Make macOS consistently bad unironically • Hacker News Board

Re: Make macOS consistently bad unironically

#71

Post by akdev1l » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 8:45 PM UTC

thesuitonym wrote: post #39

_jab wrote: post #9

Between the rounded corners that don't reach the edges of the viewport, and the behavior when opening a new app for the first time, it feels like Mac's UI is optimized around the assumption most users won't expand windows to fill the whole screen, but rather leave them half-sized somewhere in the middle. Does anyone actually do this? Especially for heavy-duty applications like my web browser and IDE, this has always…

I actually feel the opposite? The current green button action not only makes the window fill the entire screen, it also hides the menu bar AND creates a new virtual desktop and hides all of my other apps. And it seems to me that's what the majority of people want. Meanwhile, I want to use my graphical, mutli-window preemptive multitasking operating system to, you know, use multiple applications at the same time.

It does weird things in multi monitor because dragging a window on top of the newly “maximized” window somehow does not work

Re: Make macOS consistently bad unironically

#72

Post by bobthepanda » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 8:45 PM UTC

dbatten wrote: post #23

_jab wrote: post #9

Between the rounded corners that don't reach the edges of the viewport, and the behavior when opening a new app for the first time, it feels like Mac's UI is optimized around the assumption most users won't expand windows to fill the whole screen, but rather leave them half-sized somewhere in the middle. Does anyone actually do this? Especially for heavy-duty applications like my web browser and IDE, this has always…

> it feels like Mac's UI is optimized around the assumption most users won't expand windows to fill the whole screen, but rather leave them half-sized somewhere in the middle IMO, this has been their assumption for years, and it actually turned me off when I tried getting used to Mac circa 2006-2007. Coming from Windows at the time, I just couldn't get over a weird anxiety that my application window wasn't maximized,…

While I don't maximize anything on a monitor that wide, I do appreciate Window's snap to half/quarter functionality for monitors that wide, and I wish Mac had the same ability natively.

Re: Make macOS consistently bad unironically

#73

Post by crest » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 8:45 PM UTC

_jab wrote: post #9

Between the rounded corners that don't reach the edges of the viewport, and the behavior when opening a new app for the first time, it feels like Mac's UI is optimized around the assumption most users won't expand windows to fill the whole screen, but rather leave them half-sized somewhere in the middle. Does anyone actually do this? Especially for heavy-duty applications like my web browser and IDE, this has always…

Yes. I think the assumptions are made by people with two displays of at least 32" and ≥4K resolution.

Re: Make macOS consistently bad unironically

#74

Post by Latty » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 8:45 PM UTC

_jab wrote: post #9

Between the rounded corners that don't reach the edges of the viewport, and the behavior when opening a new app for the first time, it feels like Mac's UI is optimized around the assumption most users won't expand windows to fill the whole screen, but rather leave them half-sized somewhere in the middle. Does anyone actually do this? Especially for heavy-duty applications like my web browser and IDE, this has always…

People do this, yeah. Even on Windows I've been over someone's shoulder walking them through something and it drives me nuts they work in a tiny window in a random part of the screen.

Re: Make macOS consistently bad unironically

#75

Post by akdev1l » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 8:46 PM UTC

ablob wrote: post #46

amarant wrote: post #16

I must say that all this fuzz about the corners actually reflects rather well on macos. If the biggest flaw of a OS is the border radius of its windows, you've got yourself a pretty decent OS! It's not gonna make me leave my darling Linux, ofc, but i think this whole debacle can only be interpreted as praise. On second thought, it might also be considered a mediation on people's tendency to bike-shed.

