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“Gravity is worth asking about”

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Re: “Gravity is worth asking about”

#51

Post by glimshe »

I really wanted to hear the opinion from Mac diehards about modern MacOS. I've used Windows for decades but bought a Mac M2 a while ago. I really like it so I'm not trying to say "Apple Bad". But I'm yet to see Apple's legendary simplicity, minimalism and attention to detail.

I keep complaining about the fact Mac OS asks me whether I want to allow chrome to access the local network with every update. I tried to dig deeper and discovered a privacy settings UI with dozens of entries written "Google Chrome" with the permission disabled. One for each time I said "No".

This is absolutely embarrassing. I wouldn't call it a bug, but a lazy and incompetent design that I thought could not happen in a Apple product.

I'll give you another example. Lately I've noticed a progress bar under the Apps icon on the dock. At first I didn't even know it was a progress bar because I use the Dock vertically - it looked like a separator - and the progress bar made no progress.

One day, the progress bar actually made progress and stayed stuck at 80%. I thought something had crashed and rebooted the machine. It stayed there. I eventually discovered by trial and error that the problem was that a running WhatsApp app prevented the WhatsApp update process to finish. Since it was always open as I used the computer, that annoying UI element stayed around forever. By closing WhatsApp, the bar unlocked and the update finished.

Pretty horrible. Is Apple learning from Microsoft?

Re: “Gravity is worth asking about”

#52

Post by ben_w »

steve1977 wrote: post #34
po1nt wrote: post #31

I daily drive linux (arch btw) with all the adblocking bells and whistles and I was dumbfounded when I saw my grandma's PC with all the clutter and ads. Really makes you miss the old era.

When was the ad-free era on Windows (Home)? I don't remember it.

My memory of 24 years ago is a bit fuzzy, but I don't recall any ads on XP; the main complaint at the time was the UI was "fisher price".

Re: “Gravity is worth asking about”

#53

Post by tomashubelbauer »

glimshe wrote: post #51

I really wanted to hear the opinion from Mac diehards about modern MacOS. I've used Windows for decades but bought a Mac M2 a while ago. I really like it so I'm not trying to say "Apple Bad". But I'm yet to see Apple's legendary simplicity, minimalism and attention to detail. I keep complaining about the fact Mac OS asks me whether I want to allow chrome to access the local network with every update. I tried to dig d…

I have been using macOS for I think fewer than ten years and I think the attention of detail may always have been just about the hardware... macOs and iOS have presented me with some of the clunkiest edge cases and mishandled situations and a lot of them are damn near undebuggable. I think Windows is very tasteless OS making macOS seem good in comparison but in isolation there is a lot that could a should be improved

Re: “Gravity is worth asking about”

#54

Post by layer8 »

glimshe wrote: post #51

I really wanted to hear the opinion from Mac diehards about modern MacOS. I've used Windows for decades but bought a Mac M2 a while ago. I really like it so I'm not trying to say "Apple Bad". But I'm yet to see Apple's legendary simplicity, minimalism and attention to detail. I keep complaining about the fact Mac OS asks me whether I want to allow chrome to access the local network with every update. I tried to dig d…

I went through this around 15 years ago, even migrating my parents from Windows to MacOS on the promise of simplicity and better UI. No, it’s not simpler or more intuitive, instead it has its own world of quirks, issues, and annoyances. And both Apple and Microsoft have become worse since.

Re: “Gravity is worth asking about”

#55

Post by senko »

yoz-y wrote: post #38
eviks wrote: post #14

> This is why it’s important to hire and recognize people who will understand that those limitations have to be imposed arbitrarily Better get the folks that recognize users exist and are different, so instead of arbitrary mistakes UI should be tailored to a user. Case in point: > five options I have to choose from, every time, even if I never touch four of them: So the way out is to allow you to remove those 4 rathe…

There is no good middle. Either have no options, or have many and make them configurable. I use 4 of those 5 options all the time. But there are other places where options make me slow because I need to was through them.

Some people, when they want to hide an option, think: "I know, I'll use an option."

Well, now they have two options.

Re: “Gravity is worth asking about”

#56

Post by layer8 »

swiftcoder wrote: post #39
eviks wrote: post #14

> This is why it’s important to hire and recognize people who will understand that those limitations have to be imposed arbitrarily Better get the folks that recognize users exist and are different, so instead of arbitrary mistakes UI should be tailored to a user. Case in point: > five options I have to choose from, every time, even if I never touch four of them: So the way out is to allow you to remove those 4 rathe…

Having the menu exist at all is already well onto the slippery slope - once upon a time the screenshots went directly into the photo library, without any interstitial at all... And at the time, everyone was perfectly fine with opening the photo library to access the options that are now in that menu

I disagree. It was annoying to always have to delete the screenshot photos that you really only wanted to have on the clipboard to paste somewhere, or only wanted to extract text out of. I was very pleasantly surprised when the new options were added, and I regularly make use of the different available choices.

Instead, what I dislike is that you can’t keep the screenshot dialog open in the background. It would be fine for screenshots to go straight to photos if the screenshot dialog was still available from there for each individual screenshot taken (including the options under discussion).

Re: “Gravity is worth asking about”

#57

Post by toasty228 »

glimshe wrote: post #51

I really wanted to hear the opinion from Mac diehards about modern MacOS. I've used Windows for decades but bought a Mac M2 a while ago. I really like it so I'm not trying to say "Apple Bad". But I'm yet to see Apple's legendary simplicity, minimalism and attention to detail. I keep complaining about the fact Mac OS asks me whether I want to allow chrome to access the local network with every update. I tried to dig d…

I've been using macbooks since 2015 and I feel like every single update has made it worse somehow

Re: “Gravity is worth asking about”

#58

Post by pixlmint »

matusp wrote: post #7

The minimalist approach is great until it isn't. You can cover 98% of use cases with a single button is a great motto, until you are in the other 2%. I often fail to find basic functionality in software today, because some smart product manager decided that nobody really needs it. For example, it is now often impossible to load all elements from a list and filter/sort it along basic properties.

this is a discussion we often have where I work, where we're debating removing a feature due to difficulties maintaining it and few people needing it. I usually fight to keep it, with the argument "we aren't doing it for the people that don't need it, but for the ones that do." But at the end of the day, I'm not the one who has to pay for it.

Re: “Gravity is worth asking about”

#59

Post by layer8 »

senko wrote: post #55
yoz-y wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no good middle. Either have no options, or have many and make them configurable. I use 4 of those 5 options all the time. But there are other places where options make me slow because I need to was through them.

Some people, when they want to hide an option, think: " I know, I'll use an option. " Well, now they have two options.

It’s good to have options.

Re: “Gravity is worth asking about”

#60

Post by apothegm »

glimshe wrote: post #51

I really wanted to hear the opinion from Mac diehards about modern MacOS. I've used Windows for decades but bought a Mac M2 a while ago. I really like it so I'm not trying to say "Apple Bad". But I'm yet to see Apple's legendary simplicity, minimalism and attention to detail. I keep complaining about the fact Mac OS asks me whether I want to allow chrome to access the local network with every update. I tried to dig d…

Roughly 2002-2010 that attention to detail was on display and the OS struck an impressive balance between features, ease of use, and power user access.

Since then it’s been straight downhill. First they stopped investing in desktop in favor of mobile. Then they underwent some rewrites to OS and bundled apps that dumbed things down and exploded the defect rate. Then they started setting the stage for a touch experience on desktop at the expense of UI density. Around the same time they started to prioritize short term profit over UX — spamming with notifications to try to get you to sign in, upgrade, etc. And then there’s the travesty that is Tahoe.

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