just tipped the scales.

Microsoft's Surface Pro 12-inch is currently available at its lowest price ever, with a discount of 0, bringing the price down to 9. The accompanying keyboard is also discounted for the first time, priced at 7.12. The Surface Pro 12-inch received a rating of 4.5 out of 5 in a review, praised for its fanless design, performance, and 90Hz display. It is designed to be compact and portable, making it suitable for students and professionals. The Surface Pro 12-inch shares design similarities with the iPad Air, featuring a boxy chassis and rounded display corners. The Surface Pro 12-inch is priced at 6.11, which is lower than the retail price of the 13-inch iPad Air with an M3 processor, while the iPad Air can be found discounted to as low as 9. The Magic Keyboard for the iPad Air costs 9, which is significantly more than the Surface Pro 12-inch keyboard.

AppWizard

August 1, 2025

Google releases Gemini 2.5 Deep Think for AI Ultra subscribers

Google is rolling out its latest AI model, Gemini 2.5 Deep Think, which is available exclusively through the Gemini app and requires a subscription to Google's premium AI Ultra plan. Deep Think enhances the capabilities of Gemini 2.5 Pro by increasing "thinking time" through greater parallel analysis, allowing it to explore various problem-solving methods. It requires several minutes to formulate a response, contributing to its proficiency in design aesthetics, scientific reasoning, and coding. Deep Think has been benchmarked against other models, showing superiority over Gemini 2.5 Pro and competing models like OpenAI's o3 and Grok 4. It scored 34.8 percent on Humanity's Last Exam, outperforming other models that typically score between 20 to 25 percent.

Winsage

July 13, 2025

The ghost of Windows Vista continues to haunt Windows 11 as its startup sound reappears out of nowhere

Recent test builds of Windows 11 have been playing the startup sound from Windows Vista due to a bug. Although Microsoft fixed this issue in the Dev and Beta builds, the sound has reappeared in the Canary branch, where the fix was not applied. A patch for the Canary build is expected soon.

Winsage

June 27, 2025

So Long, Blue Screen of Death. Amazingly, You’ll Be Missed

Microsoft plans to retire the Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) in Windows 11, replacing it with a minimalist "unexpected restart screen" that will feature a black background and a single message: “Your device ran into a problem and needs to restart.” The redesign is part of the Windows Resiliency Initiative aimed at enhancing system robustness and clarity. The BSOD originated from Windows NT 3.1 in 1993, where it displayed a wall of white text on a blue background. The change follows a significant incident in 2024 where a problematic update caused widespread issues, prompting Microsoft to distance itself from the iconic blue screen.

Winsage

June 13, 2025

macOS 26 Tahoe vs Windows Vista: Who did glass better?

Apple announced a visual redesign called Liquid Glass, set to debut with macOS 26 Tahoe. This design features transparency effects in context and dropdown menus, system controls, and the Control Center, where elements exhibit a glass-like quality. The dock allows icons to have varying translucency, with options for classic, dark, clear, or tinted versions. However, some inconsistencies exist in the beta version, such as tinted icons lacking transparency. The glass effects are present in many of Apple's apps, with navigation panes on a glass-like surface and floating menu buttons that are translucent. In comparison, Windows Vista's Aero Glass was noted for its impactful use of transparency in title bars and window borders, creating a sense of depth and enhancing user experience. Although Apple's Liquid Glass is meticulously designed, it may come across as too subtle compared to the more pronounced Aero Glass effects. The impressions of macOS 26 Tahoe are based on the initial developer beta, and improvements are expected before its public release later this fall.