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> Without Growl I do not know that we would have any sort of decent notification system in OS X They are right to say this, as the current Notifications system

> Without Growl I do not know that we would have any sort of decent notification system in OS X They are right to say this, as the current Notifications system in OS X is ripped nearly pixel-for-pixel from Growl's implementation a decade ago. Like Spaces, Quicksilver, Cover Flow and others, Growl paved the way for a lot of the usability enhancements OS X gobbled up in recent years. Apple folks: take note. These are real, material examples of the benefit brought by developers being on your side. Shun them as you have in recent years and you might find another OS starts to benefit from their weekend projects and innovative ideas.

TechBro8615 6y ago
Don’t forget f.lux, now Night Shift.
- hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
  I still use f.lux because I find Night Shift doesn't get red enough for me.
  - jchook 6y ago
    On MacOS I found serious performance issues with f.lux and now I happily use redshift[1] without ever thinking about it. 1. http://jonls.dk/redshift/ http://jonls.dk/redshift/
    - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
      f.lux works by simply setting a new ICC profile - right? That’s often supported directly in hardware in the GPU’s scanout system (so it doesn’t appear in your framebuffer). So why would that cause poor performance?
      - jchook 6y ago
        I dunno maybe just an older version. Maybe the fade or the menu.
      - dapids 6y ago
        yea never had any performance related problems on the visual end of things with flux (typing this with it on). Although flux is getting pretty outdated on Big Sur, so there are some hiccups and lockup bugs that could be interpreted as "performance issues".
- thewebcount 6y ago
  f.lux had major problems. There was some sort of weird issue that seemed like they were not unpremultiplying colors before shifting the colors, so you'd get these weird blobs of color that either didn't have the color shift applied or were just the wrong color in the middle of videos. It was quite annoying.
postpawl 6y ago
The last few weeks have been non-stop rave reviews of the new Mac. I doubt they’re worried.
- robenkleene 6y ago
  I’m not sure I’m following this comment, the vast majority of those Macs are being purchased to run macOS, and macOS is immeasurably better because of developers making things like Growl. Note that Apple has dropped hints that they’d like users to move from macOS to iOS (“what’s a computer?”). Third party developers can’t build anything like Growl on iOS. There are a lot of reasons I don’t think Apple will ever be able to replace macOS with a closed system like iOS, but at least one of them is simply that a system as closed as iOS will inherently have a low ceiling for innovation (not enough room to innovate on the platform) therefore this innovation will be channeled into other platforms. In other words, I think developers building features like Growl for macOS is highly relevant to the success of M1 Macs.
noitpmeder 6y ago
Similar things happened with most of the popular jailbreak utilities for iPhones. Custom backgrounds, app icons, ... really all of the successful modifications were eventually pulled into iOS.
- DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
  Right. iOS was very feature-anaemic for its first 6-ish years. I switched to the iPhone in 2011 after being a faithful PocketPC/Windows Mobile user for more than a decade - but I had to jailbreak my iPhones to get the system tweaks from Cydia that I felt I really needed - things like a Today screen, AdBlock, raw file system access for exchanging files with my PC (and for getting my data out of oppressively siloed applications, etc.) Since iOS 8 the system has had most of that functionality baked-in or is officially supported by Apple’s APIs for third-party devs. The only real things I feel I’m missing out right now on iOS 14 is raw FS access and easy sideloading.
  - jooize 6y ago
    I don't need raw file system access nor do I think most do, but using the phone as a USB drive is something I've always wanted and had many situations where it would have been useful. Apple could enable iPhone and iPad to be encrypted general storage devices. > easy sideloading Workaround available. [1] [1] https://altstore.io/ https://altstore.io/
    - vineyardmike 6y ago
      They definitely had this functionality since the iPod (being a general usb storage). I haven’t tried it since starting to use web storage (eg google drive) but used this feature in high school with my original iPhone and iPhone 3g.
      - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
        > I haven’t tried it since starting to use web storage (eg google drive) but used this feature in high school with my original iPhone and iPhone 3g. Unless you jailbroke your iPhone 2G and 3G that's an impossibility: the iPhone has never officially supported USB Mass Storage mode: it has always only ever officially supported MTP/PTP (and DFU) over USB.
perardi 6y ago
Do people get tweak-y with their systems as much any more? I used to get extremely into customizing Mac OS (as in, Classic Mac OS), and early versions of OS X and iOS during the jailbreak salad days. Now, not so much. I tend to run closer to stock, and not deal with the system constantly changing and deprecating my tweaks. Is that because I am old, or is it less common now? (Not a rhetorical question, I really don’t know.)
- mesh 6y ago
  There are a lot of people customizing their OS X experiencing (including custom window managers). See here for some examples: https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/search?q=mac&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance&t=all https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/search?q=mac&restrict_sr=o...
- egypturnash 6y ago
  Go look at any iOS jailbreak community, it's chock full of people with nothing better to do than endlessly tweak their clock screens or whatever.
- dylan604 6y ago
