The struggle of resizing windows on macOS Tahoe

Recall is turned off by default and Copilot never nags you to use it (like Gemini on Chromebooks/Google Search/Google Docs does).

I completely agree with the UI frameworks thing though. They really need to remove the Control Panel.

> original version of Recall stored these in an unencrypted, insecure database.

Why do you bother mentioning it, given that's been long rectified and that particular version never made it to the production ring?

> six different UI frameworks all present in various spots on the OS

Windows has always been like this. It wasn't until Windows 11 that the Font dialog was upgraded from a Win 3.x look and feel.

> no more local-only accounts allowed.

Just false.

There was no start button. There are no screen edges to swipe in from. Hot corners are really hard to hit. I still can't believe somebody said "yes, good idea" to using that UI for Server 2012.

It was wild to me when I was testing out if I wanted to move over to Linux as my full-time desktop OS how much it was asking for my password. And it didn't even have a mechanism to make it a little less painful such as requesting a short PIN (which I think is a fine option as long as a few incorrect PIN entries forces full password input).

The UAC wasn't even the main problem, the overall performance of Vista was, everything was so much slower.

Most of the upgrades since then I have resisted and not enjoyed, though I seem to recall liking Mavericks.

A lot of the big features each time seem to be about tieing further into the Apple ecosystem, which doesn't interest me at all, since I have no other devices and don't use iCloud.

Was it also great for developers? (Genuine question.)

I working in software and "build features" for a living, and over the years I've come to prioritize reliability, performance, and an intuitive experience over all else. No matter how good the feature set is, if it crashes, is painfully slow, or I can't figure out how to use it, then I don't want it.

Apple used to have that focus, but seems to have lost it of late.

I hope to put my money where my mouth is and contribute to one of the tiny handful of nascent Mac-like environment projects out there once some spare time opens up, but until then…

Therefore newcomers should use Kubuntu or the likes of it

Linux has bugs, bug MacOS does too. I feel like for a dev like me, the linux setup is more comfortable.

And god forbid you still have low DPI monitor still!

I have been using a 4K display for years on Linux without issues. The scaling issue with non-native apps is a problem that Windows also struggles with btw.

Meanwhile on MacOS my displays may work. Or they might not work. Or they might work but randomly locked to 30hz. It depends on what order they wake up in or get plugged in.

I suspect the root of the problem is one of them is a very high refresh rate monitor (1440p360hz) and probably related to the display bandwidth limitations that provide a relatively low monitor limit for such a high cost machine.

Don't knock it unless you've tried it.

This was CachyOS btw. Windows actually required MORE work because I had to install drivers, connect to the internet during setup, get nagged about using a Microsoft account, etc.

CachyOS was basically boot -> verify partitions are correct -> decide on defaults -> create account/password -> wait for files to copy -> done. Drivers, including the latest NVIDIA drivers, auto installed/working.

The only reason I can't completely switch to Linux is because there are no great options for anything non-programming related stuff I love to do ... such as photography, music (guitar amplifier sims).

The only reliable fixes are to either disable that DisplayPort feature if your monitor supports it, or to disable GPU Dithering using a paid third-party tool (BetterDisplay). Either that or switch to Asahi, which doesn't have that issue.

The issue is common enough that BENQ has a FAQ page about it, which includes steps like "disable dark mode" and "wait for 2 hours": https://www.benq.com/en-us/knowledge-center/knowledge/how-to...

MacOS isn't in any kind of position regarding displays. 180+ replies and 300+ upvotes by the 0.1% of sufferers who bother to find these threads, log in, and comment of them. Exteemely widespread, going on for years, thread silently locked.

lmfao

Gnome in Linux works great for a decade+ with a single high resolution screen, but there are certainly apps that render too small (Steam was one of the problems).

Different scaling factors on several monitors are not perfect though, but I generally dislike how Mac handles that too as I mostly use big screen when docked (32"-43"-55"), or laptop screen when not, and it rearranges my windows with every switch.

Its the "getting every config" right thing that is the problem.

I’m glad everyone is dogpiling on this statement cause man people seriously have to stop parroting this years out of date claim at this point. Any big well supported distro using Wayland should be fine, at the very least KDE and GNOME are guaranteed work perfectly with HiDPI.

Daily Fedora KDE user here on 4K HiDPI monitor plus another of a different lower resolution, flawless experience using both together in a setup. Fractional scaling also there working perfectly as well and you choose how you want KDE to scale the apps if you want (forcefully or let the app decide).

IMO, there's basically no problem Linux has that isn't worse in Windows (at the OS level). Especially once you get into laptops.

