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Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?

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Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?

#24
post #11

This does seem like a personal preference. I quite like MacOS window management, and I hate Windows window management.

Specific to snapping, you'd prefer there was no way to snap windows at all - even if it didn't affect the current behaviour?

I've honestly never cared enough about it, I am perfectly fine with my windows haphazardly thrown around. But I can understand that some people like it and wouldn't really care if it was added. But I certainly won't be the one to request it.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?

#25
I think this comes down to Apple's envisaged window management paradigm being centered around full-screen windows.

In Apple's UX view, it seems like you're meant to maximize windows to "spaces", and switch between workspaces using a few gestures (4 finger swipes mainly) to reveal all windows, and swap between workspaces that way.

Rectangle, as others have pointed out, give you the "snap" experience you would expect from other OSs.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?

#27
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you've just never, ever, needed to rearrange or move your windows since?

Apple users are that vanilla ;)

For me personally it's not a requirement the snappy window.. Apple is a small walled garden. They don't have wide screens so most of the time one app on the screen is enough. I have an old 27' iMac and it wasn't enough screen space for me to put xcode, terminal and browser next to each other. So the most used mode was split screen mode with xcode and a simulator. But the "split full screen" mode is much better and professional than windows' snappy window feature.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?

#29
Not quite answering your question directly, but I think it's important for platform owners to leave gaps for the developer ecosystem. This may be one that they have purposely left to the app market.

If Apple and Microsoft provided a solution to every UX variant people want, there wouldn't be a market for apps built on top of the platform for UX tools. The further they encroach on the various markets the more developers will be discouraged from entering those markets for fear of the platform making their app redundant.

Apple and Microsoft have to draw a line somewhere, sometimes they get it wrong though and piss off a load of devs.

There are however obvious counter arguments to this with platform default apps such as email. But again it's important for the "average user" to have those in any new device. The platform effectively needs to do roughly 90% of what the average user wants out of the box, but then encourage users to go purchase further solutions from the various markets. Window snapping probably sits in That second area.

Re: Ask HN: Why does Apple refuse to add window snapping to macOS?

#30

What about that interminable animation every time you fullscreen a window or switch between fullscreen windows? It should be at least twice as fast and there's not even any way to hack it to speed it up. You just have to live with it. ("reduce motion" changes it to a crossfade but doesn't make it faster) While we're at it, the Dock has always been bad. And the top menu bar was good for the original Macintosh with a t…

I still have to meet anybody that is not at a minimum annoyed by the macos animations.

I literally stopped using the spaces feature because of that!. The default animation got me dizzy all the time, but even with that one disabled via accessibility settings they keep a terribly slow fading animation.

It's absolutely ridiculous for a professional machine to impose these things on you.

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