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The “good old days” of simplicity OP talks about can be experienced by using a tablet. Turn on, use, turn off. It’s sufficient for lots of everyday computing t

The “good old days” of simplicity OP talks about can be experienced by using a tablet. Turn on, use, turn off. It’s sufficient for lots of everyday computing tasks and can even be paired with a keyboard and mouse. Everything “just works” for the most part and it’s a very simplified version of the typical desktop experience.

machinelabo 6y ago
Except when you want to type something - which is pretty much every 30 seconds or so; you have to put the iPad down on a surface, then type it with your fingers and off you go. If I am using a pencil, it is annoying as hell to type with one hand. iPad is only great for taking notes + consuming long form content. Browsing the internet requires keyboard input.
- lolinder 6y ago
  The amount of keyboard input required for browsing can be easily filled in by voice dictation. Or a lousy on screen keyboard. Creating long form content absolutely requires a keyboard, but the parent even mentions that as part of the "it just works" of a tablet.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    I sort of agree with the parent. I get into serious browsing/searching/etc. and I usually just end up grabbing a laptop. I can do it on my tablet but it just seems like too much work. Of course, that may reflect habits and if I were to only have a tablet I'm sure I could make it work. My dad certainly has no trouble ordering from Amazon all the time just using his phone.
  - jasonjayr 6y ago
    Voice dictation .... if you are comfortable with sending all your input to a random 3rd party server. That's how the 2 major providers work nowadays unfortunately. We had mediocre on-device voice dictation when Pentiums + 486's were all the rage; (ie. Dragon Naturally Speaking 1.0 in 1997) why can't we get on-device voice dictation on these ARM devices at similar or slightly better quality, since these SoC's are 10x what we could do in the 90s?
- Finnucane 6y ago
  But you can get keyboards for your iPad. I’m using one now, a Brydge. It’s pretty decent. It’s not quite like a full-size desktop keyboard, but typing stuff like this is just fine.
  - machinelabo 6y ago
    I always find using touch + laptop configuration difficult. Hand gets tired and it is not ergonomic. Do you feel the same?
- freeone3000 6y ago
  You can just hook up any Bluetooth keyboard and mouse to an iPad.
- bserge 6y ago
  I used to use my phone as a keyboard... Worked great until they got bigger and longer, now I might as well type on the tablet's 10 inch screen
- temporallobe 6y ago
  Which is why I mentioned that with most modern tablets you can connect a mouse and keyboard. I agree it’s not for advanced users who are keystroke command junkies (like myself) but for many others — I am thinking of users like my mom, specifically — it’s great.
II2II 6y ago
Not really. The author seems to want to retain a great deal of control over the system while maintaining simplicity. The classic Macintosh system software is a reasonable example of this. Up to System 7.5 the operating system and the bulk of software only exposed components that were intended to be manipulated by the end user. For example: you could install a printer driver by dropping the appropriate file into System Folder:Extensions or install a font by dropping the appropriate file into System Folder:Fonts. If you wanted to remove a component, you could drag it to the trash. While you would lose access to a particular feature, everything else would continue to function. Much of that was facilitated by structured files, since everything could be bundled into the component's resource fork. Application software behaved in much the same way. Of course, that changed around System 7.5. The function of the various components were less evident than a printer driver, font, or application dictionary. Dependencies increasingly became things that must exist for the software to function, rather than being optional features. Mac OS eventually dropped the concept of resource forks, so things that used to be contained in one file were distributed across many. There are many reasons for those changes and the complexity of modern software likely makes returning to that old model impractical, if not impossible. That being said, for all of the improvements we have seen a lot of control has been lost.
- flenserboy 6y ago
  System 6 was pretty much the pinnacle point for combining ease of use with space for tinkering. Something like that (which is what the author seems to be longing for) combined with solid, multitasking underpinnings, would be a welcome player in the current landscape.
  - II2II 6y ago
    You reminded me of an interesting feature in System 6: it was possible to turn multitasking off. I found the feature useful when it came down to crunch time in my university studies. Just as people today talk about disconnecting from the Internet when they need a distraction free work environment, I disabled multitasking. As for System 6 being the pinnacle, I have a hard time deciding between System 6 and System 7.1. The early versions of System 7 added a few quality-of-life improvements while maintaining most of the simplicity of System 6. System 7.5 (or maybe System 7.1 Pro) is when the Macintosh System Software went off the rails in my opinion.