My final conclusion was that I hate computers.

This has been my experience every time I try Linux. If I had to guess, tracing down all these little things is just that last mile that is so hard and isn't the fun stuff to do in making an OS, which is why it is always ignored. If Linux ever did it, it would keep me.

(I usually miss the little Linux-specific things that macOS does not.)

> No good e-mail app, no good office apps, no good calendar app, no good invoicing app ...

People who aren't programmers use Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Stripe Invoicing, etc for those various use-cases.

Firefox and Chrome work just fine on Linux, so Linux has all the apps people actually use these days on computers.

My latest version of the problem is with Ubuntu Gnome. Upgrade software and, later, you will be interrupted with a pop-up window to enter your system password. Not only is this an interruption, I’m always doubtful that this is the system asking for a sudoer password!

UIs, in my experience, are very bad at handling “interrupts”. Sorry, my dad designed chips, so I use that hardware term when talking about notifications and other times another application needs to notify or get the input from user. Personally, I’d have the UI change the color/texture of the system menubar/taskbar and wait for the user to click it.

You think I CHOSE to be miserable? Sorry, I have kids, and you know, they don't exactly live on dog food, but even that costs money. My job requires me to use a Mac. And please don't tell me to "find a better job". I've been programming for over twenty years, only once I was given a clearance to pick "whatever kind of machine you want". For my personal computing I do use Linux.

This seems like an example of a situation that modern machine learning could help with. Take bug reports permissively and look through all of them for patterns. Loss of focus should be the kind of thing that would stand out and could be analyzed for similarities and recurring features. Making sense of large amounts of often vague and rambling reports has been a problem for a long time and seems like a domain that machine learning is well set for.

Tiny number of users with such an enormous user base (10-16% desktop share) still means there's thousands of users affected.

https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1d8a0wv/if_you_are...

https://talk.macpowerusers.com/t/bartender-change-of-ownersh...

and watch years go by with no fixes or improvements to basic OS fundamentals.

lol. Can't tell you how many times I've clicked "I have this problem too" on a page where users can't help each other because apple is doing/hiding something stupid.

I work on a desktop Windows/Mac application that takes forever and a day to launch (CAD package), and pops up a million pop-ups during the process. I try to get minor admin tasks done while it is compiling/launching, but it steals focus every 10 seconds!

Still beats using XCode, though

I experience the same with macOS. For example Discord steals focus.

A flashing cursor in an inactive text box. Possibly the most annoying of bugs.

Looking at you Windows, COMRAD and every login I ever do.

by default if you haven't typed anything for a little bit Windows allows an application to steal focus. If you change that value you can prevent windows from ever stealing focus or change how long they have to wait before they're allowed to.

When you buy powerfull computers, this problem basically doesn't exist, both on Windows or macOS. Since Macs have historically been more expensive and premium, even the cheaper model was powerfull enough to finish the boot sequence fast enough that the desktop would feel snappy almost instantly. On the other hand, cheap PCs struggle to accomplish every task in a timely manner.

I am amazed about how stupid and ignorant is the average Mac fanboy. I have been a Mac user first and foremost, but you guys are just full of shit.

Edit: just did a google and it seems I can still sell it for about $600AUD, I don't know how anyone is buying a non apple lap top.

I have a very old android tablet (Nexus 7, 2013). I can install Linux on it and it works just fine. I can convert it into a full screen kiosk mode thing that displays photo albums, put it next to my tv as a song controller, etc etc.

Older iPads no longer get updates, and I can't install linux on them. Apple is wildly behind a lot of other hardware in terms of software-support since I can install linux on a lot of other stuff. Apple devices turn into useless e-waste bricks, other devices can get a second life running linux.

Eh, I had to use a variety of iPhones for work recently, don't remember which models, from probably the last ~7 years though, and they really felt limited and frustrating on the software side. My already years old Pixel 7 feels miles ahead, and so did my Pixel 4a, even with the worse hardware of the latter. They just feel more capable.

I've been a mac guy for work for at least 15 years though, now with an M4 on Sequoia, and definitely won't be buying anything else (windows for most gaming), but Tahoe is not looking promising.

And Mussolini wasn't nearly as bad as Hitler. A relative measure like this sets an artificially low bar. If these devices had replaceable screens and batteries, they would be good until the mobile standards stopped being supported.

If you buy the $199 Windows laptop that can barely run Windows, yes. Anything comparable in price to a MacBook? Not really.

I would argue the OS closest to "mainstream Linux" is Ubuntu or Fedora with Gnome DE. Gnome has many many faults but it's probably the closest DE you're going to get to what Windows and MacOS have.

