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Comment by sylens | Hacker News Reader

Article correctly calls out how they are ripping out perfectly good parts of macOS like System Preferences to replace them with an iOS-ified version. Instead of delivering features power users might want (proper window snapping/tiling!), the press release announcing Ventura talks up the new Weather app (from iOS) and Stage Manager, a horrible solution on both macOS and iPadOS.

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But what the article doesn't really do at all is clarify why doing this replacement is a bad thing. For the vast majority of MacOS users, this will be a good thing because most of them are using iOS/iPadOS as their first point of content. Making things seamless across all these devices might be, at most, a slight inconvenience for power users but it will be an improvement for literally everyone else.

Hacker News is obviously a different demographic but no tech company is going to cater to power users. There's not enough of us for anyone to take what we say meaningfully.

I have been an Apple user since 1990, and I think you are absolutely right. In my mind iPad OS and iOS are so bad I don't want my Mac taking any inspiration from them, but I bet the average user wants something familiar to those two platforms.

The ideal situation, for me, would be some kind of progressive disclosure or a way to toggle "Advanced" versions of these panels and sections but I totally get why Apple wouldn't want to do that. It's double the work for such a small crowd.

Progressive disclosure can work, but an “Advanced/Expert” type setting does not. Dunning-Kruger kicks in and everyone flips the advanced switch whether they should or not.

That doesn't mean it doesn't work. It just means that some people are going to overestimate their competence to make those changes. I would be happy if it could only be turned on via Terminal, for example.

As an old Mac user I loathe iOS.

This is like saying we should get rid of manual gearboxes and all use automatics because automatics are easier for new drivers.

Yes, and this is exactly what is happening. Makes no sense for new drivers to spend time on gearboxes as electric cars don’t need them.

Yes, that's exactly it. There's no market for manual transmissions except for a very small minority of users.

I’m new to MacOS but there’s a $4 app that enables window snapping. I know it’s annoying to pay for that but it’s still worth it in the big picture

Open source version of the app:

https://rectangleapp.com/

There's also free ones, such as https://rectangleapp.com/

It does have a paid upgrade, but i've not found it necessary

Rectangle Pro has the window throwing feature, which is a game changer. You can use a mouse gesture shortcut to move the window under the mouse to preset locations. There's up to 16 gestures (8 directions, short or long throw), so there's a lot of different options.

That does sound pretty nice

There are free apps too.

In addition to the other free apps people have mentioned, the indispensable Raycast does windows management too. https://www.raycast.com/

There are plenty of great third party tools that do power user features (including window snapping/tiling). Apple is better at defining a workflow and toolset for casual users and forcing them to adapt to the Apple way. Power users would naturally push back if Apple did a similar thing for them. So I think it's better that they leave any advanced features to outside developers.

They are slowly changing iPadOS and macOS to bring them closer & closer together. I have a feeling that they are going to be one & the same in 3 or so versions.

Except the macOS bug of being able to run 3rd party applications that don't pay 30% cut to Apple.

And being able to run a browser that isn't based on WebKit :)

Why are you so sure of that? I wouldn't be surprised if Apple would enable the same kind of policies on the Mac.

This is another thing people have said every year for the last 10 years and has never been true.

Hah. I remember when the M1 Macs came out and so many people were absolutely certain touch screen Macs were coming.

Alternatively things like ‘proper window snapping/tiling’ are pet issues of a vocal minority and 99% of Apples users don’t care about them.

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