5 ms·

How is any of that “dumbing down”?

by vosper 5y ago

flohofwoe 5y ago
Well, apparently those changes are made to appease iOS users so they don't feel lost on Macs. I just can assume that Apple thinks this user group is too dumb to adapt to a different user interface philosophy? Don't know :)
- monkey_monkey 5y ago
  OK, so none of those things are dumbing down, they're just decisions you don't agree with.
  - serf 5y ago
    unless we formally define 'dumbing down', I think that's just opinion. Just to take one example, scroll bars were turned optional with default off -- a simpler UX that's in favor of less visible user interactions for the sake of reducing user complexity is usually considered dumbing down. Now, in Apple Land, far behind the Reality Distortion Field, they may refer to the reduction of user interaction options as 'beautification' -- but everyone else usually just calls it 'simplification', which is often (diminutively, perhaps) referred to as 'dumbing down'. (in reply to "scrollbars only disappear without a mouse" , so what? That's still a reduction in user-visible information -- do touch users somehow not need to be told that an active view can be scrolled by anything other than visual gestures and cues? It's a nice pipe-dream, indicative design, but there isn't any design standard that suggests that may be or even could be the case.) tl;dr : when a user loses visible indications, and loses possible interactions, it's not uncommon to phrase the state as being 'dumbed down'.
- solarkraft 5y ago
  Maybe everything went wrong when they put a GUI on top of Unix. Maybe that's where the dumbing down started. But seriously: What you call "dumbing down" I'd mostly rather call "making peoples' lives easier".
- pwinnski 5y ago
  So you assume these changes are made to "appease" a group of people you've decided is stupid, or that Apple thinks they're stupid? I am a long-time Unix user, hardly an iOS user at risk of feeling lost on Macs, and while I have immediately turned back on my scroll bars, I was delighted by "natural scrolling," and I love that "Duplicate" makes it more clear that my documents are being auto-saved, as they should be. These things aren't "dumbing down," they're just changes from the way things used to be. Some are better, some are worse, and both of those are opinions. I think labeling them as "dumbing down" and sneering dismissively at people who use iOS is unseemly, speaking of opinions.
JKCalhoun 5y ago
OP said the changes didn't make sense on a landscape notebook/desktop.

How is any of that “dumbing down”?

by vosper 5y ago

How is any of that “dumbing down”?

Well, apparently those changes are made to appease iOS users so they don't feel lost on Macs. I just can assume that Apple thinks this user group is too dumb to adapt to a different user interface philosophy? Don't know :)

monkey_monkey 5y ago
OK, so none of those things are dumbing down, they're just decisions you don't agree with.
- serf 5y ago
  unless we formally define 'dumbing down', I think that's just opinion. Just to take one example, scroll bars were turned optional with default off -- a simpler UX that's in favor of less visible user interactions for the sake of reducing user complexity is usually considered dumbing down. Now, in Apple Land, far behind the Reality Distortion Field, they may refer to the reduction of user interaction options as 'beautification' -- but everyone else usually just calls it 'simplification', which is often (diminutively, perhaps) referred to as 'dumbing down'. (in reply to "scrollbars only disappear without a mouse" , so what? That's still a reduction in user-visible information -- do touch users somehow not need to be told that an active view can be scrolled by anything other than visual gestures and cues? It's a nice pipe-dream, indicative design, but there isn't any design standard that suggests that may be or even could be the case.) tl;dr : when a user loses visible indications, and loses possible interactions, it's not uncommon to phrase the state as being 'dumbed down'.
solarkraft 5y ago
Maybe everything went wrong when they put a GUI on top of Unix. Maybe that's where the dumbing down started. But seriously: What you call "dumbing down" I'd mostly rather call "making peoples' lives easier".
pwinnski 5y ago
So you assume these changes are made to "appease" a group of people you've decided is stupid, or that Apple thinks they're stupid? I am a long-time Unix user, hardly an iOS user at risk of feeling lost on Macs, and while I have immediately turned back on my scroll bars, I was delighted by "natural scrolling," and I love that "Duplicate" makes it more clear that my documents are being auto-saved, as they should be. These things aren't "dumbing down," they're just changes from the way things used to be. Some are better, some are worse, and both of those are opinions. I think labeling them as "dumbing down" and sneering dismissively at people who use iOS is unseemly, speaking of opinions.

JKCalhoun 5y ago

OP said the changes didn't make sense on a landscape notebook/desktop.