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Mostly off-topic: have Apple and Microsoft completely given up on non-trivial changes to desktop operating systems? Will MacOS look basically the same in 40 yea

Mostly off-topic: have Apple and Microsoft completely given up on non-trivial changes to desktop operating systems? Will MacOS look basically the same in 40 years? Or is the idea that everything will be AR/VR by then and there is no use innovating in this domain?

dagmx 4y ago
I guess you'd need to set a goal post of what counts as trivial? Many of the things mentioned in the article aren't trivial. They may be smaller in scope, but size (large / small) are different than complexity. You can take a look at what's new in Ventura https://www.apple.com/macos/macos-ventura-preview/features/ https://www.apple.com/macos/macos-ventura-preview/features/ but that's not even getting into the under pinnings. Similarly Microsoft made fairly significant changes to Windows between 10 and 11, and several times to 10 within its life cycle. Unless you're talking purely visual design, in which case what kind of changes would you expect without upending people's workflow?
- jessriedel 4y ago
  We have gotten so use to these trivial changes that our expectations have renormalized. Desktop OSs are asymptotically approaching a fixed point. Examples of modest but non-trivial changes: - eliminate the folder-file system (or at least make it completely invisible to the user) - remove UI distinction (but not necessarily the sandbox distinction) between web apps and normal apps. - seamless mobile-desktop integration, so the user views them as just different form factors for accessing the same resources. (There are of course much more radical changes than these that one could imagine.)
  - dagmx 4y ago
    I'm curious as to your background if you consider any of the things mentioned in the articles as "trivial" changes. Have you worked in systems development before? I similarly question your definition of "modest". The first one alone is incredibly radical, and has been tried several times in the past but people keep asking for hierarchical file systems. It's far from modest. 1. How do you propose users organize things? 2. Already exists today with electron and webview. What would you propose an OS provide here? Many apps you use today on macOS are web apps within a native context. 3. This is already growing on macOS with features like continuity handofd, universal control, being able to run mobile apps on desktop, iCloud sync of projects etc.. Each year they've clearly moved towards unifying things. If these are what you consider modest though, I fear what you consider radical without throwing out decades of learned user interaction in the process
    - jessriedel 4y ago
      I’m not using “trivial” as a measure of ease of back-end implementation, but rather of how it actually changes user experience and productivity. There is no limit to how hard it can become to implement trivial changes behind the scenes; it would be silly to ignore or downplay the ossification of desktop OS capability just because software developers continue to expend more and more effort to make smaller and smaller improvements. My reading of your comment is that you aren’t actually interested in thinking about non-trivial changes here. “Didn’t you know people have tried eliminating folder systems before? It’s hard and hasn’t succeeded yet” is obvious and does not seriously engage with the possibility. (“Didn’t you know people have been attempting to make stylus input work for decades without success?”) Likewise, the fact that web apps can be disguised as native apps is not the same thing as eliminating the distinction at the user level, and I don’t think you would have conflated these if you were really interested in it. So I don’t think it will be productive to continue this conversation.
      - dagmx 4y ago
        Again, that's why I'm delineating between scale and complexity. Trivial implies complexity, but you seem to keep going back to scale of the change. Saying something is trivial, by definition, implies its a simple change. Nothing mentioned so far is simple. None of your suggestions were modest. I understand you're using the word according to how you think of it, but I'm trying to point out that you're incorrect, and that many of the things you say are modest are not so. You're actively down playing the amount of work and it either feels disingenuous to make your point, or divorced from the reality of implementation.
loudermachine 4y ago
Swap “everything will be AR/VR” to “everyone uses mobile as primary devices” and I think it’s a better guess. Or maybe “everyone have at least two computer devices”. I feel like the goal is to have the most seamless experience between tablets, smartphones and desktop, and impactful changes that don’t work towards that goal are just discarded.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
brundolf 4y ago
Window management has continued to evolve in nontrivial ways, imo. More fundamental interactions probably won't and probably shouldn't change; those idioms are mature and deeply engrained at this point. It would alienate swathes of users to rock such an established boat.
- philistine 4y ago
  Microsoft tried with Windows on their phones. Look where that led them.
  - pjmlp 4y ago
    To 10% market share in Europe right before they decided to drop it all. It was starting to become the alternative to Android for many of us. Had they provided a proper migration path from Windows Phone 7 into 8, and then from 8.x UA model into 10 UWP, and more Win developers would have followed along, instead of hating them for all the rewrites.
sys_64738 4y ago
If you look at independent developers working on the Mac OS, you find it's pretty much dead. Only the name programs get updated nowadays whereas everybody else has moved to iPhone/iPad as that's where the money is. Open source still chugs along though.
josephcsible 4y ago
Do you have specific improvements in mind, or are you saying you want them to change stuff just for the sake of changing it?

