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Author hasn't tried Catalina, and their biggest complaint appears to be that the email app allegedly has a new UI--but I don't think it does. Mail app looks the

Author hasn't tried Catalina, and their biggest complaint appears to be that the email app allegedly has a new UI--but I don't think it does. Mail app looks the same in Catalina, doesn't it? I can't say I noticed any differences. Either way, this is an extremely long blog post to say basically just "I don't like change, and I'm not willing to see change as a potential improvement to try to accept it".

saagarjha 7y ago
The author is talking specifically about the classic layout, which appears to be missing in macOS Catalina.
- amiantos 7y ago
  Ah, I see, looks like there is a way to get the classic layout back in Catalina if you want it: https://www.macintouch.com/community/index.php?threads/macos-10-15-catalina.2054/page-4#post-18968 https://www.macintouch.com/community/index.php?threads/macos...
morrick 7y ago
I am the author, and I may be guilty of writing an extremely long blog post; but judging by your response, you didn't bother to read it that thoroughly. The new layout in Catalina's Mail.app is actually my smallest complaint. I don't like change when it unnecessarily breaks things that used to work just fine. I don't like change when it is haphazardly imposed on a yearly basis by a company which has clearly stopped caring about Mac OS as far as management is involved. I used to like change more when it actually made me work better, when the advantages clearly outweighed the downsides, when progress and improvements were noticeable and thoughtfully implemented. But hey, that's me.
- berberous 7y ago
  Alternative possibility: you just got old. In all seriousness, older people are more opposed to UI and other types of change.
  - johnisgood 7y ago
    He is evidently NOT opposed to changes, read these quotes from him: > I don't like change when it unnecessarily breaks things that used to work just fine. > I used to like change more when it actually made me work better, when the advantages clearly outweighed the downsides, when progress and improvements were noticeable and thoughtfully implemented. He is opposed to changes that 1) break things that used to work fine, 2) do not make him work better, and so on, you get the idea. If those changes make him work better, or when the advantages clearly outweigh the downsides, and when improvements are noticeable and thoughtfully implemented, then he is all in favor of those changes, i.e. not opposed to changes in general, just some changes that do not meet some criteria.
    - chrischen 7y ago
      > I don't like change when it unnecessarily breaks things that used to work just fine. This is by definition what change is. It's an improvement, and if changes didn't break things there'd never be progress and nothing would get changed.
      - FireBeyond 7y ago
        Change is absolutely not, "by definition", an improvement. It can be. And it can be entirely the opposite.
        chrischen 7y ago
        What I meant is that an improvement is always a change. It may not have worked for a specific person but it was intended to address an issue for others. Backwards compatibility does not come for free. At some point people refusing to use new features have to be cut off.
        pjc50 7y ago
        Perhaps, but they don't have to like it.
- noncoml 7y ago
  So, have you tried Catalina?
  - PappaPatat 7y ago
    He mentioned that a couple of hours before your question (and I do not know how to link to a comment): >Hello! I am the author, and no, I haven't tried Catalina because, as I state at the very end of my article: >"Both my main Macs are really working flawlessly at the moment, and Catalina is beta-quality software that’s likely to give me headaches I don’t need right now. Who knows, maybe down the road I could acquire a cheap used Mac that can run Catalina (something like a 2014 Mac mini) and use it as a test machine. As things are now, I absolutely do not want Catalina to mess with my current setups and data."
- KibbutzDalia 7y ago
  Nobody on Hacker News reads the articles.
  - dang 7y ago
    We've banned this account for repeatedly posting unsubstantive comments. Continuing like this will get your main account banned as well. Please don't. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
lilyball 7y ago
I read a few paragraphs, got the same impression, and closed it, because the author admitted they're using practically none of the Apple ecosystem and therefore have already discounted the overwhelming majority of the improvements in Catalina. It's certainly disingenuous to have a clickbait headline "Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it's worth" when it's missing "as explained by someone who doesn't use music, photos, TV, reminders, notes, or really anything else from the Apple software ecosystem".
- hrktb 7y ago
  It's a fair take though. macOS is a product on its own, especially if you come from the hardware pespective, wanting for instance a iMac Pro and seeing the OS that comes with it as a glorified hardware manager. Is macOS Catalina the best OS for your machine ? Is it genuinely better than the precedent version ? That's a question worth pondering.
  - lilyball 7y ago
    macOS is a product, that includes Music, TV, Photos, and all sorts of other apps, which were a major focus of the user-facing changes in Catalina. If you don't use Music, TV, Photos, Notes, Reminders, Calendars, or any of the other software, then you're discounting 95% of what the OS provides.
- austhrow743 7y ago
  I don't think it's disingenuous when it's a personal blog, which comes with an inherent "for my particular use case". The problem is when that context is stripped away by aggregation sites like this one where tons of articles we read are from publishers and the expectation might be that the author did some research, tried different things, and was trying to write from a more objective or all encompassing view point. I have the same problem with articles where the title will read like it's going to be a regular news article but instead it's a 6000 word story on the authors journey to uncover the information and how it made them feel yadda yadda. Not really the publishers fault, I'm sure their reader base knows what to expect (I know I've learned to stop clicking links to The Atlantic), but ends up misleading the potential reader from elsewhere a bit. When this happens I think the fault is with the aggregator not allowing or enforcing proper information labelling. Not the author being disingenuous.
mihaaly 7y ago
"change as a potential improvement" Potential? Potential only?! Really??!

