5 ms·

Unrealistic. The UI is faster than my mac's.

jfmc 5y ago
I guess that it is fast because modern browsers are fast, implement good algorithms to repaint just what need to be repainted, and delegate a lot of work to the GPU. Exactly like the Quartz compositor engine.
- jbverschoor 5y ago
  But he said "Faster". Not "Fast"
  - vbezhenar 5y ago
    Animation speed is just an arbitrary constant.
    - moistbar 5y ago
      Except when the system can't handle the animations and they get jerky.
- PaulHoule 5y ago
  Also the real computer has to think about it more. (E.g. initialize whatever services the applications uses, be concerned about the data structures the applications mirror.). The demo just has to look right on initial inspection.
lower 5y ago
This reminds me of an old story about the original development of OS X Aqua in the 90s. At the time they were doing functioning mockups for the Aqua design in Macromedia Director. It was not easy to actually implement the UI with the available hardware, but the mockups showed that it was possible. "Mr. Ratzlaff frequently would remind Apple engineers that 'Macromedia can do it, so why can't you?'" Only source I can find is: https://www.macobserver.com/article/2006/03/15.9.shtml https://www.macobserver.com/article/2006/03/15.9.shtml > As it so happened, Mr. Ratzlaff and his team had already been working on a ground-up redesign of the operating system after they discovered that their original goal of porting the look-and-feel of Mac OS 8 completely to Mac OS X would be impossible. "We were only going to be able to get about 95% of the way there [putting the Mac OS 8 interface on Mac OS X], which is possibly the worst thing you could do," Mr. Ratzlaff said. The redesign had been scrubbed by higher-ups at Apple but was put back on track by Mr. Jobs. > With that, Mr. Ratzlaff and his team's list of requirements for the operating system, which had been called overly ambitious and led to laughter from engineers who heard of them only weeks prior, became mandatory. These included 32-bit color with alpha channels and QuickTime integration, all being able to run on a system with just a G3 processor and as a little as 8MB of video memory. Mocking up the operating system's design and functionality with Macromedia's Director, Mr. Ratzlaff frequently would remind Apple engineers that "Macromedia can do it, so why can't you?"
- PostThisTooFast 5y ago
  It's sad that they even wanted to do an exact port. Also sad that some fundamental design errors were repeated in OS X, with the worst being the single menu bar that's glued to the top of the screen and has to be shared by all applications. That's understandable in GUI 1.0; but after every other GUI went with menus on applications' main frames, it became clear that their design was superior. Another ridiculous Mac UI problem was not being able to resize windows from their edges (or even 3/4 of their corners). WTF? At least Apple FINALLY fixed that, albeit grudgingly and 30 years later.
q-rews 5y ago
Are you saying we should reimplement macOS in Electron?
- vijaybritto 5y ago
  No it's just that the UI is not well crafted as it used to be
- wodenokoto 5y ago
  Isn't that basically what FirefoxOS/KaiOS and LG's WebOS are?
user-the-name 5y ago
What ancient hardware are you using where the macOS UI is actually slow?
- noahtallen 5y ago
  Even the top-of the line 16” MBPs have perceptively slower UI compared to M1 or my Linux workstation
  - user-the-name 5y ago
    Seriously? I haven't had a macOS machine where the UI wasn't perfectly smooth for, like, a decade?
    - BoxOfRain 5y ago
      My early 2015 Macbook Pro can be a little sluggish when I have lots of stuff open on my 4K monitor, but I think it'd be a little harsh to judge a six year old machine for that! This laptop's done very well really, it's definitely going to have an afterlife as a media server or something after it stops getting macOS updates because I'm loathe to get rid of hardware that's still doing a fantastic job.
    - still_grokking 5y ago
      I've seen a lot of beach-balls on macOS over the years, no matter the HW.
    - x3sphere 5y ago
      I guess it depends on how fussy you are about these things - I definitely noticed my 16" MBP lag at times. When the system was under a lot of load in particular the Chrome dev tools started to get quite laggy. However I got an M1 and can say this is no longer an issue. (despite having only 16GB RAM compared to the 32 on my 16" also). When using native apps the M1 laptop runs amazingly well, it is one of the best performing machines I have ever used for day to day use, even compared to my 5950X desktop system. Of course the 5950X will run circles around it with highly parallel workloads but on single thread the M1 is basically just as good.

