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OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

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Re: OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

#61

Post by _bxg1 »

pier25 wrote: post #55
_bxg1 wrote: post #8

I would honestly love to see a ground-up rebuild, but not the kind that would probably happen. OSX is getting creaky; it seems like it's had an increasing number of integral bugs lately, and the "redesign" that came with Yosemite felt more like a rushed coat of paint than a substantial rethink of the UX. Here's what I'd like to see: a fresh desktop OS that actually innovates in the space. Desktop UX innovation has sl…

A huge point in favor of macOS is the quality of its ecosystem. I only noticed this a couple of years ago when I tried to switch to Windows. When trying to find replacements for apps I use daily either there was nothing that had the functionality I wanted or what I found was just terrible. I found tons of win32 crap, or apps that didn't support scaling properly. Even software from Adobe... Some examples: Alfred, iSta…

All the more reason for Apple not to let that ecosystem burn to the ground, just because they're making lots of money from iOS.

Re: OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

#62

Post by __sr__ »

_bxg1 wrote: post #60
__sr__ wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am talking about the Split View mode described at https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT204948

Huh. Well look at that. It's apparently hard to find, and it does appear that you're limited to splitting a "fullscreen" view - i.e., no menu bar, dock, or other windows - but it's better than nothing.

Yeah — not to mention the lack of keyboard controls like Windows 10. Sigh!

Re: OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

#63

Post by snowwrestler »

_bxg1 wrote: post #8

I would honestly love to see a ground-up rebuild, but not the kind that would probably happen. OSX is getting creaky; it seems like it's had an increasing number of integral bugs lately, and the "redesign" that came with Yosemite felt more like a rushed coat of paint than a substantial rethink of the UX. Here's what I'd like to see: a fresh desktop OS that actually innovates in the space. Desktop UX innovation has sl…

A ground-up rewrite for... window snapping? :-)

I joke, but it's important to remember just how far behind Windows in basic operating system architecture Mac OS 9 was when Apple launched OS X. Apple absolutely had to replace Mac OS from the ground up. It had no choice.

Is macOS (the artist formerly known as OS X) in the same position today? I would argue no. Most of the "problems" with macOS are either UI complaints like window snapping, or ugly bugs--which are more likely the result of development workflow issues than fundamental shortcomings in the technology of the OS. When Microsoft made the big shift to address their security issues, it was mostly a sea change in how they developed Windows, not a ground-up rewrite of Windows.

Re: OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

#64

Post by pier25 »

I don't care about innovation on macOS. I just want it to be as fast and bug free as possible.

I have minor gripes with it, such as new installed apps changing the file icons, but in general most features introduced since Snow Leopard have been mostly noise for me.

Re: OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

#65

Post by brian-armstrong »

_bxg1 wrote: post #37
marssaxman wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is "window snapping"? If it's that thing Ubuntu does where accidentally dragging a window too close to one of the edges makes it spontaneously take over the whole screen, I'm glad OS X doesn't do that.

It's being able to automatically resize a window to one half of the screen or the other. Typically this can be done by dragging it to the sides, or by a keyboard shortcut (usually Windows Key + Left/Right Arrow). No doubt it would be easy to provide a disable option; just because it annoys you doesn't mean it shouldn't be implemented.

I'd much rather Apple just buy Divvy and integrate that. It's more flexible and much less prone to error.

Re: OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

#66

Post by spartanatreyu »

_bxg1 wrote: post #8

I would honestly love to see a ground-up rebuild, but not the kind that would probably happen. OSX is getting creaky; it seems like it's had an increasing number of integral bugs lately, and the "redesign" that came with Yosemite felt more like a rushed coat of paint than a substantial rethink of the UX. Here's what I'd like to see: a fresh desktop OS that actually innovates in the space. Desktop UX innovation has sl…

I made a window snapping script for macOS using the open source utility hammerspoon.

