I think apple lost interest in the desktop years ago and are eternally surprised it's still lasting, run as an afterthough. Why is deleting a file from a usb stick to free up space so fiddly? No one has ever taken the time to really think through how things work.
How Intuitive Are Macs Really?
11–20 of 638 posts
Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?
#12I find the dock terribly unintuitive every time I use a Mac.
Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?
#13Window management is even greater s*show. To the point that you need 3rd party apps to make it usable.
And even then it doesn't work very well. The problem is the app remains in control, unlike in say Xorg where the window manager has the final say. When I used a Mac I found many apps outright ignored the window manager.
Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?
#14I bought a Mac in 2014 after a lifetime of using Windows. I never understood why people called it easier to use than Windows. Maybe this sentiment is a holdover from an earlier era when people would mindlessly run executables and zip files attached in emails and AIM messages.
From a UI perspective, it's 90% identical to windows. From a UX perspective though, something fundamental like Finder is still not up to the job IMO. Why is it that when I click Finder, nothing actually opens? I have to hit Option+N to actually display a Finder window.
Don't even get me started on the sort options. What kind of file manager applies a Sort view to every single directory, instead of the one you actually set the Sort view to?
Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?
#15The entire thing used to be super intuitive and consistent.
Disk images were the mac equivalent of a compressed folder, e.g. zip. And I find the "compressedd virtual usb-stick" idea a lot more intuitive than the whole "we cram files into other files and loose all metadata" shenanigans.
Apps used to be simple files in the finest unix tradition. No weird installer that does who knows what, no wizards, no special system files, no uninstaller.
Want to take your app from one computer to another? Just send the file.
App stores, installer, and the whole sandboxing gunk, is a million times more complex and unintuitive.
The author seems to be oblivious to the simplicity of the old ways, and thus suspects some hidden magic going on in loading the disk image.
Loading the disk image doesn't do "something" and then displays an IKEA esque installer window. The window is literally a finder window with hidden borders.
The idea was: "If a user can drag and drop files, they can install apps."
The workflow described is composed of several orthogonal concepts that each on their own are super intuitive, or at least were, when unix philosophy, file system usage and user empowerment were still at the core of Mac Os values.
Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?
#16It's unfortunate that the intuitive user interface for a new user is the goal for commercial reasons.
Many people use computers 2-8 hour per day for their whole life. It would be worth of the effort to create secondary consistent UI that takes weeks to learn, even if it would increase productivity just 5%.
Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?
#17Biggest thing that makes a computer intuitive is being the same interface I've already used. So of course all three major platforms have made breaking changes to their UIs.
Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?
#18I bought a Mac in 2014 after a lifetime of using Windows. I never understood why people called it easier to use than Windows. Maybe this sentiment is a holdover from an earlier era when people would mindlessly run executables and zip files attached in emails and AIM messages. From a UI perspective, it's 90% identical to windows. From a UX perspective though, something fundamental like Finder is still not up to the jo…
> Why is it that when I click Finder, nothing actually opens?
I'm not sure what you're doing wrong here - when I click the Finder icon it shows me the top Finder window, or opens a new one if there is no window. Is this not what it does for you?
Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?
#19Stopped reading after "and I still think windows is the superior operating system".
I agree. We should all head over to Linux. However, Windows+WSL is indeed a valid alternative to Linux only. Never considered Mac.
Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?
#20It's not about to be intuitive. It's about:
- discoverability (you need to discover how to do it)
- consistency (you don't need to discover it again done in other way)
- helpful error messages (e.g. "Chrome not found...")
If you have these three things done, even something ancient like DOS can be usable.