  It's similar to people building their own computer rigs. I built my own computers when I was younger and broke. It was cheaper to buy the parts and do the build yourself than it was to buy an off the shelf solution. It's also a great way to learn about the computer. As I got older, I would still lean toward building computers. However, today, I have way more responsibilities to be building the hardware, and my time is way too valuable to care about doing that myself. I just need the damn thing to work, and when it doesn't, there's a person to contact about resolving the situation. Between work, family, hobbies, etc, I have chosen to no longer care about these customizations/tweaks. There's really nothing different today for me to learn about a computer by doing the build myself: cpu, ram, bus, i/o controllers, etc. The core fundamentals are the same, just tech and speed has changed. My current devices have stock backgrounds. Rarely do I see my desktop as I have too many windows open doing actual work. TL;DR I too care much less about this, but understand why others do. I encourage them to keep doing it even if I don't personally spend time with it.
varenc 6y ago
How should Apple have handled this? Maybe insisted on acquiring the Growl company? I don't think Apple should have just avoided building Notification Center, since that's a big net benefit for everyone. If an acquisition is rejected/infeasible/not applicable/etc, then I'm not clear on the right thing to do. Acquisition might have been possible with Growl, but for some other cases there's not even a company to acquire. Have any other big platforms done this well? (Apple's acquisition of Workflow which became Shortcuts seems like a case where they did this well)
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  They could license the IP to forestall copyright/patent challenges and motivate creative devs, similar to security bug bounties.
  - john_minsk 6y ago
    I would guess that there is some legal problem with even referencing original app as an inspiration. Paying bounty for it would be even worse. If Apple were able to copy some app and in return mention your name as a co-author of some sort/tip you - that would probably be a life changing experience for most developers out there.
    - NateEag 6y ago
      > If Apple were able to copy some app and in return mention your name as a co-author of some sort/tip you - that would probably be a life changing experience for most developers out there. Losing your income stream certainly is life-changing. How would Apple admitting they did it change your life for the better? When you say "tip you", are you thinking "compensate you for all future lost sales and throw in an extra million or two"?
- bwilliams18 6y ago
  I don't think OPs frustration was with 'sherlocking' Growl, but with Apple's stance on iOS and the increasing 'lockedownedness' of MacOS. The MacOS community, and I think many MacOS developers accept that 'sherlocking' is a thing and I see it as something that should be a point of pride for these developers: "we built something so good that Apple decided to rip it off" one oft cited Steve Jobs (through Picaso) quote of course being "good artists copy, great artists steal". But I do understand developers who are frustrated by this happening to their apps, and don't begrudge them for it, especially when it is their source of income.
purplecats 6y ago
> Apple folks: take note. These are real, material examples of the benefit brought by developers being on your side. Shun them as you have in recent years and you might find another OS starts to benefit from their weekend projects and innovative ideas. I've recently come to a shift on mentality and believe that such sentiments are meaningless. It's almost always the most parasitic and immoral of the players that succeed and continue to succeed. The worse they can treat the other parties, generally the better off they are. It's like a deer telling a lion it should consider eating more grass. Yeah it sucks cause we're generally in the camp that is being taken advantage of. But due to the forces of capitalism and human nature, you can practically mathematically prove that your words will not be heeded, and to great great profit.
cytzol 6y ago
> These are real, material examples of the benefit brought by developers being on your side. I think it actually goes a little further. Growl is (was) a fantastic notifications system, but it wouldn't have succeeded without the healthy ecosystem of third-party programs that were willing to use it. When I installed it, long long ago, everything I wanted notifications from suddenly supported them. If the developers hadn't been talking to each other, it wouldn't have worked.
- ChrisGrowl 6y ago
  That’s really the key to our success with it, but it’s more. When a user found out about Growl and liked it, then they would request one or two app devs to add it. Those app devs did, the. Their users got it. Rinse and repeat. So it’s both developers and users who made it possible.
pram 6y ago
Is this actually true? Notifications were in iOS way before OSX, and it seems like that is the actual implementation that eventually made its way into Mountain Lion. I mean, Toast notifications weren't even invented by Growl. It was nice software but this seems like hyperbole lol
- Rebelgecko 6y ago
  FWIW, Growl predates iOS Edit: also, IIRC Growl was originally called "Notification Center", which is the name that Apple later used for their implementation of similar features Double edit: I should've RTFA which mentions my fun fact
  - Someone 6y ago
    IIRC, Growl was created because a similar feature of Mac OS didn’t make it into the first release of Mac OS X (sorry, can’t find pictures or documentation online) If so, I think its developers can’t be completely unhappy about the end result. Also, their code is (3-clause) BSD licensed. If the product lives on in spirit, does it really matter where the code came from?
    - ChrisGrowl 6y ago
      I never used Mac OS until OS X because I wanted a terminal with Unix userland and also ms office. I don’t know what feature you’re talking about and it was not a consideration when coming up with Growl.
    - kergonath 6y ago
      You’re right, but Growl did much more than the notifications in classic MacOS. Also, Apple took their sweet time to get their notification system for OS X.
- tosh 6y ago
  Growl goes way back, this is an interview from 2006: https://www.osnews.com/story/15442/interview-with-chris-forsythe-of-adium-and-growl/ https://www.osnews.com/story/15442/interview-with-chris-fors...
mortenjorck 6y ago
There’s one issue, which is that of “Sherlocking” a third-party solution with a first-party implementation. Then there’s another, which is having an open enough system to support such innovations in the first place. Something like Growl, or f.lux (mentioned down-thread) could never have come about if macOS had been as restrictive as iOS. I have little doubt that we’ve missed at least a few such innovations over past decade, especially on the iPad, due to this. While the Mac will likely never, despite some tireless predictions, go fully locked-down, little things like the deprecation of kernel extensions will chip away at this from the Mac side as well. Market-driven innovation and platform control are a difficult balance, but they are ultimately a zero-sum game.
