This is an excellent article. Apple has been rudderless on the interaction design front for over a decade now. The windowing mess is evidence of it. We now have the cmd+tab (app switcher), Spaces, Mission Control, (full screen) split screen, Stage Manager, and now tiled window control. None of those interaction metaphors have been expanded upon since their initial launch. I'm a "mac guy". I understood why Apple initi…
I strongly believe we need to return to the drawing board and design a Window Environment from scratch because we've gone so far down the "everything's a mess" route that it's impossible to work our way out again. Here's an example: panes, tabs, windows, apps, spaces. These things all fight against each other, have their own little silos, get treated differently by every single app, etc, etc.
Disagree. The fact that these are independent is a huge organizational boon for those who know how to apply some combination of them.
Example: I set up spaces (virtual desktops) to have themes: one of general web, one for iOS dev, one for Android dev, etc. within that, it’s useful to be able to further organize with windows and tabs — windows can represent projects for example, and tabs can represent files. These work together to prevent a Cambrian explosion of windows that would be impossible to manage no matter how your environment works.
It’s useful for apps to be distinct from windows, too. This allows things like moving all windows belonging to a particular app between screens, or minimizing/maximizing them all, hiding them all, etc. Panes in most circumstances are an entirely different beast than tabs and windows… it wouldn’t be useful to turn an inspector palette into a tab.
They work together as long as one’s mental model isn’t overly simplistic.