jfmc 5y ago

I guess that it is fast because modern browsers are fast, implement good algorithms to repaint just what need to be repainted, and delegate a lot of work to the GPU. Exactly like the Quartz compositor engine.

jbverschoor 5y ago
But he said "Faster". Not "Fast"
- vbezhenar 5y ago
  Animation speed is just an arbitrary constant.
  - moistbar 5y ago
    Except when the system can't handle the animations and they get jerky.
PaulHoule 5y ago
Also the real computer has to think about it more. (E.g. initialize whatever services the applications uses, be concerned about the data structures the applications mirror.). The demo just has to look right on initial inspection.

lower 5y ago

This reminds me of an old story about the original development of OS X Aqua in the 90s. At the time they were doing functioning mockups for the Aqua design in Macromedia Director. It was not easy to actually implement the UI with the available hardware, but the mockups showed that it was possible. "Mr. Ratzlaff frequently would remind Apple engineers that 'Macromedia can do it, so why can't you?'" Only source I can find is: https://www.macobserver.com/article/2006/03/15.9.shtml https://www.macobserver.com/article/2006/03/15.9.shtml > As it so happened, Mr. Ratzlaff and his team had already been working on a ground-up redesign of the operating system after they discovered that their original goal of porting the look-and-feel of Mac OS 8 completely to Mac OS X would be impossible. "We were only going to be able to get about 95% of the way there [putting the Mac OS 8 interface on Mac OS X], which is possibly the worst thing you could do," Mr. Ratzlaff said. The redesign had been scrubbed by higher-ups at Apple but was put back on track by Mr. Jobs. > With that, Mr. Ratzlaff and his team's list of requirements for the operating system, which had been called overly ambitious and led to laughter from engineers who heard of them only weeks prior, became mandatory. These included 32-bit color with alpha channels and QuickTime integration, all being able to run on a system with just a G3 processor and as a little as 8MB of video memory. Mocking up the operating system's design and functionality with Macromedia's Director, Mr. Ratzlaff frequently would remind Apple engineers that "Macromedia can do it, so why can't you?"

PostThisTooFast 5y ago
It's sad that they even wanted to do an exact port. Also sad that some fundamental design errors were repeated in OS X, with the worst being the single menu bar that's glued to the top of the screen and has to be shared by all applications. That's understandable in GUI 1.0; but after every other GUI went with menus on applications' main frames, it became clear that their design was superior. Another ridiculous Mac UI problem was not being able to resize windows from their edges (or even 3/4 of their corners). WTF? At least Apple FINALLY fixed that, albeit grudgingly and 30 years later.

q-rews 5y ago

Are you saying we should reimplement macOS in Electron?

vijaybritto 5y ago
No it's just that the UI is not well crafted as it used to be
wodenokoto 5y ago
Isn't that basically what FirefoxOS/KaiOS and LG's WebOS are?

user-the-name 5y ago

What ancient hardware are you using where the macOS UI is actually slow?

noahtallen 5y ago
Even the top-of the line 16” MBPs have perceptively slower UI compared to M1 or my Linux workstation
- user-the-name 5y ago
  Seriously? I haven't had a macOS machine where the UI wasn't perfectly smooth for, like, a decade?
  - BoxOfRain 5y ago
    My early 2015 Macbook Pro can be a little sluggish when I have lots of stuff open on my 4K monitor, but I think it'd be a little harsh to judge a six year old machine for that! This laptop's done very well really, it's definitely going to have an afterlife as a media server or something after it stops getting macOS updates because I'm loathe to get rid of hardware that's still doing a fantastic job.
  - still_grokking 5y ago
    I've seen a lot of beach-balls on macOS over the years, no matter the HW.
  - x3sphere 5y ago
    I guess it depends on how fussy you are about these things - I definitely noticed my 16" MBP lag at times. When the system was under a lot of load in particular the Chrome dev tools started to get quite laggy. However I got an M1 and can say this is no longer an issue. (despite having only 16GB RAM compared to the 32 on my 16" also). When using native apps the M1 laptop runs amazingly well, it is one of the best performing machines I have ever used for day to day use, even compared to my 5950X desktop system. Of course the 5950X will run circles around it with highly parallel workloads but on single thread the M1 is basically just as good.