- endgame 6y ago
  Well, yeah. Important things like tethering would never have made it into iOS if Apple hadn't been dragged there by the jailbreakers.
  - cortesoft 6y ago
    Oh, it would have made it, they just needed to figure out the best way to charge for it.
    - vosper 6y ago
      Was it ever Apple who charged for tethering? I always thought it was in the hands of the networks and their various plans. Today it seems like it's not even a feature anymore, just something you can do with your phone (or, at least for me it is: I'm on one of the cheapest cellphone plans in my country and tethering just works)
      - m463 6y ago
        In the US tethering is fundamentally different (or at least the carriers want you to think that so they can upcharge it)
      - cortesoft 6y ago
crazygringo 6y ago
There aren't really that many ways to do notifications. If you want something that pops up on a large screen but isn't overly intrustive, a rectangle with text in it in the corner next to a menu icon to control them is what you're going to come up with. And if you're Apple it'll be a rounded rectangle. And Apple absolutely did not rip off Growl "pixel for pixel", the visual styles are totally different. I don't know where you even got that from?
- thewebcount 6y ago
  Not only that, but Apple already had a similar feature in MacOS 8 and 9 that Growl was reproducing in OS X. It seems like Apple just hadn't gotten around to putting it in OS X yet because other things were more important. Then eventually they had time and added it.
  - eyelidlessness 6y ago
    Wait wat? I’m not disputing this but I came up on MacOS (it wasn’t even named that at the time, I believe I got started on System 6) and I never saw notifications like that.
    - webwielder2 6y ago
      Around Mac OS 9, they changed some types of errors from modal dialogs to floating palettes in the corner of the screen.
      - ChrisGrowl 6y ago
        I’ve never seen these before. Sounds interesting but not the inspiration for Growl by any means. :)
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - kps 6y ago
    Not very similar. If you wanted a message, the OS put up a modal dialogue blocking everything else. The whole point of Growl was that it didn't interrupt you, and you could have its messages go away on their own.
Arubis 6y ago
I still have yet to find a satisfactory replacement for Quicksilver. Yes, Alfred and all those exist. They are mere shades by comparison.
- filmgirlcw 6y ago
  I feel like Launchbar, which I believe predates Quicksilver, is pretty great. It’s true Quicksilver really perfected that motif of doing custom search operators and file manipulation, but Launchbar is really great.
  - Arubis 6y ago
    I should probably give Launchbar another shot at some point; recommendation appreciated. My expectation is merely that it’d be nicer than Alfred, but that’s enough.
- selectodude 6y ago
  Quicksilver was just updated in June. https://qsapp.com/changelog.php https://qsapp.com/changelog.php
  - Arubis 6y ago
    It’s fair that the core app still compiles and has some maintenance, but there hasn’t been work done on the plugins and system integration in about a decade. What’s left makes a nice but slowly decaying launcher. The magical workflows of being able to navigate swiftly between app context menus, system services, and web services without a mouse or even leaving QS...those are but memories. QS circa 2008ish spoiled me for all launchers since.
    - bb010g 6y ago
      > QS circa 2008ish spoiled me for all launchers since. Same. I (or somebody else) really should port Quicksilver to Linux; it's the day-to-day utility I've missed the most.
- 6y ago
eyelidlessness 6y ago
Who is shunning developers on the Mac? If anything I think most Mac users lament the dramatic shift toward cross platform/Electron apps.
- ChrisGrowl 6y ago
  I hate those apps really. I use them because I need to but they aren’t fun to use.
matheusmoreira 6y ago
Hopefully Linux will be the operating system to benefit from increased development. I simply don't understand why developers keep investing their time on platforms that are openly hostile to them. These posts were written decades ago: http://www.paulgraham.com/road.html http://www.paulgraham.com/road.html https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost-the-api-war/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost... > If you want to write desktop software now you do it on Microsoft's terms, calling their APIs and working around their buggy OS. > And if you manage to write something that takes off, you may find that you were merely doing market research for Microsoft. It keeps happening over and over again!
- darkwizard42 6y ago
  It’s because no one (mainstream) uses Linux. Developers make these projects and still want lots of users and people to find use in the products. Developing for Linux leaves you with a smaller range of users than Windows and Mac.
  - geerlingguy 6y ago
    Smaller group and often less willing to put out cash for it (besides the few who would be willing to pay substantially more to get great applications on Linux).
    - coolyd 6y ago
      This was the belief for a while, but it seems that isn't totally true. https://www.compoundtheory.com/some-arguments-against-linux-users-dont-pay-for-software/ https://www.compoundtheory.com/some-arguments-against-linux-... https://blog.hiri.com/a-year-on-our-experience-launching-a-paid-proprietary-product-on-linux-db4f9116be08 https://blog.hiri.com/a-year-on-our-experience-launching-a-p... "Pricing wise, we haven’t noticed anything that distinguishes Linux users from everyone else. They are no more cost conscious than Mac / Windows users. They are definitely willing to pay for software." As an on-again/off-again linux user, I have paid for software or donated to many projects and it seems others are willing to do the same, however it is still a much much smaller group.
sillysaurusx 6y ago
How do you send a notification now without Growl? Each time I try to google for a tutorial, they all say “just use growl.” Ultimately I gave up and installed growl, and it works quite nicely. I’d just like to pop up a notification programmatically via a bash script. :)
- CDRdude 6y ago
  You can make an AppleScript thing and call it from bash. I think this is the sort of documentation I used at one point: https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/LanguagesUtilities/Conceptual/MacAutomationScriptingGuide/DisplayNotifications.html https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/La...
