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>at least Microsoft recognized (correctly) back then that a concept of an "app" makes no sense on a modern desktop, and windows is what users want to manage, not "apps"

>windows from different desktops in OSX are mistakenly combined in the same useless giant Alt+tab list

Completely agree. In particular, I used Gnome (2.14 through 2.18) for a few years, then OS X (Leopard through Snow Leopard) for a few years, and the way "tasks", applications, windows and workspaces are managed on Gnome strikes me as objectively better than the way they work in OS X -- with the possible exception that the OS X might be a little easier to learn for users that have very little patience for learning much at all about their computer.

But OS X is better at sparing the user from tedious admin hassles and has better aesthetics. Gnome 2 on the other hand allows the user to set the text size of almost all of the text on the system (the most notable exception being Firefox, which does not pay any attention to Gnome's settings), which OS X does not allow. (Some of the text on OS X, e.g., in the menu bar, window title bars and certain Apple applications like Calendar, cannot be changed with reasonable effort.)

Also, the "annoying glitches" on Gnome are worse. The annoying glitches on OS X consist mainly of the UI becoming unresponsive at unpredictable times (usually signified by the spinning beach ball cursor) whereas the annoying glitches on Gnome 2 consist of inattention to detail on the part of Gnome 2's designers and implementors, lack of consistency including "gotchas" like Ctrl-W having minor mostly-reversible effects in Emacs and in bash while having drastic irreversible effects in other Gnome apps (namely, closing the window). Also, Gnome would freeze, crash or otherwise need to be restarted an order of magnitude more than OS X does. Note though that Gnome and the graphical system on Linux might be much more reliable with a different video card: I only tried it with two old cards.

I have been using Linux since 1993 and GNOME since the end of 1998. Over that time I have had less than a handful of GNOME crashes that weren't caused by X driver / hardware problems. Restarting the GUI on Linux is normally much easier that on other machines, it rarely requires full reboot; the only exception again is of course really bad graphics drivers / hardware.

And on the other hand, I have to regularly restart Unity (the version in Ubuntu 11.10) due to non-driver and non-hardware problems.

Good to know, thanks.

As an OS X user, I would call OS X the opposite of "app centric". It's document-centric first. Apps are binding glue, but windows that represent documents come first. A window representing one document will never switch to representing another. It will always open a new one. The titlebar of a document holds an icon that represents the document, and can be dragged around. It can be right clicked to see the document's location in the file system and open any of the references locations.

And if you're talking about conditioning, perhaps you should considering not using Alt-Tab, a task switcher that has never really worked properly, because it cannot be both memorable, linear and context-adaptive.

Those shiny OS X windows that fly around without lag allow me to task switch visually, using touch gestures. It works great and uses all parts of my brain. I recognize windows by their shape, proportions and contents, not by a single icon. Swipe up, see all windows grouped by type, swipe up, focus on all windows of the same type. Swipe left/right, switch desktops.

>A window representing one document will never switch to representing another. It will always open a new one.

Except for the Finder in its default configuration. (Opening a folder does not open a new window unless the user has changed the Finder using Finder > Preferences > General.)

But more importantly, the Dock is app-centric whereas the task bar in Gnome 2 and in Windows 95 through Window XP is window-centric. I can live with the Dock, but I'd rather have a task bar or more precisely a task bar plus a one-click way to open heavily-used apps such as is provided by both the Gnome Panel and the "panel" or "bar" at the bottom of Windows 95 through Windows XP.

I can't live with Apple's Expose as the normal way to switch between windows. (And Spotlight is too slow on my 2006 Macbook as a means to switch to or start apps). To switch between windows, I use OS X's facilities for app switching, and rely on every app having only one or two windows open. To switch between apps, I use the dock or I use a function key -- four of my function keys' having been bound (using Spark) to my most-heavily-used apps, namely Emacs, browser, IM client and Finder. I have not tried OS X Lion yet.

I definitely can't live with Spaces after having used the simple and sane workspaces of Gnome 2.

So I agree with old-gregg that these are areas where OS X is weak compared to Gnome 2 on Linux. (I prefer OS X overall though at least on laptops.)