If Cook and his other senior staff had recognized the problems Dye was causing and wanted him gone, what possible motivation would they have to make his firing secret? How could it possibly serve them better to have it look like they were chumps?

Journalists will report whatever they get fed anyway (notice how they all talk gleefully over the wobbly new iPhone with a jutting-out camera bump when only a few years ago they talked gleefully about how flat the iPhone was, and then gleefully wrote about how their screen estate was invaded by a notch etc), so if Apple focused on fixing issues instead of short-attention-span apps (when was the last time you used "Image Playground"?) the media could report how committed to reliability and quality Apple is, gleefully.

They also added stupid "quick launch" areas with places nobody went, like "3D Objects", and reduced the menu area to a "grope and find a button" ribbon.

The older Explorers were usable like File Manager on Windows 3.11 was: address bars that were usable from the keyboard and mouse (no subdivision buttons for parts of the path), acceptable launch speed, and no extra "features" that were unnecessary (like it ignoring "use same view for all folders" when your directory happens to have MP3s in it - it'll switch to showing rating / bitrate etc.)

I believe all developers should use older versions of the software to see how usable they were in comparison to the modern "improvement".

I've worked with some younger designers who couldn't even put together a consistent click-dummy once the client wanted to see flows outside the happy path. To be fair, all they really had to go on was their education and Figma's panels.

The huge corner radius is one thing I do wish they reverted in Mac OS.

If this is the click target area specified by the designer (or it was simply unspecified) then it's absolutely the designer's fault. I'm a UX designer and I've made mistakes like this before, though this one is pretty egregious because the issue is core to the interaction.

It's sometimes easy as a UX designer to forget to specify some of the smaller details (though this example isn't what I'd call a "small detail"), particularly because they're the kinds of things you don't notice when they work, and I don't have to implement it. The developer has to sit down and write code for what will or will not happen.

I've made mistakes in the past where in an mobile interface I neglected to specify the click target area for some controls. Typically the minimum clickable area we'd use was something like 44x44 but the visual was smaller than that, and I didn't specify it, so the developer made the visible element the one that would respond to the click events. It was too small and it caused issues. I owned up to that one, I didn't want to let the developer take the blame for that.

I've also been fortunate enough to work with developers who would notice these things and then ask me if it was intended and whether they should increase the clickable area. I was always so grateful to have colleagues like that, and I'd always offer to set some time aside to come take a look at things on their local environment before they moved things forward just to catch any issues where they could immediately fix it instead of having to push fixes later on.

I don't know where the failure happened at Apple, but based on what I've seen from "Liquid Glass" it's clear there's some real institutional failures involving either the design leadership, the development leadership, or somewhere in between both. It's really quite embarrassing the quality of GUI and UX that has come out of Apple recently.

This is the first time ever where the hurdle of rolling back my iPhone to an earlier version of iOS feels worth the effort. I disabled as much of the liquid glass effects as I could because I found it difficult to read and now it all looks like shit, whereas before I could read it and it looked nice.

I don't know, I conclude the opposite. If you need accurate color reproduction when you publish online, you are doing something wrong.

I used to co-own a small digital printing business, so I'm aware of what all of it means, and I had an appropriate monitor myself and a paid Adobe Design Suite subscription.

But for the web, when our setup is too good it's actually a detriment. It is predictable that you end up publishing things that require your quality setup. There is a good reason not to bother with a high quality monitor usable for serious publishing and photo/video editing when you only do web thing. Which is exactly why when I bought my last monitor, which is for business work and coding and web browsing and other mundane things, I deliberately ignored all the very high quality displays, even though the company would have paid whatever I chose. It is not an advantage for that use case.

For this and many other reasons, I just don't think the paradigm would work today. It's philosophically smart but limiting in too many other ways.

Here's a resizable window in Platinum that has a drag handle but does not have a status bar: https://guidebookgallery.org/pics/gui/settings/appearance/ma...

edit: I missed "Windows" in GP comment. Well let it be known that at least Platinum wasn't like this :)

A few things sorta do.

If you want to increase the size of saran wrap or aluminum foil, you grab the edge and pull. Same for increasing the size of toilet paper before tearing it off.

When you want to stretch your fitted sheet onto your mattress, you grab the corner and pull to stretch it over.

When you want to make your pizza dough larger, you toss it above your head in a circle, so I guess that one doesn't really match the macOS gesture, I guess you should be spinning windows to make them bigger.

However, when you're doing other baking things, like placing fondant or a pie crust, you do stretch from the edges some.