  - sillysaurusx 6y ago
    Thanks!
  - armadsen 6y ago
    AppleScript does work well for this. It might also be nice for somebody to write a little UNIX-y command-line app that just allows you to pop up a notification, and potentially get a response to it. Maybe I will...
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - joshmanders 6y ago
      https://github.com/julienXX/terminal-notifier https://github.com/julienXX/terminal-notifier
- mechanicum 6y ago
  terminal-notifier does this. https://github.com/julienXX/terminal-notifier https://github.com/julienXX/terminal-notifier
- willfiveash 6y ago
Camillo 6y ago
> They are right to say this, as the current Notifications system in OS X is ripped nearly pixel-for-pixel from Growl's implementation a decade ago. I _think_ when Growl came out it was an open-source implementation of a notification UX that Apple had already demoed, either as a prototype or in some first-party apps, but it's just a vague memory. Does this ring a bell for anyone?
- ChrisGrowl 6y ago
  Nope, I came up with it and that didn’t happen.
  - Camillo 6y ago
    I think I was thinking of iChat. If someone started a conversation with you while it was in the background, it would display a small pop-up window in the corner of your screen, which you could click to start the chat. It appears in a screenshot here (from 2002): https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2002/09/macosx-10-2/12/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2002/09/macosx-10-2/12/ So the basic design of the notification UI (small pop-up window, short and long, icon on the left, click to respond) was already in iChat. Other chat clients for Mac (Adium, Colloquy) were trying to imitate it, as I recall (and ended up improving on it). This is also interesting on Growl's early history: https://web.archive.org/web/20060115015145/http://www.drunkenblog.com/drunkenblog-archives/000341.html https://web.archive.org/web/20060115015145/http://www.drunke...
arvinsim 6y ago
> Apple folks: take note. These are real, material examples of the benefit brought by developers being on your side. Shun them as you have in recent years and you might find another OS starts to benefit from their weekend projects and innovative ideas. It doesn't matter when some developers condone the forces that take advantage of them because of incentives(stockholders) or general apathy.
bitexploder 6y ago
And locking the OS behind a gilded cage and not letting developers tinker. I’m done with MacOS as of Big Sur. M1 is massively intriguing but I am done with macs for a while. Over half of my companies 2018 macs had battery bloat and broken keyboards. Bloat breaks the keyboard. Half! It’s a real shame. I can’t abide by it anymore, as a developer I feel shunned by the OS now.
- robertoandred 6y ago
  They're not stopping anyone from tinkering.
winter_blue 6y ago
> you might find another OS starts to benefit I actually really truly hope this happens. I want to see the same sort of love macOS gets from developers, showered on some/any open source OS (e.g. on some Linux/FreeBSD/etc distro). I've been using Linux for nearly two decades, since I was 12 years old. (I still remember the excitement of installing Linux dual boot on my parents' PC years ago.) I've been wishing and waiting for the age of the Linux desktop to come. It feels like it's so close, yet so far away. (I've also been contemplating the benefit of me sinking the time into creating yet-another distro of my own -- one that's a lot different, built upon the features from NixOS and GoboLinux -- a distro that can hopefully be a truly compelling OS to wide range of folks...)
- kule 6y ago
  For the record I'd love this too, I just don't see it happening anytime soon. I've been thinking about this recently I'm not not sure the (vocal) Linux community would accept what it might take. * Developers want to work on projects that interest them and provide a benefit to others. * However, developers also want to make a good living so they need an audience willing to pay money and make it worth the time it takes to polish something to a decent finish. * Some developers would prefer to keep their code closed-source. (Again the vocal) Linux community all to often comes across as everything should be not only be free open-source also free to buy - it's almost a dirty word if you charge for software. Additionally on the Apple-side of things: * There's a culture of what constitutes a good app, it drives a certain perfectionism to the final polish that you rarely see in linux desktop apps. Personally I've not seen a huge amount of apps on linux that cater for different user audiences. As technical aware users we vastly over-estimate the amount of technical knowledge and patience an average user has to figure something out. * Apple is now offering an audience from a multitude of devices. You can build your app for a watch, phone, tablet or desktop. e.g. if someone buys your app on the iPhone they are more likely to be interested in your apps for other devices so there's more opportunity to cross-sell. Ubuntu is probably the closest I see to being able to set some proper direction here. But I've yet to see them double-down and really set their mind to it, they seem to set a direction hold for while then back-down and go another direction. From the outside, it seems like anytime they've really tried to do something different or _the horror_ make some money it seems to just rile up the vocal linux community.
anonymoushn 6y ago
Was Spaces an app before it was a feature? Currently I'm using third party software to pretend I have Spaces instead of the awful thing that replaced it.
- ck425 6y ago
  What are you using our of curiosity? I used to use the amazing TotalSpaces but with recent versions of OSx it was no longer able to work. Now I've just gotten used to OSx's shite version but I really miss using a grid
  - anonymoushn 6y ago
    I'm using TotalSpaces on Catalina. The web site says it works on Big Sur but not on Apple Silicon. A developer posted that a future release will be compatible with Apple Silicon: https://discuss.binaryage.com/t/future-support-of-apple-silicon-macs/7812 https://discuss.binaryage.com/t/future-support-of-apple-sili...
    - ck425 6y ago
      Do you still have to disable the security setting? Can't recall the name. But that's interesting I'll look back into it.
jxdxbx 6y ago
Apple bought Cover Flow. And then retired the concept for the most part since it really wasn't that good of an idea.