saagarjha 7y ago

The author is talking specifically about the classic layout, which appears to be missing in macOS Catalina.

amiantos 7y ago
Ah, I see, looks like there is a way to get the classic layout back in Catalina if you want it: https://www.macintouch.com/community/index.php?threads/macos-10-15-catalina.2054/page-4#post-18968 https://www.macintouch.com/community/index.php?threads/macos...

morrick 7y ago

I am the author, and I may be guilty of writing an extremely long blog post; but judging by your response, you didn't bother to read it that thoroughly. The new layout in Catalina's Mail.app is actually my smallest complaint. I don't like change when it unnecessarily breaks things that used to work just fine. I don't like change when it is haphazardly imposed on a yearly basis by a company which has clearly stopped caring about Mac OS as far as management is involved. I used to like change more when it actually made me work better, when the advantages clearly outweighed the downsides, when progress and improvements were noticeable and thoughtfully implemented. But hey, that's me.

berberous 7y ago
Alternative possibility: you just got old. In all seriousness, older people are more opposed to UI and other types of change.
- johnisgood 7y ago
  He is evidently NOT opposed to changes, read these quotes from him: > I don't like change when it unnecessarily breaks things that used to work just fine. > I used to like change more when it actually made me work better, when the advantages clearly outweighed the downsides, when progress and improvements were noticeable and thoughtfully implemented. He is opposed to changes that 1) break things that used to work fine, 2) do not make him work better, and so on, you get the idea. If those changes make him work better, or when the advantages clearly outweigh the downsides, and when improvements are noticeable and thoughtfully implemented, then he is all in favor of those changes, i.e. not opposed to changes in general, just some changes that do not meet some criteria.
  - chrischen 7y ago
    > I don't like change when it unnecessarily breaks things that used to work just fine. This is by definition what change is. It's an improvement, and if changes didn't break things there'd never be progress and nothing would get changed.
    - FireBeyond 7y ago
      Change is absolutely not, "by definition", an improvement. It can be. And it can be entirely the opposite.
      - chrischen 7y ago
        What I meant is that an improvement is always a change. It may not have worked for a specific person but it was intended to address an issue for others. Backwards compatibility does not come for free. At some point people refusing to use new features have to be cut off.
        pjc50 7y ago
        Perhaps, but they don't have to like it.
noncoml 7y ago
So, have you tried Catalina?
- PappaPatat 7y ago
  He mentioned that a couple of hours before your question (and I do not know how to link to a comment): >Hello! I am the author, and no, I haven't tried Catalina because, as I state at the very end of my article: >"Both my main Macs are really working flawlessly at the moment, and Catalina is beta-quality software that’s likely to give me headaches I don’t need right now. Who knows, maybe down the road I could acquire a cheap used Mac that can run Catalina (something like a 2014 Mac mini) and use it as a test machine. As things are now, I absolutely do not want Catalina to mess with my current setups and data."
KibbutzDalia 7y ago
Nobody on Hacker News reads the articles.
- dang 7y ago
  We've banned this account for repeatedly posting unsubstantive comments. Continuing like this will get your main account banned as well. Please don't. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

lilyball 7y ago

I read a few paragraphs, got the same impression, and closed it, because the author admitted they're using practically none of the Apple ecosystem and therefore have already discounted the overwhelming majority of the improvements in Catalina. It's certainly disingenuous to have a clickbait headline "Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it's worth" when it's missing "as explained by someone who doesn't use music, photos, TV, reminders, notes, or really anything else from the Apple software ecosystem".

hrktb 7y ago
It's a fair take though. macOS is a product on its own, especially if you come from the hardware pespective, wanting for instance a iMac Pro and seeing the OS that comes with it as a glorified hardware manager. Is macOS Catalina the best OS for your machine ? Is it genuinely better than the precedent version ? That's a question worth pondering.
- lilyball 7y ago
  macOS is a product, that includes Music, TV, Photos, and all sorts of other apps, which were a major focus of the user-facing changes in Catalina. If you don't use Music, TV, Photos, Notes, Reminders, Calendars, or any of the other software, then you're discounting 95% of what the OS provides.
austhrow743 7y ago
I don't think it's disingenuous when it's a personal blog, which comes with an inherent "for my particular use case". The problem is when that context is stripped away by aggregation sites like this one where tons of articles we read are from publishers and the expectation might be that the author did some research, tried different things, and was trying to write from a more objective or all encompassing view point. I have the same problem with articles where the title will read like it's going to be a regular news article but instead it's a 6000 word story on the authors journey to uncover the information and how it made them feel yadda yadda. Not really the publishers fault, I'm sure their reader base knows what to expect (I know I've learned to stop clicking links to The Atlantic), but ends up misleading the potential reader from elsewhere a bit. When this happens I think the fault is with the aggregator not allowing or enforcing proper information labelling. Not the author being disingenuous.

mihaaly 7y ago

"change as a potential improvement" Potential? Potential only?! Really??!