Thread

1. fedeb95 · 1790088079 · focus · HN ↗

   I have been a long time Android fan because of the tinkering you could do more easily than Apple. Then I started appreciating some of the design decisions behind especially iPhone, and it's been almost 7 years of iPhone usage.

   Recently I am starting to question some of the design decisions. Most native apps are bloated with functionalities, most of the time useless. Ads pop up everywhere, even before persistence; iCloud and backups are clearly designed to make you pay, the free space is useless.

   I am not that sure my next phone will be an iPhone.

   I have tried a recent Mac, and the system isn't intuitive at all. The first time I used GNOME, it was a breeze. Not the same with the MacBook system.

   1. boxed · 1790088227 · focus · HN ↗

      > I have tried a recent Mac, and the system isn't intuitive at all.

      You mean it's not the same as Windows. I personally find Windows infuriating after having been a mac user for decades even though I started out on windows way back in the win3.1->win2k era. It's just different.

      1. sholladay · 1790089805 · focus · HN ↗

         I like macOS but we should be honest about some of its basic functionality being unintuitive. The “traffic lights” were pretty confusing to me for a while. Green button made the window grow but not fully maximize - I never understood the point of that (though, nowadays it goes fullscreen, which is great). Yellow minimizes, fine, whatever. Red appears to quit, but actually doesn’t, it merely closes the window, which is confusing for the simple case of only having one window. And the analogy of traffic lights doesn’t really work.

         The classic one that everyone talks about is the weird way apps are installed by dragging an app into a folder, signified only by an arrow, with no explanation of what it’s doing or why. Also, that UI wouldn’t always show up, I believe because the app itself has to be coded to trigger it. So sometimes I would end up with an app running without having been installed. Therefor some of my apps wouldn’t show up in Launchpad, etc. Now that I understand the process, it’s pretty cool. And it’s simple, in a sense. But it fails any definition of intuitive.

         The scroll direction of a mousewheel cannot be controlled independently from a trackpad. So one or the other is bound to feel wrong to most people.

         There are simple things Apple could change to fix most of these, but I think it’s overlooked just because “that’s how it’s always been”.

         1. latexr · 1790091677 · focus · HN ↗

            > Green button made the window grow but not fully maximize - I never understood the point of that

            It’s supposed to grow to the size it needs to fit the content. That button was never a “maximise” but a “zoom” (you can confirm this by checking the “Window” menu in an app).

            > Red appears to quit, but actually doesn’t, it merely closes the window, which is confusing for the simple case of only having one window.

            It depends. The general rule is that for apps which can only ever have one window (e.g. System Settings), closing the window quits the app. For apps with multiple windows, closing the window only closes the window.

            > And the analogy of traffic lights doesn’t really work.

            We (the users) are the ones who call them traffic lights, though. As far as I’m aware, Apple hasn’t suggested that as an analogy.

            > though, nowadays it goes fullscreen, which is great

            The old behaviour is still there, if you ⌥+click.

            > The classic one that everyone talks about is the weird way apps are installed by dragging an app into a folder

            The insight there is that (most) apps aren’t really “installed”. You can grab that file (actually it’s a folder, a package bundle) and put it and run it from anywhere.

            > Also, that UI wouldn’t always show up, I believe because the app itself has to be coded to trigger it.

            Unless I’m misunderstanding you, that UI is part of the DMG. If an app is distributed as a zip, for example, you won’t see it.

            > but I think it’s overlooked just because “that’s how it’s always been”.

            But it’s not. You yourself listed an example where it changed (zoom/maximise). Installing apps with PKG files used to be more common. The scroll direction thing isn’t that old, it was only some time after iPhones that trackpads changed the default motion.

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