TechBro8615 6y ago

Don’t forget f.lux, now Night Shift.

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
I still use f.lux because I find Night Shift doesn't get red enough for me.
- jchook 6y ago
  On MacOS I found serious performance issues with f.lux and now I happily use redshift[1] without ever thinking about it. 1. http://jonls.dk/redshift/ http://jonls.dk/redshift/
  - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
    f.lux works by simply setting a new ICC profile - right? That’s often supported directly in hardware in the GPU’s scanout system (so it doesn’t appear in your framebuffer). So why would that cause poor performance?
    - jchook 6y ago
      I dunno maybe just an older version. Maybe the fade or the menu.
    - dapids 6y ago
      yea never had any performance related problems on the visual end of things with flux (typing this with it on). Although flux is getting pretty outdated on Big Sur, so there are some hiccups and lockup bugs that could be interpreted as "performance issues".
thewebcount 6y ago
f.lux had major problems. There was some sort of weird issue that seemed like they were not unpremultiplying colors before shifting the colors, so you'd get these weird blobs of color that either didn't have the color shift applied or were just the wrong color in the middle of videos. It was quite annoying.

postpawl 6y ago

The last few weeks have been non-stop rave reviews of the new Mac. I doubt they’re worried.

robenkleene 6y ago
I’m not sure I’m following this comment, the vast majority of those Macs are being purchased to run macOS, and macOS is immeasurably better because of developers making things like Growl. Note that Apple has dropped hints that they’d like users to move from macOS to iOS (“what’s a computer?”). Third party developers can’t build anything like Growl on iOS. There are a lot of reasons I don’t think Apple will ever be able to replace macOS with a closed system like iOS, but at least one of them is simply that a system as closed as iOS will inherently have a low ceiling for innovation (not enough room to innovate on the platform) therefore this innovation will be channeled into other platforms. In other words, I think developers building features like Growl for macOS is highly relevant to the success of M1 Macs.

noitpmeder 6y ago

Similar things happened with most of the popular jailbreak utilities for iPhones. Custom backgrounds, app icons, ... really all of the successful modifications were eventually pulled into iOS.

DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
Right. iOS was very feature-anaemic for its first 6-ish years. I switched to the iPhone in 2011 after being a faithful PocketPC/Windows Mobile user for more than a decade - but I had to jailbreak my iPhones to get the system tweaks from Cydia that I felt I really needed - things like a Today screen, AdBlock, raw file system access for exchanging files with my PC (and for getting my data out of oppressively siloed applications, etc.) Since iOS 8 the system has had most of that functionality baked-in or is officially supported by Apple’s APIs for third-party devs. The only real things I feel I’m missing out right now on iOS 14 is raw FS access and easy sideloading.
- jooize 6y ago
  I don't need raw file system access nor do I think most do, but using the phone as a USB drive is something I've always wanted and had many situations where it would have been useful. Apple could enable iPhone and iPad to be encrypted general storage devices. > easy sideloading Workaround available. [1] [1] https://altstore.io/ https://altstore.io/
  - vineyardmike 6y ago
    They definitely had this functionality since the iPod (being a general usb storage). I haven’t tried it since starting to use web storage (eg google drive) but used this feature in high school with my original iPhone and iPhone 3g.
    - DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
      > I haven’t tried it since starting to use web storage (eg google drive) but used this feature in high school with my original iPhone and iPhone 3g. Unless you jailbroke your iPhone 2G and 3G that's an impossibility: the iPhone has never officially supported USB Mass Storage mode: it has always only ever officially supported MTP/PTP (and DFU) over USB.

perardi 6y ago

Do people get tweak-y with their systems as much any more? I used to get extremely into customizing Mac OS (as in, Classic Mac OS), and early versions of OS X and iOS during the jailbreak salad days. Now, not so much. I tend to run closer to stock, and not deal with the system constantly changing and deprecating my tweaks. Is that because I am old, or is it less common now? (Not a rhetorical question, I really don’t know.)

mesh 6y ago
There are a lot of people customizing their OS X experiencing (including custom window managers). See here for some examples: https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/search?q=mac&restrict_sr=on&sort=relevance&t=all https://www.reddit.com/r/unixporn/search?q=mac&restrict_sr=o...
egypturnash 6y ago
Go look at any iOS jailbreak community, it's chock full of people with nothing better to do than endlessly tweak their clock screens or whatever.
dylan604 6y ago
It's similar to people building their own computer rigs. I built my own computers when I was younger and broke. It was cheaper to buy the parts and do the build yourself than it was to buy an off the shelf solution. It's also a great way to learn about the computer. As I got older, I would still lean toward building computers. However, today, I have way more responsibilities to be building the hardware, and my time is way too valuable to care about doing that myself. I just need the damn thing to work, and when it doesn't, there's a person to contact about resolving the situation. Between work, family, hobbies, etc, I have chosen to no longer care about these customizations/tweaks. There's really nothing different today for me to learn about a computer by doing the build myself: cpu, ram, bus, i/o controllers, etc. The core fundamentals are the same, just tech and speed has changed. My current devices have stock backgrounds. Rarely do I see my desktop as I have too many windows open doing actual work. TL;DR I too care much less about this, but understand why others do. I encourage them to keep doing it even if I don't personally spend time with it.