ADDED. When I ran Gnome 2, it was no trouble to have ten terminal windows open. Since I started running OS X, I have worked around OS X's less capable window-management facilities by upgrading my Emacs skills so that instead of using terminal windows, I now use Emacs buffers to interact with shells and other "text-mode command-line" programs. (There's no problem having many Emacs buffers open at the same time, and I only ever have one Emacs window (or "frame" in Emacs terminology) open at a time.)

ADDED. Moreover, when I ran Gnome 2, it was no trouble to have 3 or 4 or more Firefox windows open. One thing that makes OS X a little more comfortable for me is that when I switched from Firefox to Chrome, I stopped having dozens of tabs open with the result that I am able to manage most of the time with only one browser window open. (Fewer tabs are required in Chrome because Chrome does not have Firefox's bug in which invoking the back button or the history menu frequently takes many seconds to complete.) In other words, I got by in OS X by rearranging my life so that I did not run any apps with a lot of windows open.

ADDED. None of these difference between Gnome 2 and OS X is a huge deal, but it does shed light on the quality of decision making at Canonical these days to note that they decided to transition from the Gnome 2 way to the OS X way in one of the few areas in which Gnome 2 is better. (Hmm, if Canonical switches to the OS X way of doing cut and paste, in which you have to press Command-C or Control-C to get the selection into the clipboard, that would be further evidence that they do not know what they are doing.)

> a concept of an "app" makes no sense on a modern desktop, and windows is what users want to manage, not "apps"

I disagree; I think this is a subjective thing based on one's usage habits. I tend to think in terms of apps, with multiple windows attached to each. (This is partly because I keep a lot of windows open, and tabbing between 5-10 apps is more reasonable than tabbing through 30-50 windows.)

I agree with your main point, however; Ubuntu should be blazing its own trail, not mimicking the past.

Completely agreed.

It appears as though nowadays it's almost considered to be shameful if computer don't try to imitate mobile interfaces, even though it feels as if the apex of usability was reached not that long ago with usable and slick Gnome 2 releases.

a concept of an "app" makes no sense on a modern desktop, and windows is what users want to manage, not "apps"

I do not disagree with you (long live OpenDoc ;-)), but as a counterpoint: users buy _apps_, not _windows_.

As long as that is the case, apps do make sense on a desktop.

Personally, I think users want to manage and navigate documents (not Apps or Windows).

Could you elaborate on this further? I ask this because not every application is about document processing.

Perhaps document was the wrong term. I think that 'content' (either via creation, management or consumption) is central to all we do with a computer. I think that a successful UI would focus on this fact.

Well, I disagree with your assessment of 'apps' making no sense, I personally prefer how OSX itself handles apps & windows. It makes vastly more visual sense to me than different copies of the same process sharing nothing.

>Lets look at Alt+Tab functionality, which now in Unity (and Gnome3) switches between "apps" instead of windows.

This is THE reason I will not touch Unity or gnome shell.

Do you know about the alt+` shortcut to switch between windows of an app? It's really nice.

I do, BTW Unity/Gnome3 copied this kludge as well and they're proud of it. This is an equivalent of launching a new computer line which throws away SSDs in favour of punch cards.

See, "apps" made sense in the prehistoric times when single-threaded desktops with limited RAM were primarily used to do one thing at a time. But things changed. The concept of an "app" have not been making sense for a long time: you can run Gmail and Facebook in two browser windows (which together live in the same process) or you can have a single window (Chrome) launching one process per tab, or you can have a terminal with several processes running in different windows, or you can have a copy of Microsoft Word embedded inside of an Excel spreadsheet. Similarly you can have an iframe with embedded Google Maps inside of your Wordpress blog. So what's an "app" then?

Microsoft correctly recognized in early 90s that the concept of a "program" or an "app" was obsolete, and modern UI should be using "window", "document" or "folder". An app is just an implementation detail: you can have 3 apps involved in rendering a single document or drawing the same window. Early smartphones couldn't handle these tricks (like multi-tasking) well, so this temporarily reincarnated idea of the "app" came back from the grave, to be happily copied by Unity just because "iOS has them".

Boo.

