Not defending Crapple, but in the name of fairness, some of these aren’t really accurate unless you’re ignoring the spirit of the complaint and being pedantic.
You can scroll right but not left with the track pad
You can scroll up, down, left, and right if you use two fingers to scroll.
The delete key doesn’t do anything in the finder
You can use command + backspace to delete selected files.
The terminal uses cmd+c instead of cmd+shift+c (really should be ctrl but okay)
The rest of the OS uses command + c for copying. This is consistent.
Every app relies on an antiquated menu bar at the top which is straight out of 90s UI
This is a personal opinion. It’s a valid complaint, but it’s not a universal problem.
Ultimately you may be right about these, but the issue at the heart of them all is that Apple makes their stuff harder to use by people used to other systems, on purpose. They could very easily institute a toggleable setting that’d change the hotkeys to be more like…ya know…every other OS. They could make non-Apple hardware work better (wouldn’t be trivial but I’m fairly certain they put effort into making things worse as is), they could make messages and files transfer better between iPhone and Android, etc.
Lots of things they could do to improve the experience of non-mega-fans, but they choose to run their business in a way that punishes anyone who isn’t using them for everything. And fuck em for that.
Edit: eh, you did say you weren’t actually defending them, so I’m probably just preaching to the choir here. Just grumpy that I have to use one now and they punish me daily for my lack of utter worship lol.
at the heart of them all is that Apple makes their stuff harder to use by people used to other systems, on purpose.
As a UXD/usability and also software dev in both Windows and Mac OS software, I’d say Apple doesn’t make transition experiences harder on purpose. They try to make it as smooth as possible, whilst working within their own established design & dev standards, which is often the opposite of other companies’ philosophy.
Lesser-sought functions are nearly always changeable in settings or via terminal, and everything is easy to configure from the settings. That’s based on OS standards of not vomiting all options all over the UI (which is the polar opposite of Microsoft, so there’s some adjustment time yes. Seems the OS installer walkthrough/tutorials aren’t that effective.
Edit: hmm, my bad, my comment only somewhat relates to yours, it’s early and I went off on a tangent. Sounds like you have a way stronger basis for your assertion that they make transition easier than I do, so I want to acknowledge that. I’m skeptical, I think maybe it feels smoother to you because you’ve spent time doing it or something, and I’m fairly certain a deliberate part of their marketing strategy is to make experiences with other products artificially worse. But otherwise, I do have to take your comment seriously.
Original unnecessary spiel below:
I understand there is a somewhat academic point to be made here and that this design logic is heralded as the guiding principles behind their usability decisions, etc.
I used to buy that, and I’m sure it’s involved and the primary concern for plenty of people who work / have worked on the interface. But after watching Apple’s behavior as I’ve grown up with them, learning more about Jobs and his legacy, etc. - anything that feels “walled garden” to me, I’m calling a walled garden. I don’t believe their decisions are purely or even primarily for aesthetic and design-minded reasons. Worse, I believe the portion that is, is largely marketing to those who use Apple for the sense of smug superiority it grants (not accusing you of that! it’s a thing in the userbase though). And yet worse, I believe that anything that punishes someone who uses less of their products is usually intentional, and if not it’s at least known and accepted (with the caveat that they are threading a needle with the last one, and some degree of usability for outsiders is fully necessary for brand growth).
That’s a pretty uncharitable take when I type it all out, but I have to acknowledge that it’s how I feel. It doesn’t mean the UX design principles aren’t there. I just don’t buy that it’s for the users, it’s for the shareholders, like any other corp.
You can (and I do) rebind the modifier keys in System Preferences. Makes it a lot comfier to use a Mac and another machine with the same keyboard via KVM switch.
I didn’t address that one because the commenter qualified it by saying you can’t easily change them, which is kind of true. You can change the modifiers, but anything beyond that or changing keyboard layouts is a crapshoot in my experience.
It’s considerably better than trying to remap anything on Windows, at least. But, it’s also not completely free from hard-coded hotkeys and dumb restrictions. For example, Command + Tab can’t be changed or disabled, and you need to use third-party programs like BetterTouchTool to hijack the sequence in order to replace it with some other action.
More recently, I read that the latest OS version disallows registering hotkeys with only Option or Option+Shift as the modifier, which is a very big step backward. Being able to insert unicode characters is cool, but it’s peanuts compared to having 80 more options for hotkey sequences that aren’t already used by the OS or application.