varenc 6y ago

How should Apple have handled this? Maybe insisted on acquiring the Growl company? I don't think Apple should have just avoided building Notification Center, since that's a big net benefit for everyone. If an acquisition is rejected/infeasible/not applicable/etc, then I'm not clear on the right thing to do. Acquisition might have been possible with Growl, but for some other cases there's not even a company to acquire. Have any other big platforms done this well? (Apple's acquisition of Workflow which became Shortcuts seems like a case where they did this well)

alisonkisk 6y ago
They could license the IP to forestall copyright/patent challenges and motivate creative devs, similar to security bug bounties.
- john_minsk 6y ago
  I would guess that there is some legal problem with even referencing original app as an inspiration. Paying bounty for it would be even worse. If Apple were able to copy some app and in return mention your name as a co-author of some sort/tip you - that would probably be a life changing experience for most developers out there.
  - NateEag 6y ago
    > If Apple were able to copy some app and in return mention your name as a co-author of some sort/tip you - that would probably be a life changing experience for most developers out there. Losing your income stream certainly is life-changing. How would Apple admitting they did it change your life for the better? When you say "tip you", are you thinking "compensate you for all future lost sales and throw in an extra million or two"?
bwilliams18 6y ago
I don't think OPs frustration was with 'sherlocking' Growl, but with Apple's stance on iOS and the increasing 'lockedownedness' of MacOS. The MacOS community, and I think many MacOS developers accept that 'sherlocking' is a thing and I see it as something that should be a point of pride for these developers: "we built something so good that Apple decided to rip it off" one oft cited Steve Jobs (through Picaso) quote of course being "good artists copy, great artists steal". But I do understand developers who are frustrated by this happening to their apps, and don't begrudge them for it, especially when it is their source of income.

purplecats 6y ago

> Apple folks: take note. These are real, material examples of the benefit brought by developers being on your side. Shun them as you have in recent years and you might find another OS starts to benefit from their weekend projects and innovative ideas. I've recently come to a shift on mentality and believe that such sentiments are meaningless. It's almost always the most parasitic and immoral of the players that succeed and continue to succeed. The worse they can treat the other parties, generally the better off they are. It's like a deer telling a lion it should consider eating more grass. Yeah it sucks cause we're generally in the camp that is being taken advantage of. But due to the forces of capitalism and human nature, you can practically mathematically prove that your words will not be heeded, and to great great profit.

cytzol 6y ago

> These are real, material examples of the benefit brought by developers being on your side. I think it actually goes a little further. Growl is (was) a fantastic notifications system, but it wouldn't have succeeded without the healthy ecosystem of third-party programs that were willing to use it. When I installed it, long long ago, everything I wanted notifications from suddenly supported them. If the developers hadn't been talking to each other, it wouldn't have worked.

ChrisGrowl 6y ago
That’s really the key to our success with it, but it’s more. When a user found out about Growl and liked it, then they would request one or two app devs to add it. Those app devs did, the. Their users got it. Rinse and repeat. So it’s both developers and users who made it possible.

pram 6y ago

Is this actually true? Notifications were in iOS way before OSX, and it seems like that is the actual implementation that eventually made its way into Mountain Lion. I mean, Toast notifications weren't even invented by Growl. It was nice software but this seems like hyperbole lol

Rebelgecko 6y ago
FWIW, Growl predates iOS Edit: also, IIRC Growl was originally called "Notification Center", which is the name that Apple later used for their implementation of similar features Double edit: I should've RTFA which mentions my fun fact
- Someone 6y ago
  IIRC, Growl was created because a similar feature of Mac OS didn’t make it into the first release of Mac OS X (sorry, can’t find pictures or documentation online) If so, I think its developers can’t be completely unhappy about the end result. Also, their code is (3-clause) BSD licensed. If the product lives on in spirit, does it really matter where the code came from?
  - ChrisGrowl 6y ago
    I never used Mac OS until OS X because I wanted a terminal with Unix userland and also ms office. I don’t know what feature you’re talking about and it was not a consideration when coming up with Growl.
  - kergonath 6y ago
    You’re right, but Growl did much more than the notifications in classic MacOS. Also, Apple took their sweet time to get their notification system for OS X.
tosh 6y ago
Growl goes way back, this is an interview from 2006: https://www.osnews.com/story/15442/interview-with-chris-forsythe-of-adium-and-growl/ https://www.osnews.com/story/15442/interview-with-chris-fors...

mortenjorck 6y ago

There’s one issue, which is that of “Sherlocking” a third-party solution with a first-party implementation. Then there’s another, which is having an open enough system to support such innovations in the first place. Something like Growl, or f.lux (mentioned down-thread) could never have come about if macOS had been as restrictive as iOS. I have little doubt that we’ve missed at least a few such innovations over past decade, especially on the iPad, due to this. While the Mac will likely never, despite some tireless predictions, go fully locked-down, little things like the deprecation of kernel extensions will chip away at this from the Mac side as well. Market-driven innovation and platform control are a difficult balance, but they are ultimately a zero-sum game.

