How Intuitive Are Macs Really? • Hacker News Board

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#221

Post by coldtea » Mon, May 24, 2021, 3:40 PM UTC

turkeywelder wrote: post #203

Recent M1 user here - I had a PowerPC mac back in the Leopard/Tiger days. I thought OSx would have come on leaps and bounds since then. It's....more or less unchanged. As well as this crazy installer thing, there's quite a bit about Macs that just seems off.. My list of "things that don't seem right" as a long term Windows/ChromeOS user - Window snapping isn't built in outside of fullscreen mode (seriously?!) - Sleep…

>- Window snapping isn't built in outside of fullscreen mode (seriously?!)

As if that's a major future? (seriously?!)

>- Sleeping the mac does not sleep the mac, it wakes up at all sorts of times

It sleeps just fine for me, across half a dozen of Macs over 2 decades.

>- TouchID for login works....but not often enough - it constantly pesters me for a password

Like the first time after a boot/login?

>- Pressing enter renames a file rather than opens it. What?

What what?

>- The Finder is either named ironically or I'm not getting it - file paths are obscured, seeing file details is hidden behind a dialog.

And most people care about paths (as opposed to navigating to folders they created or searching for files) because?

The rest can always enabled to show the paths.

>We bought the M1 because ChromeOS didn't like our old Samsung printer and the VPN software my partner uses.

Maybe just buy a different printer instead of a new computer?

A lot of the complaints are "it's not what some other OS does".

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#222

Post by michaelmrose » Mon, May 24, 2021, 3:41 PM UTC

TulliusCicero wrote: post #36

rchaud wrote: post #14

I 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…

Also, by default Finder seems to hide directory structure from you. This seems to be Apple thinking it'll confuse people if they can see 'up' directories, but I think just as often it confuses people like me who are trying and failing to go up. I use all three major desktop OSes regularly now, and overall Windows just feels like the most user-friendly and straightforward, though of course it too has issues (e.g. vari…

Linux rarely crashes. What it does do is handle low memory situations really badly. Simultaneously browsers have got way more memory hungry.

I have left firefox overnight and had a tab decide it would like to eat all my memory.

Linux does have an oom killer to deal with out of memory situations but it will kick in halfway to the heat death of the universe and you will reboot first.

Oom looks just like a crash the UI is frozen however if the offender is killed everything actually is working.

The solution is a userspace oom daemon like earlyoom that kicks in before you actually run entirely out of memory and knows not to kill things like X.

Distributions ought to ship with it.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#223

Post by bluGill » Mon, May 24, 2021, 3:41 PM UTC

handrous wrote: post #181

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Believe it or not, the way the filesystem worked on the original Mac operating system was that things did stay where you put them. Open a disk and the folders on it could be put anywhere in that 2D space, and each folder's contents could similarly be anywhere in their virtual 2D space, and each disk/folder opened in its own window that even re-opened in exactly the same position with exactly the same size as when you…

That's a good point—that's probably the closest a file manager has come to being truly usable by most folks. Relatedly, IMO iOS took a huge step backwards in UX when iOS7 moved away from a highly spatial interaction metaphor for practically the entire OS—by which I don't mean the skeuomorphism, exactly, but things like folders sliding the screen "open" when tapped, so that they had a sense of physical location within…

It was great until you had a disk shared between the large monitors at school and the tiny one you had at home. So long as all screens are the same sized and layed out the same it worked good. However any form of using two different computers and the whole thing started to fall apart. Throw in multiple monitors and it isn't possible to do this usefully.

It also only worked well when you only had a few files in any folder. If you have 100 files that are related in one folder and you can't find anything without sorting it alphabetically. Depending on how your brain organizes things this might not matter.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#224

Post by Yaina » Mon, May 24, 2021, 3:41 PM UTC

So, I won't claim that installing software that is not in the Mac App Store is a totally intuitive process. Still...I kinda think it's neat.

On Windows you download an installer, it does some magic (usually asking for administrator rights. scary) and then somehow the program is...somewhere. It's linked on the desktop, you can search for it, but it's unclear what happened.

On macOS Programs are essentially treated as files. You download them in their (admittedly weird) containers, drag them into your Applications folder (which is just convention, you could put them anywhere) and then they are there. Want to remove a Program again? Move it to the trash!

I love it, I think it's a very neat concept once you've understood it. Sadly Apple doesn't seem too keen anymore on people understanding it. The invention of the Mac App Store and the "Launchpad", followed by the removal of the Application folder from the Dock tried to abstract this neat feature away from people and naturally they don't understand it anymore.