Really wouldn't recommend it though, all sorts of consequences for the food (if present), your hand, the hygiene of the plate and potential damage to underlying surfaces. Generally preferable to pick it up and put it down again.

The circular self-congratulation of DEI introduces an intimidation factor where the objective and scientific truth is inherently no longer the basis for decision making because there are multiple layers of a kind of aristocratic privilege that cannot be questioned, let alone criticized, because critique of their actions equals critique of their divinity, i.e., becomes heresy.

So we end up with this point where no one pointed out the increasingly ridiculous reductions of the emperor’s clothes, only ever cheering on with positive affirmations, to the point that everyone’s intimidated to even point out the emperor is walking around stark naked.

I could see how a combination of the DEI intimidation tactics with the advent of AI, the hash economic factors, and general desire to not rock the personal benefit boat could have resulted in institutional paralysis.

Is there anyone with a force of personality left at Apple? Ultimately, this is on Cook as the Chief Executive Officer poorly executing. It really makes you wonder if the leadership doesn’t actually use any of their own company’s products. How do you not notice these glitches immediately like everyone else if you are using them? I could see Cook not having even regularly used an iPhone or actively interacted with any Apple product himself in years as his real life Siris around him do every single thing for him every day all day, besides maybe giving him briefs on screens that happen to be iPhones and iPads. At that level you actively have to make choices to remain connected to the ground. I doubt Cook finds being grounded comes easy.

If you're not convinced: look at the difference between desktop Linux and Android. Although Android Studio seems to be a bit of a disaster nowadays, there's a lot of development support for Android, and it shows in the 1.6 million apps that have been built for it. Android has got what people crave: easy, slick, user-friendly apps, no technical hassle. It's an uphill battle, and at the same time, the focus is shifting away from desktop. So I think the year of Linux for the desktop will likely never come.

It would be nice if veterans of the post-Steve era would post on here. Maybe they are scared, bound by NDAs or could care less. Like I said, I need some mental health treatment about my time(s) at Apple I was there working on Final Cut Pro after Be, went to Eazel, and then rejoined Apple as part of Steve's mass hiring of Eazel employees at the behest of Andy Hertzfeld.

Some people left early, like Don Lindsay. Don was instrumental in bringing Aqua to life, along with Bas of course, and led the team up and through the release of Cheetah and more. This task wasn't easy at all. To me it seems like he was finally going to receive some reward of those hard years of work. But instead he chose to leave to go to Microsoft. This boggled my mind, as leaving to Microsoft to me seemed incomprehensible. Maybe Don had enough of the abuse? Maybe he was sick of the increasingly crowded commute? The daily visits from Steve pointing out every detail of the UI that bothered him? Did you know the UX designed many of the big banners and posters for the WWDC events. Steve didn't want any old graphic designer to do those, so Bas, Imran and others would work on them. Don had to deal with that too.

When Steve left to receive cancer treatment in 2004, he still had influence, Bertrand Serlet was running engineering, Jony Ive was focussed on industrial design. We were working on Tiger with the brushed metal interface and there was a lot of activity on that. Tim Cook was running the business, but Bas and others were keeping the ball rolling on the UX with remote input from Steve.

I wasn't around for the next two leaves of absence, the last one being final, but heard that things were becoming increasingly fractious with camps emerging around Tony Fadell, Scott Forstall, Jony Ive and general politcal unpleasantness as Tim Cook was given various ultimatums about "I won't work with this or that person." Everyone was trying to say that they represented the vision of Steve and somehow knew what would Steve do given any sitution. Geez, if we knew what Steve would do or wanted, there could have been a lot of really distressing confrontations avoided over the previous years.

This type of internal sniping didn't happen with Steve around, or if it did, it wasn't very effective. I think it would have gotten you fired. Tony Fadell pushed it to the limit with Steve and Scott. I remember someone once asking Steve about getting free lunch at Apple, like you could get at Google and they were told "If all you want is free lunch, then you should be working at Google."

For me, there was a certain amount of clarity that came from Steve's abusive behavior. It could wear you down on one level, but also brought focus and drive to getting things done. I think it was very unhealthy one one level and very exciting on another. There weren't endless meeting on calendars discussing minutia. It also meant that the obvious horrors of the Tahoe wouldn't happen. Steve himself would have grabbed the windows with different corner radii, stacked them up and excoriated whoever was responsible. Some of my work was called "real bottom of the barrel shit", "the worst he has ever seen" and told "this is not the way we do things at Apple." I assure you, what he was complaining about was nothing remotely close to what we are seeing in Tahoe.