endgame 6y ago
Well, yeah. Important things like tethering would never have made it into iOS if Apple hadn't been dragged there by the jailbreakers.
- cortesoft 6y ago
  Oh, it would have made it, they just needed to figure out the best way to charge for it.
  - vosper 6y ago
    Was it ever Apple who charged for tethering? I always thought it was in the hands of the networks and their various plans. Today it seems like it's not even a feature anymore, just something you can do with your phone (or, at least for me it is: I'm on one of the cheapest cellphone plans in my country and tethering just works)
    - m463 6y ago
      In the US tethering is fundamentally different (or at least the carriers want you to think that so they can upcharge it)
    - cortesoft 6y ago

crazygringo 6y ago

There aren't really that many ways to do notifications. If you want something that pops up on a large screen but isn't overly intrustive, a rectangle with text in it in the corner next to a menu icon to control them is what you're going to come up with. And if you're Apple it'll be a rounded rectangle. And Apple absolutely did not rip off Growl "pixel for pixel", the visual styles are totally different. I don't know where you even got that from?

thewebcount 6y ago
Not only that, but Apple already had a similar feature in MacOS 8 and 9 that Growl was reproducing in OS X. It seems like Apple just hadn't gotten around to putting it in OS X yet because other things were more important. Then eventually they had time and added it.
- eyelidlessness 6y ago
  Wait wat? I’m not disputing this but I came up on MacOS (it wasn’t even named that at the time, I believe I got started on System 6) and I never saw notifications like that.
  - webwielder2 6y ago
    Around Mac OS 9, they changed some types of errors from modal dialogs to floating palettes in the corner of the screen.
    - ChrisGrowl 6y ago
      I’ve never seen these before. Sounds interesting but not the inspiration for Growl by any means. :)
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- kps 6y ago
  Not very similar. If you wanted a message, the OS put up a modal dialogue blocking everything else. The whole point of Growl was that it didn't interrupt you, and you could have its messages go away on their own.

Arubis 6y ago

I still have yet to find a satisfactory replacement for Quicksilver. Yes, Alfred and all those exist. They are mere shades by comparison.

filmgirlcw 6y ago
I feel like Launchbar, which I believe predates Quicksilver, is pretty great. It’s true Quicksilver really perfected that motif of doing custom search operators and file manipulation, but Launchbar is really great.
- Arubis 6y ago
  I should probably give Launchbar another shot at some point; recommendation appreciated. My expectation is merely that it’d be nicer than Alfred, but that’s enough.
selectodude 6y ago
Quicksilver was just updated in June. https://qsapp.com/changelog.php https://qsapp.com/changelog.php
- Arubis 6y ago
  It’s fair that the core app still compiles and has some maintenance, but there hasn’t been work done on the plugins and system integration in about a decade. What’s left makes a nice but slowly decaying launcher. The magical workflows of being able to navigate swiftly between app context menus, system services, and web services without a mouse or even leaving QS...those are but memories. QS circa 2008ish spoiled me for all launchers since.
  - bb010g 6y ago
    > QS circa 2008ish spoiled me for all launchers since. Same. I (or somebody else) really should port Quicksilver to Linux; it's the day-to-day utility I've missed the most.
6y ago

eyelidlessness 6y ago

Who is shunning developers on the Mac? If anything I think most Mac users lament the dramatic shift toward cross platform/Electron apps.

ChrisGrowl 6y ago
I hate those apps really. I use them because I need to but they aren’t fun to use.

matheusmoreira 6y ago

Hopefully Linux will be the operating system to benefit from increased development. I simply don't understand why developers keep investing their time on platforms that are openly hostile to them. These posts were written decades ago: http://www.paulgraham.com/road.html http://www.paulgraham.com/road.html https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost-the-api-war/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/06/13/how-microsoft-lost... > If you want to write desktop software now you do it on Microsoft's terms, calling their APIs and working around their buggy OS. > And if you manage to write something that takes off, you may find that you were merely doing market research for Microsoft. It keeps happening over and over again!

darkwizard42 6y ago
It’s because no one (mainstream) uses Linux. Developers make these projects and still want lots of users and people to find use in the products. Developing for Linux leaves you with a smaller range of users than Windows and Mac.
- geerlingguy 6y ago
  Smaller group and often less willing to put out cash for it (besides the few who would be willing to pay substantially more to get great applications on Linux).
  - coolyd 6y ago
    This was the belief for a while, but it seems that isn't totally true. https://www.compoundtheory.com/some-arguments-against-linux-users-dont-pay-for-software/ https://www.compoundtheory.com/some-arguments-against-linux-... https://blog.hiri.com/a-year-on-our-experience-launching-a-paid-proprietary-product-on-linux-db4f9116be08 https://blog.hiri.com/a-year-on-our-experience-launching-a-p... "Pricing wise, we haven’t noticed anything that distinguishes Linux users from everyone else. They are no more cost conscious than Mac / Windows users. They are definitely willing to pay for software." As an on-again/off-again linux user, I have paid for software or donated to many projects and it seems others are willing to do the same, however it is still a much much smaller group.

sillysaurusx 6y ago

How do you send a notification now without Growl? Each time I try to google for a tutorial, they all say “just use growl.” Ultimately I gave up and installed growl, and it works quite nicely. I’d just like to pop up a notification programmatically via a bash script. :)