It supports keyboard and mouse snapping for windows with fullscreen, half screen, quarter screen and center presets.

I'll leave my old comment about it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12097859

And a link to the script here: https://gist.github.com/spartanatreyu/850788a0441e1c5565668a...

Re: OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

#67

Post by __sr__ »

snowwrestler wrote: post #63
_bxg1 wrote: post #8

I would honestly love to see a ground-up rebuild, but not the kind that would probably happen. OSX is getting creaky; it seems like it's had an increasing number of integral bugs lately, and the "redesign" that came with Yosemite felt more like a rushed coat of paint than a substantial rethink of the UX. Here's what I'd like to see: a fresh desktop OS that actually innovates in the space. Desktop UX innovation has sl…

A ground-up rewrite for... window snapping? :-) I joke, but it's important to remember just how far behind Windows in basic operating system architecture Mac OS 9 was when Apple launched OS X. Apple absolutely had to replace Mac OS from the ground up. It had no choice. Is macOS (the artist formerly known as OS X) in the same position today? I would argue no. Most of the "problems" with macOS are either UI complaints…

> A ground-up rewrite for... window snapping? :-)

No, but it does need to be brought on par with the state of the art in UNIX world — things like process sandboxing, container support, process limits (like cgroups), a modern development environment (like .net is for Windows), better package management (App Store is a bad joke), cross platform development between for iOS and macOS, stability, performance enhancements etc. In fact, I am OK with the UI — it could do with some modernisation and new features, but for the most part, it is very usable.

And the tooling could definitely do with an upgrade. They are still using an ancient version of bash, for example. If they can’t use newer bash because of GPL, they could write their own shell, for example. The fact that something like Homebrew is the go to package manager tells the story of a major gap.

Re: OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

#68

Post by bhnmmhmd »

pier25 wrote: post #58
drb91 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that the obvious problems with OS X (macOS, whatever) are with the UX, though. Sure, there are problems on that front, but I don't think they're the major pain points people deal with on a daily basis. Meanwhile, user-controllable per-process (or per-app) sandboxing would provide tangible benefit to all of us. This means, easy controls for accessing filesystem, network, cpu, gpu, memory, peripherals, an…

> If not, Google is coming down the road with Fuschia. I'm also hoping Fuchsia will save us.

How is Fuchsia pronounced? Is it like "f*ck+sia"? Or more like "fushia"?

Edit: looking up in dictionay, it's actually /fjuːʃə/.

Re: OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

#69

Post by freehunter »

bhnmmhmd wrote: post #68
pier25 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If not, Google is coming down the road with Fuschia. I'm also hoping Fuchsia will save us.

How is Fuchsia pronounced? Is it like "f*ck+sia"? Or more like "fushia"? Edit: looking up in dictionay, it's actually /fjuːʃə/.

It's a real English word. You can look it up in a dictionary.

Re: OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

#70

Post by _bxg1 »

snowwrestler wrote: post #63
_bxg1 wrote: post #8

I would honestly love to see a ground-up rebuild, but not the kind that would probably happen. OSX is getting creaky; it seems like it's had an increasing number of integral bugs lately, and the "redesign" that came with Yosemite felt more like a rushed coat of paint than a substantial rethink of the UX. Here's what I'd like to see: a fresh desktop OS that actually innovates in the space. Desktop UX innovation has sl…

A ground-up rewrite for... window snapping? :-) I joke, but it's important to remember just how far behind Windows in basic operating system architecture Mac OS 9 was when Apple launched OS X. Apple absolutely had to replace Mac OS from the ground up. It had no choice. Is macOS (the artist formerly known as OS X) in the same position today? I would argue no. Most of the "problems" with macOS are either UI complaints…

Maybe the needed changes could be made without a total rewrite - I'm a web developer, not a systems developer - but they can't be made without a major shift in attitude on Apple's part, and they do go deeper than the UX, as other people here have elaborated on
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