Not defending Crapple, but in the name of fairness, some of these aren’t really accurate unless you’re ignoring the spirit of the complaint and being pedantic.
You can scroll up, down, left, and right if you use two fingers to scroll.
You can use
command + backspaceto delete selected files.The rest of the OS uses
command + cfor copying. This is consistent.This is a personal opinion. It’s a valid complaint, but it’s not a universal problem.
Ultimately you may be right about these, but the issue at the heart of them all is that Apple makes their stuff harder to use by people used to other systems, on purpose. They could very easily institute a toggleable setting that’d change the hotkeys to be more like…ya know…every other OS. They could make non-Apple hardware work better (wouldn’t be trivial but I’m fairly certain they put effort into making things worse as is), they could make messages and files transfer better between iPhone and Android, etc.
Lots of things they could do to improve the experience of non-mega-fans, but they choose to run their business in a way that punishes anyone who isn’t using them for everything. And fuck em for that.
Edit: eh, you did say you weren’t actually defending them, so I’m probably just preaching to the choir here. Just grumpy that I have to use one now and they punish me daily for my lack of utter worship lol.
Quick quibble:
As a UXD/usability and also software dev in both Windows and Mac OS software, I’d say Apple doesn’t make transition experiences harder on purpose. They try to make it as smooth as possible, whilst working within their own established design & dev standards, which is often the opposite of other companies’ philosophy.
Lesser-sought functions are nearly always changeable in settings or via terminal, and everything is easy to configure from the settings. That’s based on OS standards of not vomiting all options all over the UI (which is the polar opposite of Microsoft, so there’s some adjustment time yes. Seems the OS installer walkthrough/tutorials aren’t that effective.
Edit: hmm, my bad, my comment only somewhat relates to yours, it’s early and I went off on a tangent. Sounds like you have a way stronger basis for your assertion that they make transition easier than I do, so I want to acknowledge that. I’m skeptical, I think maybe it feels smoother to you because you’ve spent time doing it or something, and I’m fairly certain a deliberate part of their marketing strategy is to make experiences with other products artificially worse. But otherwise, I do have to take your comment seriously.
Original unnecessary spiel below:
I understand there is a somewhat academic point to be made here and that this design logic is heralded as the guiding principles behind their usability decisions, etc.
I used to buy that, and I’m sure it’s involved and the primary concern for plenty of people who work / have worked on the interface. But after watching Apple’s behavior as I’ve grown up with them, learning more about Jobs and his legacy, etc. - anything that feels “walled garden” to me, I’m calling a walled garden. I don’t believe their decisions are purely or even primarily for aesthetic and design-minded reasons. Worse, I believe the portion that is, is largely marketing to those who use Apple for the sense of smug superiority it grants (not accusing you of that! it’s a thing in the userbase though). And yet worse, I believe that anything that punishes someone who uses less of their products is usually intentional, and if not it’s at least known and accepted (with the caveat that they are threading a needle with the last one, and some degree of usability for outsiders is fully necessary for brand growth).
That’s a pretty uncharitable take when I type it all out, but I have to acknowledge that it’s how I feel. It doesn’t mean the UX design principles aren’t there. I just don’t buy that it’s for the users, it’s for the shareholders, like any other corp.
You can (and I do) rebind the modifier keys in System Preferences. Makes it a lot comfier to use a Mac and another machine with the same keyboard via KVM switch.
Yes, but it breaks so many other tools that it is basically not worth. For example, all shell shortcuts (Ctrl+A, Ctrl+E, Ctrl+W etc.).
Neither me nor anybody in my company found a viable solution which is to ultimately learn to use cmd for certain things on Mac (like copy/paste).
I didn’t address that one because the commenter qualified it by saying you can’t easily change them, which is kind of true. You can change the modifiers, but anything beyond that or changing keyboard layouts is a crapshoot in my experience.
It’s considerably better than trying to remap anything on Windows, at least. But, it’s also not completely free from hard-coded hotkeys and dumb restrictions. For example,
Command + Tabcan’t be changed or disabled, and you need to use third-party programs like BetterTouchTool to hijack the sequence in order to replace it with some other action.More recently, I read that the latest OS version disallows registering hotkeys with only
OptionorOption+Shiftas the modifier, which is a very big step backward. Being able to insert unicode characters is cool, but it’s peanuts compared to having 80 more options for hotkey sequences that aren’t already used by the OS or application.