CDRdude 6y ago
You can make an AppleScript thing and call it from bash. I think this is the sort of documentation I used at one point: https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/LanguagesUtilities/Conceptual/MacAutomationScriptingGuide/DisplayNotifications.html https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/La...
- sillysaurusx 6y ago
  Thanks!
- armadsen 6y ago
  AppleScript does work well for this. It might also be nice for somebody to write a little UNIX-y command-line app that just allows you to pop up a notification, and potentially get a response to it. Maybe I will...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - joshmanders 6y ago
    https://github.com/julienXX/terminal-notifier https://github.com/julienXX/terminal-notifier
mechanicum 6y ago
terminal-notifier does this. https://github.com/julienXX/terminal-notifier https://github.com/julienXX/terminal-notifier
willfiveash 6y ago

Camillo 6y ago

> They are right to say this, as the current Notifications system in OS X is ripped nearly pixel-for-pixel from Growl's implementation a decade ago. I _think_ when Growl came out it was an open-source implementation of a notification UX that Apple had already demoed, either as a prototype or in some first-party apps, but it's just a vague memory. Does this ring a bell for anyone?

ChrisGrowl 6y ago
Nope, I came up with it and that didn’t happen.
- Camillo 6y ago
  I think I was thinking of iChat. If someone started a conversation with you while it was in the background, it would display a small pop-up window in the corner of your screen, which you could click to start the chat. It appears in a screenshot here (from 2002): https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2002/09/macosx-10-2/12/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2002/09/macosx-10-2/12/ So the basic design of the notification UI (small pop-up window, short and long, icon on the left, click to respond) was already in iChat. Other chat clients for Mac (Adium, Colloquy) were trying to imitate it, as I recall (and ended up improving on it). This is also interesting on Growl's early history: https://web.archive.org/web/20060115015145/http://www.drunkenblog.com/drunkenblog-archives/000341.html https://web.archive.org/web/20060115015145/http://www.drunke...

arvinsim 6y ago

> Apple folks: take note. These are real, material examples of the benefit brought by developers being on your side. Shun them as you have in recent years and you might find another OS starts to benefit from their weekend projects and innovative ideas. It doesn't matter when some developers condone the forces that take advantage of them because of incentives(stockholders) or general apathy.

bitexploder 6y ago

And locking the OS behind a gilded cage and not letting developers tinker. I’m done with MacOS as of Big Sur. M1 is massively intriguing but I am done with macs for a while. Over half of my companies 2018 macs had battery bloat and broken keyboards. Bloat breaks the keyboard. Half! It’s a real shame. I can’t abide by it anymore, as a developer I feel shunned by the OS now.

robertoandred 6y ago
They're not stopping anyone from tinkering.

winter_blue 6y ago

> you might find another OS starts to benefit I actually really truly hope this happens. I want to see the same sort of love macOS gets from developers, showered on some/any open source OS (e.g. on some Linux/FreeBSD/etc distro). I've been using Linux for nearly two decades, since I was 12 years old. (I still remember the excitement of installing Linux dual boot on my parents' PC years ago.) I've been wishing and waiting for the age of the Linux desktop to come. It feels like it's so close, yet so far away. (I've also been contemplating the benefit of me sinking the time into creating yet-another distro of my own -- one that's a lot different, built upon the features from NixOS and GoboLinux -- a distro that can hopefully be a truly compelling OS to wide range of folks...)

kule 6y ago
For the record I'd love this too, I just don't see it happening anytime soon. I've been thinking about this recently I'm not not sure the (vocal) Linux community would accept what it might take. * Developers want to work on projects that interest them and provide a benefit to others. * However, developers also want to make a good living so they need an audience willing to pay money and make it worth the time it takes to polish something to a decent finish. * Some developers would prefer to keep their code closed-source. (Again the vocal) Linux community all to often comes across as everything should be not only be free open-source also free to buy - it's almost a dirty word if you charge for software. Additionally on the Apple-side of things: * There's a culture of what constitutes a good app, it drives a certain perfectionism to the final polish that you rarely see in linux desktop apps. Personally I've not seen a huge amount of apps on linux that cater for different user audiences. As technical aware users we vastly over-estimate the amount of technical knowledge and patience an average user has to figure something out. * Apple is now offering an audience from a multitude of devices. You can build your app for a watch, phone, tablet or desktop. e.g. if someone buys your app on the iPhone they are more likely to be interested in your apps for other devices so there's more opportunity to cross-sell. Ubuntu is probably the closest I see to being able to set some proper direction here. But I've yet to see them double-down and really set their mind to it, they seem to set a direction hold for while then back-down and go another direction. From the outside, it seems like anytime they've really tried to do something different or _the horror_ make some money it seems to just rile up the vocal linux community.

anonymoushn 6y ago

Was Spaces an app before it was a feature? Currently I'm using third party software to pretend I have Spaces instead of the awful thing that replaced it.

ck425 6y ago
What are you using our of curiosity? I used to use the amazing TotalSpaces but with recent versions of OSx it was no longer able to work. Now I've just gotten used to OSx's shite version but I really miss using a grid
- anonymoushn 6y ago
  I'm using TotalSpaces on Catalina. The web site says it works on Big Sur but not on Apple Silicon. A developer posted that a future release will be compatible with Apple Silicon: https://discuss.binaryage.com/t/future-support-of-apple-silicon-macs/7812 https://discuss.binaryage.com/t/future-support-of-apple-sili...
  - ck425 6y ago
    Do you still have to disable the security setting? Can't recall the name. But that's interesting I'll look back into it.

jxdxbx 6y ago

Apple bought Cover Flow. And then retired the concept for the most part since it really wasn't that good of an idea.