> If the biggest flaw of a OS is the border radius of its windows, you've got yourself a pretty decent OS! This argument would also make Windows 11 a pretty decent OS by extension via "If the biggest flaw of a OS is the position of the start menu you've got yourself a pretty decent OS". In general I could use any minor nuisance as a proof of decency - or inject some to form this argument on purpose as a manufacturer.…

I think people are more complaining about windows crashing on updates or Microsoft putting ads everywhere or forcing one drive

That’s way more than just the “position of the start menu”

Re: Make macOS consistently bad unironically

#76

Post by tines » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 8:46 PM UTC

thesuitonym wrote: post #48

throwaway27448 wrote: post #12

[flagged]

As tumblr user ommanyte said, "how dull for you to live your life without any hills to die on, you, on your vast flat barren plains of compromise, acceptance, and accommodation, while I reign supreme over the lush, rolling highlands of stupid shit I have irrationally chosen to stake my entire identity on"

He didn't say that he had no hills to die on, just that rounded window corners isn't one of them.

Re: Make macOS consistently bad unironically

#77

Post by zarmin » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 8:49 PM UTC

amarant wrote: post #16

I must say that all this fuzz about the corners actually reflects rather well on macos. If the biggest flaw of a OS is the border radius of its windows, you've got yourself a pretty decent OS! It's not gonna make me leave my darling Linux, ofc, but i think this whole debacle can only be interpreted as praise. On second thought, it might also be considered a mediation on people's tendency to bike-shed.

[flagged]

Re: Make macOS consistently bad unironically

#78

Post by al_borland » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 8:49 PM UTC

_jab wrote: post #9

Between the rounded corners that don't reach the edges of the viewport, and the behavior when opening a new app for the first time, it feels like Mac's UI is optimized around the assumption most users won't expand windows to fill the whole screen, but rather leave them half-sized somewhere in the middle. Does anyone actually do this? Especially for heavy-duty applications like my web browser and IDE, this has always…

macOS only recently got an option to make windows fill the screen. For most of history what most people would assume is a maximize button (the green one) was actually a zoom button. It sized the window to what the OS thought was appropriate for the content (to the best of my knowledge and experience with it).

Apple then made things go full screen, but in a special full screen mode, so macOS worked more like the iPad.

By the time they added a way to maximize windows in the way Windows does, the idea of maximizing an app has largely worked its way out of my workflow. It was always too much trouble, and I find very few apps where it provides much benefit. Web browsers, for example, often end up with a lot of useless whitespace on the sides of the page, so they work better as a smaller window on a widescreen display. In an IDE, it really depends on what’s being worked on and if text wrapping is something I want. Ideally lines wouldn’t get so long that this is a problem.

With the way macOS manages windows, I often find it easiest to have my windows mostly overlapped with various corners poking out, so I can move between app windows in one click. The alternative is bringing every window of an app to the front (with the Dock or cmd+tab), or using Mission Control for everything, neither of which feels efficient.

I could install some 3rd party window management utility, I suppose, but in the long run, it felt easier to just figure out a workflow that works on the stock OS, so I can use any system without going through a setup process to customize everything. It’s the same reason I never seriously got into alternative keyboard layouts.

Re: Make macOS consistently bad unironically

#79

Post by throwaway27448 » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 8:51 PM UTC

thesuitonym wrote: post #48

throwaway27448 wrote: post #12

[flagged]

As tumblr user ommanyte said, "how dull for you to live your life without any hills to die on, you, on your vast flat barren plains of compromise, acceptance, and accommodation, while I reign supreme over the lush, rolling highlands of stupid shit I have irrationally chosen to stake my entire identity on"

Now this is poetry. I chose keybindings, but I respect the domain of window manager aesthetics.

Re: Make macOS consistently bad unironically

#80

Post by jiehong » Fri, Mar 27, 2026, 8:51 PM UTC

amelius wrote: post #20

doubled112 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not the norm, but I use a large 4K monitor and no scaling. I haven’t maximized a window in years. They look ridiculous like that. Especially web pages with their max width set so the content is 1/4 the screen and 3/4 whitespace.

Without scaling, those rounded corners look not so rounded.

interesting! But, the default scaling makes them look bigger.