But this is Apple, actively trying to make their system less intuitive for monetary gain and control over the device, and not an inherent flaw of macOS.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#225

Post by drewzero1 » Mon, May 24, 2021, 3:42 PM UTC

FabHK wrote: post #159

fao_ wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's no standards body for these things. Yes there is -- it's called CUA (Common User Access) "The subset of CUA implemented in Microsoft Windows or OSF/Motif is generally considered a de facto standard to be followed by any new Unix GUI environment." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access

The original Mac predates that, and I think it is quite conceivable that "Enter" to select a file name and edit it was in use back then.

Yes, I can confirm that it's been that way (almost) since the beginning.

Apparently[1] the original intent was to allow the user to just type and rename the file, but the enter key was quickly added after they noticed that the display models all had garbage filenames. It was an early tweak that stuck (much to the chagrin of those of us who also use other systems). Why they never added it to the context menu is beyond me.

[1] https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor...

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#226

Post by perardi » Mon, May 24, 2021, 3:42 PM UTC

turkeywelder wrote: post #203

Recent M1 user here - I had a PowerPC mac back in the Leopard/Tiger days. I thought OSx would have come on leaps and bounds since then. It's....more or less unchanged. As well as this crazy installer thing, there's quite a bit about Macs that just seems off.. My list of "things that don't seem right" as a long term Windows/ChromeOS user - Window snapping isn't built in outside of fullscreen mode (seriously?!) - Sleep…

Sleeping the mac does not sleep the mac, it wakes up at all sorts of times

This sure used to work.

My 16-inch MacBook Pro (as in, the new keyboard model) just does not want to stay asleep if the screen is open. Even if I put it in Do Not Disturb mode, notifications (like my nightly reminder to take my melatonin) wake it up, seemingly no matter what option I toggle.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#227

Post by TurningCanadian » Mon, May 24, 2021, 3:42 PM UTC

screye wrote: post #182

rchaud wrote: post #14

I 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…

I for the love of me, can't understand how to use a macbook. I don't mean being productive on it. I mean: how to open something or how clicks work. It might simply be the fact that I've never used a mac as a primary device. But, clicks, navigating the explorer and settings menus seem to be a lot simpler on windows. It also seems to be almost malicious in punishing you for using something that isn't a 1st party applic…

It's not even great for programming these days. Docker on Linux or even Windows is a walk in the park compared to the horror show of slowness (https://github.com/docker/roadmap/issues/7) and missing features that it is on Mac.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#228

Post by culturestate » Mon, May 24, 2021, 3:42 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #18

rchaud wrote: post #14

I 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?

If you use an external monitor, Big Sur has a tendency to hide windows off the edge of the screen when it wakes.

macOS will do its thing when you click the dock icon and bring the window to the front, but it can be hard to notice because only a sliver of the window will actually be visible.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#229

Post by sjg007 » Mon, May 24, 2021, 3:42 PM UTC

wlesieutre wrote: post #130

TulliusCicero wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, by default Finder seems to hide directory structure from you. This seems to be Apple thinking it'll confuse people if they can see 'up' directories, but I think just as often it confuses people like me who are trying and failing to go up. I use all three major desktop OSes regularly now, and overall Windows just feels like the most user-friendly and straightforward, though of course it too has issues (e.g. vari…

Agreed on the defaults, if you want to improve this there are a few related options to be aware of: 1) Edit the toolbar and add "Path" dropdown 2) View menu -> Show path bar 3) Cmd + up/down arrows to navigate up and down the path hierarchy But of course, when talking about how intuitive Macs are, having all that hidden by default doesn't exactly make it easy to understand where you are in the filesystem. It feels a…

Interesting.. integrate through the filesystem vs peer to peer.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#230

Post by yesenadam » Mon, May 24, 2021, 3:42 PM UTC

hnlmorg wrote: post #149

least wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason that the return key is the 'least obvious' key to you is because you're used to that being the 'open' key on other operating systems.

On literally every other operating system. I've used dozens of platforms, some of them pretty obscure, some of them hobbyist, some of them were purpose built for hardware that stopped being manufactured 20, 30 or more years ago, and all of them supported return as a trigger in menus, be it graphical or text based. Finder really is the odd ball with regards to binding it to rename.

Well, it makes total sense in one way - ENTER toggles name editing. After you change a file name, you press ENTER to 'save' the new name and finish editing. That seems logical, I think. So why not have the same key to start editing the name too? In the way PLAY/STOP are usually the same button etc.