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How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

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Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#431

Post by ubercow13 »

klodolph wrote: post #103
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…

First, not going to claim that macOS is "intuitive", because my in my experience, "intuitive" usually means very different things to different people. As a long-time Mac, Windows, and Linux user... I'll say that there are plenty of random broken things on the Mac, but there are also a few nice things that work very consistently on the Mac, but you'd never think to try them because you're used to them not working on L…

Unless I’m misunderstanding, 1, 2 and 3 all work the same way on Linux, at least in GTK and I think Qt too

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#432

Post by samatman »

m_mueller wrote: post #428
samatman wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think desktop GUIs can or should be 'intuitive'. They should be consistent, discoverable, and customizable. I give macOS full marks for consistency, and a passing grade for customizable, but it's hardly discoverable! I read these kinds of HN posts because of all the little tips and tricks I find. Operating systems used to come with a thick manual, and you could buy an even thicker "missing manual" book at the…

I actually find MacOS applications far more discoverable than equivalent windows or Unix tools. That's precisely thanks to the consistent menu structure, which always includes a help menu with a search option, including both the help files as well as the menu itself. Having help show you where to find a particular option so you can learn it for next time is precisely what I want.

It's better than nothing, and yeah, probably better than the competition as well.

But then there are core features like "a file icon on a document window can be dragged exactly like a file icon in the finder" that you can use macOS for years and never find. That's before they started hiding the file icons in Big Sur!

macOS is packed with little things like that.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#433

Post by moogleii »

wraptile wrote: post #70
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…

As someone who recently switched to MacOs (not by their own choice) there are hundreds of little annoying, broken or inconsistent OS things I find. One of my favorites just happened yesterday with finder - I was trying to figure out how to rename a file, well the usual fx keys aren't doing it so the common process was to go to the toolbar context menu where hotkey is indicated next to the action's text. Rename for so…

Not showing the shortcut key for rename is definitely dumb. And I wouldn't be surprised if it was because of some silly reason like a high level designer at Apple thought it wouldn't match the cmd paradigm, and so would rather not show it (even though there are plenty of existing exceptions elsewhere).

But I would argue F2 is less obvious. It's only obvious if you learned it at some point or if you were there when F2 was chosen. Enter is at least a normal text editing key for day to day typing, and it's already the bookend key to finish typing a new name.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#434

Post by dabernathy89 »

Steltek wrote: post #409
robertoandred wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which sounds just like the Finder?

Except I get a new window when I click on the Explorer icon. So no, it's the opposite of Finder's fail-silent behavior.

When I click the Finder icon in my dock, or open it with Alfred, I get a new Finder window. Doesn't appear to be a configurable setting. Not sure what's wrong with your setup.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#435

Post by [deleted] »

samatman wrote: post #416
shawnz wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you are done with all the windows in your editor, do you open a new window by choosing File > New? You don't open a new window by clicking the dock icon? If you close all the tabs in a browser window, should it close the window or display a new tab page? Or just do nothing but show an empty tab bar and a blank window pane? That seems like the worst possible solution, because it always requires more clicks to do…

I hit Cmd-O or Cmd-N, depending on what I'm doing. Personally I barely use the dock for anything, Cmd-Space for Spotlight is faster, and I use Cmd-Tab to navigate between open programs. If I close all the tabs in a browser window, the window should disappear, yes. If I close all the windows , the browser should stay open, so I can start another window if I want to. That's the whole point of this user affordance, ther…

[deleted]

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#436

Post by jmrm »

eptcyka wrote: post #396

I can't stress enough how bad apple devices are for the uninitiated. I got my mom an iPad for her birthday, as she needed something to read medical books with color and watch YouTube. It took her a week to get youtube working, and copying over PDFs is still done piecmeal - sending each file from her Windows PC one by one using a messaging app. She tried to install apps, but the app store progress thing was just spinn…

I haven't done something like that on an iPad, but I think that Apple want people to use these devices in a way that every app have their files, like for example iPods used to store the music (you could drop files on the iPod storage but you need iTunes to insert your MP3s on the "player app").

The best thing you could do is looking for a tutorial to do that, and also a software to control that iPad remotely, so you don't have to videocall your mother to give her instructions.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#437

Post by TacticalCoder »

michaelmrose wrote: post #222
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…

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…

> Distributions ought to ship with it.

You mean install it by default? Even good old Debian stable ships with earlyoom (which I'm ofc using, since I saw it mentioned here once on HN).

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#438

Post by adolph »

mirthflat83 wrote: post #383
adolph wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As long time Mac and relatively recent cross platform user, native window snapping is a joke in macOS made tolerable by Magnet. Option just changes the green button mode from new workspace (or whatever its called) to whole screen. In most Windows OSes the eponymous key plus an arrow will cycle the UI window through helpful positions of whole, half, quarter. The sibling comment challenges the parent regarding the impo…

I have honestly never felt the need for snapping for almost a decade. Just use multiple monitors if you really need that screen estate

Poor window management isn't a great argument for more monitors. That's just using your neck to make up for a deficient UI.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#439

Post by perardi »

andreasley wrote: post #241
perardi wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My 16-inch MacBook Pro sleeps just fine. I assume you have Power Nap disabled and no devices attached that try to wake the MacBook?

…son of a…

Oh that’s embarrassing. I do still have Power Nap enabled.

Well let’s give that a shot. Thanks for the reminder about that option.

Re: How Intuitive Are Macs Really?

#440

Post by lloeki »

samatman wrote: post #269
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? This would be an example of the 10% of the UI which isn't identical. One of the fundamental differences between macOS and Windows is the menu bar. There's only one at a time, and it belongs to the program which has the focus. A corollary of this is that you don't need a window to have a program. It's not just Finder, most macOS programs are perfectly happy…

> One of the fundamental differences between macOS and Windows is the menu bar. There's only one at a time, and it belongs to the program which has the focus. A corollary of this is that you don't need a window to have a program.

The core difference is that macOS is (originally) document-oriented. You could care less if an app is opened or not, window == document, whereas on Windows, window == program.

Each progressively grew into the direction of the other (e.g Finder progressively losing spatial features and Explorer gaining them, MDI interfaces on macOS vs the win7 taskbar being actually more of a Dock...)

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