You say this, as every major platform migrates towards apps. Windows 8: (huge push on becoming) app centric. Mac OS X: (becoming )app centric. Android: app centric. iOS: app centric. What OS isn't? Linux. (eh, edit, this really isn't fair. Linux is as "app-centric" as I need it, though the "linux is so secure" assumption is uh, going to become fallable as its competitors approach an app-centric, isolated model. (also, X doesn't protect apps against eavesdropping, etc). Also, Ubuntu's Software Center is making the experience at the least, app-like.)

I think in terms of apps. "I need to switch back to my browser". "Alt-tab". "I need to change windows in this app", "Alt-`". I guess owning a Mac got me prepared for it, but I love this new behavior in Gnome3.

This is the problem. This debate, right here. This is what I think the - albeit impolite - heavy-handed replies from Shuttleworth are trying to avoid.

There's no one right way, and governing by pure democracy simply won't work, because everyone has a different opinion.

And sure, you can make it configurable, but that's not the point - is it? If you're a power user, you'll find a way to manipulate the system to your will no matter what. But 99.9% of the users (well, when dealing with Linux admittedly that percentage is much smaller) will NEVER CHANGE THE DEFAULT.

So: apps vs windows? Side launcher vs bottom launcher? Doesn't matter. Just choose one, and for the love of all things holy, be consistent.

  > You say this, as every major platform migrates towards apps.

That's the way it goes with these damn computers. In circles. I recommend you unpack a bag of floppies, get yourself some Windows 3.1 and take a good look at Program Manager.

IDK about you, but I generally have >30 or so windows open at a time. Listing them all in [modifier]-tab would be hard to navigate (by window title?) but having the icons of all the apps is actually kinda manageable.

It goes in circles because computer technologies are bursty. With Win95, managing by window was reasonable because having >10 windows would usually crash the box. That's also why every window was a taskbar entry, as there was actually room for all of them... By WinXP, when virtual memory became more robust and RAM cheaper, you needed to sometimes collapse taskbar buttons by app to make them fit... And now in Win7, it's the default with just big icons. People leave way too many windows open now because closing them is a chore, and people are crappy/lazy memory budgeters. Apple realized this with iOS, and ported some relevant concepts back to Lion--apps should be able to close and restore at any time, and their open-ness is irrelevant to the user. So yeah, that's why we're back to thinking about apps; windows may be what you most often interact with, but they are no longer the mental unit of desktop management. It's now all about task-->app-->windows.

As an aside, let's consider how effed up MDI is, the inconsistencies in window/toolbar management between Win Office apps, and how the Mac "one window per document, palettes appear on app activation" scheme has managed to stay remarkably consistent for over a decade.

"I generally have >30 or so windows open at a time. Listing them all in [modifier]-tab would be hard to navigate"

Stick them on different virtual-desktops and they will not show up in the Alt-tab.

I find virtual-desktops a great way to organize, that has been available for 20 (?) years

Alt+Tab is typically about switching between last 2,3,4-5 _windows_ (max). It doesn't matter how many more windows you have. For that, it's other mechanisms (dock, taskbar, window list, search, ...)

...but every major desktop platform has easily accessible configuration settings for you to change this behavior, eg. for Windows 7 I can just:

    right click task bar > properties > taskbar buttons: never combine

...to switch back to a window centric approach, and this combined with the ability to use virtual desktops (even on Windows with a 3rd party app) with the taskbar only showing windows from that desktop, and going even further if you like, using a multi display setup where each display has a task bar showing only the windows from that display (like having "# of virtual desktops" * "# of display" actual virtual desktops) (note: I HATE this but know people that swear by it), you can easily manage even ~50 windows without becoming visually or mentally crowded, with no need for the app-centrick view that makes you click around all the time...

...the point being that unity should try and learn more from the nice and clean but yet easily costumizable interface of Windows 7

Disclaimer: I'm mainly a Windows user, touching a Mac from time to time, and using Xfce when on *nix because it just works and doesn't stand in my way...

Modern smartphones aren't so good at it either. Think of the last time you just wanted to listen to the audio from a video file while you browsed the internet.

The problem of that shortcut? It only works well on English keyboards. Try that on a French or a German one, you have to press Shift additional or even Alt Gr.

Nope, at least in GNOME shell the shortcut is Alt + [key above Tab] so no problem there

Thanks for the correction - nice to know!