machinelabo 6y ago

Except when you want to type something - which is pretty much every 30 seconds or so; you have to put the iPad down on a surface, then type it with your fingers and off you go. If I am using a pencil, it is annoying as hell to type with one hand. iPad is only great for taking notes + consuming long form content. Browsing the internet requires keyboard input.

lolinder 6y ago
The amount of keyboard input required for browsing can be easily filled in by voice dictation. Or a lousy on screen keyboard. Creating long form content absolutely requires a keyboard, but the parent even mentions that as part of the "it just works" of a tablet.
- ghaff 6y ago
  I sort of agree with the parent. I get into serious browsing/searching/etc. and I usually just end up grabbing a laptop. I can do it on my tablet but it just seems like too much work. Of course, that may reflect habits and if I were to only have a tablet I'm sure I could make it work. My dad certainly has no trouble ordering from Amazon all the time just using his phone.
- jasonjayr 6y ago
  Voice dictation .... if you are comfortable with sending all your input to a random 3rd party server. That's how the 2 major providers work nowadays unfortunately. We had mediocre on-device voice dictation when Pentiums + 486's were all the rage; (ie. Dragon Naturally Speaking 1.0 in 1997) why can't we get on-device voice dictation on these ARM devices at similar or slightly better quality, since these SoC's are 10x what we could do in the 90s?
Finnucane 6y ago
But you can get keyboards for your iPad. I’m using one now, a Brydge. It’s pretty decent. It’s not quite like a full-size desktop keyboard, but typing stuff like this is just fine.
- machinelabo 6y ago
  I always find using touch + laptop configuration difficult. Hand gets tired and it is not ergonomic. Do you feel the same?
freeone3000 6y ago
You can just hook up any Bluetooth keyboard and mouse to an iPad.
bserge 6y ago
I used to use my phone as a keyboard... Worked great until they got bigger and longer, now I might as well type on the tablet's 10 inch screen
temporallobe 6y ago
Which is why I mentioned that with most modern tablets you can connect a mouse and keyboard. I agree it’s not for advanced users who are keystroke command junkies (like myself) but for many others — I am thinking of users like my mom, specifically — it’s great.

II2II 6y ago

Not really. The author seems to want to retain a great deal of control over the system while maintaining simplicity. The classic Macintosh system software is a reasonable example of this. Up to System 7.5 the operating system and the bulk of software only exposed components that were intended to be manipulated by the end user. For example: you could install a printer driver by dropping the appropriate file into System Folder:Extensions or install a font by dropping the appropriate file into System Folder:Fonts. If you wanted to remove a component, you could drag it to the trash. While you would lose access to a particular feature, everything else would continue to function. Much of that was facilitated by structured files, since everything could be bundled into the component's resource fork. Application software behaved in much the same way. Of course, that changed around System 7.5. The function of the various components were less evident than a printer driver, font, or application dictionary. Dependencies increasingly became things that must exist for the software to function, rather than being optional features. Mac OS eventually dropped the concept of resource forks, so things that used to be contained in one file were distributed across many. There are many reasons for those changes and the complexity of modern software likely makes returning to that old model impractical, if not impossible. That being said, for all of the improvements we have seen a lot of control has been lost.

flenserboy 6y ago
System 6 was pretty much the pinnacle point for combining ease of use with space for tinkering. Something like that (which is what the author seems to be longing for) combined with solid, multitasking underpinnings, would be a welcome player in the current landscape.
- II2II 6y ago
  You reminded me of an interesting feature in System 6: it was possible to turn multitasking off. I found the feature useful when it came down to crunch time in my university studies. Just as people today talk about disconnecting from the Internet when they need a distraction free work environment, I disabled multitasking. As for System 6 being the pinnacle, I have a hard time deciding between System 6 and System 7.1. The early versions of System 7 added a few quality-of-life improvements while maintaining most of the simplicity of System 6. System 7.5 (or maybe System 7.1 Pro) is when the Macintosh System Software went off the rails in my opinion.