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Comment by RivieraKid | Hacker News Reader

Yep, I agree. Hacker News is a very conservative place (in terms of technology and UI changes). I think in general Apple does a phenomenal job at UI design.

That said, the user experience of Mac OS still has plenty of low hanging fruit:

- Window management and app switching could be much better. The "app switching system" I liked the most was in Gnome 2 / MATE - I could just quickly move the cursor to the bottom task bar and scroll. It was so effortless, fast and easy.

- When I download an app (.dmg) and click it, it shows up as a new disk. WTF?

- The file manager could be made much better. Again, MATE had (probably still has) the best file manager I've ever used in terms of UX.

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> When I download an app (.dmg) and click it, it shows up as a new disk. WTF?

So download (or provide for download) a .pkg instead of a, you know, Apple Disk Image file

If I download a popular app and it shows up as a disk image, it's not really my fault. This is a UX fail. Apple has the power to fix this.

Normal people don't know and don't want to know what are apple disk images and what's the difference between .pkg and .dmg.

I highly doubt "normal people" are losing much sleep over a virtual drive showing up in their Finder sidebars.

It's only a "UX fail" if you're of the opinion that all platforms should work exactly the same way, and/or that UX paradigms that aren't what you already know are inherently wrong.

Yup, normal people just don’t care about it showing up as a virtual drive.

I'm not saying people are losing sleep over it but it's just bad UX. If you download and install an app, it shouldn't have the side-effect of a new disk appearing on your desktop. It's obvious, ask any UX designer if you don't believe me.

Again, UX paradigms aren't inherently bad or wrong simply because they're not what _you_ are used to.

macOS users are aware (even though they might not know the technical terms in question) that a .dmg is not "an app". It's a virtual disk format - something reinforced by the literal disk that's its file icon - and using one is reminiscent of inserting a CD or USB stick to get files from. _That's the point_. You insert a disk and copy its contents to your own hard drive (applications aren't the only things stored or distributed via virtual disks).

It's like complaining that clicking on a ZIP file has the "side effect" of creating a new file/folder. People who actually use archives understand that they're container formats.

What percentage of Mac OS users know that .dmg is a virtual disk format, what's your guess?

I've been using Mac OS for years, so I'm used to it. And good UX works well even for people who're not used to it. See iOS, you just tap "install" in the App Store and the app installs, that's how it should be.

Seriously, ask a good UX designer what they think about this - or just ask normal people why they think there's a virtual disk drive on their desktop and whether they know what a virtual disk drive is. I don't have the time or energy to convince you.

It's not bad UX. Apple provides three other app installation options that don't create a new disk on your desktop. The fact the the developers don't want to use those 3 methods is not Apple's fault. Blame the developers for that.

Now if Apple where to follow you suggestion and lockdown the app installation for better UX, there would be pitchforks everywhere. In fact, the pitchforks where out just last week for this issue.

I blame both. Apple has the power to solve this in a way that doesn't have drawbacks for developers.

I think this is a case of "that's how it's always been done".

My understanding is that it's done this way so that there's a consistent experience installing software from a CD/DVD or from a download online.

But I think you're right, Apple should've rethought the software installation process the moment they dropped the optical drive from their computers.

> When I download an app (.dmg) and click it, it shows up as a new disk.

How do you think it should show up?

As an installer program, like on Windows. Or as an installable package (Mac OS should have an integrated package management system like Homebrew).

macOS installers exist; I think they were used more commonly before the .app format, but that's how you get the Windows situation where the "uninstall" operation is a crapshoot because relevant files are scattered across your system.

I don't know the exact purpose behind the "mount a virtual drive to install an app" model, but it seems far too deliberate to not have a purpose.

I'm sure there's some rationale behind it. But it's simply a UX fail.

I barely even notice it now. I’ve been a Mac user since OS 8, and the workflow of mounting a disk image to install software has been around since before OS 8. Regular .pkg installers catch me off guard sometimes

To be fair, there is no supported way to uninstall a .app with all of the scattered files, either (all of the things it places in ~/Library to run, like preferences).

For me, AppCleaner is one of the first things I download on a new machine.

For people who prefer the commandline: Homebrew can install not just open source software, but binaries as well, via Brew Cask. And often, you can choose to either uninstall an app with

  % brew uninstall <appname>

Or uninstall and remove all of its cruft as well via:

  % brew zap <appname>

DMGs aren’t installers, though, they’re disk images. There are separate installer packages, and disk images don’t have to contain software in them.

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