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I’m really curious how Apple is going to solve the HIG problem. Surely Apple won’t lower the bar for macOS apps, right? (I plead so... or why use a mac when WS

I’m really curious how Apple is going to solve the HIG problem. Surely Apple won’t lower the bar for macOS apps, right? (I plead so... or why use a mac when WSL2 is out and Linux desktops are getting traction?) My naive thought is that Apple’s Marzipan will add a layer to display UIKit components as AppKit components that follow the HIG; Currently all kind of differences are present like textbox radius, modal views(!), etc... Maybe some UIKit components will be mapped to AppKit ones, and some others (that are only in UIKit) will also be added to AppKit?

saagarjha 8y ago
> Surely Apple won’t lower the bar for macOS apps, right? They already did: see the current Marzipan apps. The hope is that this is not representative of how they will release Marzipan in June.
- pcr910303 8y ago
  As a person who has been a fan of the Apple ecosystem, it’s sad to hear that the route Apple is taking to increase the number of Mac Apps is, well, basically lowering the bar :-( Preferably Apple can open the private framework that the new MAS uses or one that the Photos app uses (actually Photos have similar problems; like drag&drop not working) but it is much better than Marzipan, which is similar to the situation of Electron :-(
inapis 8y ago
> why use a mac when WSL2 is out and Linux desktops are getting traction? This is applicable only for devs. Mac is not going anywhere for people in a lot of industries - writers, photographers, business, smb etc. WSL changes nothing for them and Linux was not in consideration anyways. Even for devs, I can argue that Mac/Windows are preferable over Linux. Don't get me wrong, I love Linux but only on the server. Using Mac/Windows adds significant QoL improvements which are just not there on Linux.
- feanaro 8y ago
  > Even for devs, I can argue that Mac/Windows are preferable over Linux. Don't get me wrong, I love Linux but only on the server. Using Mac/Windows adds significant QoL improvements which are just not there on Linux. Please, not this same old tired argument. I could say the exact same thing but in reverse, it would still be true for some definition of truth and we'd be none the wiser. If you're absolutely bent on talking about this tired old topic, concrete points are what you should be aiming for instead of vague value judgements.
  - hellofunk 8y ago
    Maybe you could say that, personally, but quite a lot of developers don’t. I follow a lot of high-profile researchers at places like Nvidia, and they often discuss the desire to replace their Mac for dev purposes but have not found a quality alternative. An optimistic hope is that the Windows subsystem for Linux will evolve and mature beautifully. But it’s not there yet, and even then you’re often stuck dealing with significantly inferior hardware. So Mac tends to be the standard that a significant portion of the world’s developers compare against.
    - zeveb 8y ago
      > I follow a lot of high-profile researchers at places like Nvidia, and they often discuss the desire to replace their Mac for dev purposes but have not found a quality alternative. How ironic: Linux would be a lot more well-positioned for desktop use if Nvidia would open-source its proprietary drivers. Frankly, though, I find Linux eminently usable and preferable to macOS or Windows.
      - simonh 8y ago
        That's absolutely fine and good for you, but the plain fact is for the vast majority of people, including most developers, that's not the case. Having a single consistent desktop with a ton of financial resources behind it, and a commercial desktop software market also built using huge financial resources, makes a big difference. Financing is also why Linux kills it on the server. Redhat, IBM and many more have sunk $billion(s) into Linux as a server OS and it shows, but that level of investment has never happened for the Linux desktop.
deergomoo 8y ago
I also really hope that the non-integer scaling was a very temporary hack of a solution and not how things will be going forward. For those not familiar, iOS generally sizes UI elements at a larger number of points than macOS to account for reduced accuracy of touch vs a mouse pointer. The solution in the existing Marzipan apps is to simply scale the output down by about a third so things seem more “Mac sized”. It’s very obvious in text-heavy apps like News, and looks awful.

saagarjha 8y ago

> Surely Apple won’t lower the bar for macOS apps, right? They already did: see the current Marzipan apps. The hope is that this is not representative of how they will release Marzipan in June.

pcr910303 8y ago
As a person who has been a fan of the Apple ecosystem, it’s sad to hear that the route Apple is taking to increase the number of Mac Apps is, well, basically lowering the bar :-( Preferably Apple can open the private framework that the new MAS uses or one that the Photos app uses (actually Photos have similar problems; like drag&drop not working) but it is much better than Marzipan, which is similar to the situation of Electron :-(

inapis 8y ago

> why use a mac when WSL2 is out and Linux desktops are getting traction? This is applicable only for devs. Mac is not going anywhere for people in a lot of industries - writers, photographers, business, smb etc. WSL changes nothing for them and Linux was not in consideration anyways. Even for devs, I can argue that Mac/Windows are preferable over Linux. Don't get me wrong, I love Linux but only on the server. Using Mac/Windows adds significant QoL improvements which are just not there on Linux.

feanaro 8y ago
> Even for devs, I can argue that Mac/Windows are preferable over Linux. Don't get me wrong, I love Linux but only on the server. Using Mac/Windows adds significant QoL improvements which are just not there on Linux. Please, not this same old tired argument. I could say the exact same thing but in reverse, it would still be true for some definition of truth and we'd be none the wiser. If you're absolutely bent on talking about this tired old topic, concrete points are what you should be aiming for instead of vague value judgements.
- hellofunk 8y ago
  Maybe you could say that, personally, but quite a lot of developers don’t. I follow a lot of high-profile researchers at places like Nvidia, and they often discuss the desire to replace their Mac for dev purposes but have not found a quality alternative. An optimistic hope is that the Windows subsystem for Linux will evolve and mature beautifully. But it’s not there yet, and even then you’re often stuck dealing with significantly inferior hardware. So Mac tends to be the standard that a significant portion of the world’s developers compare against.
  - zeveb 8y ago
    > I follow a lot of high-profile researchers at places like Nvidia, and they often discuss the desire to replace their Mac for dev purposes but have not found a quality alternative. How ironic: Linux would be a lot more well-positioned for desktop use if Nvidia would open-source its proprietary drivers. Frankly, though, I find Linux eminently usable and preferable to macOS or Windows.
    - simonh 8y ago
      That's absolutely fine and good for you, but the plain fact is for the vast majority of people, including most developers, that's not the case. Having a single consistent desktop with a ton of financial resources behind it, and a commercial desktop software market also built using huge financial resources, makes a big difference. Financing is also why Linux kills it on the server. Redhat, IBM and many more have sunk $billion(s) into Linux as a server OS and it shows, but that level of investment has never happened for the Linux desktop.

deergomoo 8y ago

I also really hope that the non-integer scaling was a very temporary hack of a solution and not how things will be going forward. For those not familiar, iOS generally sizes UI elements at a larger number of points than macOS to account for reduced accuracy of touch vs a mouse pointer. The solution in the existing Marzipan apps is to simply scale the output down by about a third so things seem more “Mac sized”. It’s very obvious in text-heavy apps like News, and looks awful.