dagmx 4y ago

I guess you'd need to set a goal post of what counts as trivial? Many of the things mentioned in the article aren't trivial. They may be smaller in scope, but size (large / small) are different than complexity. You can take a look at what's new in Ventura https://www.apple.com/macos/macos-ventura-preview/features/ https://www.apple.com/macos/macos-ventura-preview/features/ but that's not even getting into the under pinnings. Similarly Microsoft made fairly significant changes to Windows between 10 and 11, and several times to 10 within its life cycle. Unless you're talking purely visual design, in which case what kind of changes would you expect without upending people's workflow?

jessriedel 4y ago
We have gotten so use to these trivial changes that our expectations have renormalized. Desktop OSs are asymptotically approaching a fixed point. Examples of modest but non-trivial changes: - eliminate the folder-file system (or at least make it completely invisible to the user) - remove UI distinction (but not necessarily the sandbox distinction) between web apps and normal apps. - seamless mobile-desktop integration, so the user views them as just different form factors for accessing the same resources. (There are of course much more radical changes than these that one could imagine.)
- dagmx 4y ago
  I'm curious as to your background if you consider any of the things mentioned in the articles as "trivial" changes. Have you worked in systems development before? I similarly question your definition of "modest". The first one alone is incredibly radical, and has been tried several times in the past but people keep asking for hierarchical file systems. It's far from modest. 1. How do you propose users organize things? 2. Already exists today with electron and webview. What would you propose an OS provide here? Many apps you use today on macOS are web apps within a native context. 3. This is already growing on macOS with features like continuity handofd, universal control, being able to run mobile apps on desktop, iCloud sync of projects etc.. Each year they've clearly moved towards unifying things. If these are what you consider modest though, I fear what you consider radical without throwing out decades of learned user interaction in the process
  - jessriedel 4y ago
    I’m not using “trivial” as a measure of ease of back-end implementation, but rather of how it actually changes user experience and productivity. There is no limit to how hard it can become to implement trivial changes behind the scenes; it would be silly to ignore or downplay the ossification of desktop OS capability just because software developers continue to expend more and more effort to make smaller and smaller improvements. My reading of your comment is that you aren’t actually interested in thinking about non-trivial changes here. “Didn’t you know people have tried eliminating folder systems before? It’s hard and hasn’t succeeded yet” is obvious and does not seriously engage with the possibility. (“Didn’t you know people have been attempting to make stylus input work for decades without success?”) Likewise, the fact that web apps can be disguised as native apps is not the same thing as eliminating the distinction at the user level, and I don’t think you would have conflated these if you were really interested in it. So I don’t think it will be productive to continue this conversation.
    - dagmx 4y ago
      Again, that's why I'm delineating between scale and complexity. Trivial implies complexity, but you seem to keep going back to scale of the change. Saying something is trivial, by definition, implies its a simple change. Nothing mentioned so far is simple. None of your suggestions were modest. I understand you're using the word according to how you think of it, but I'm trying to point out that you're incorrect, and that many of the things you say are modest are not so. You're actively down playing the amount of work and it either feels disingenuous to make your point, or divorced from the reality of implementation.

loudermachine 4y ago

Swap “everything will be AR/VR” to “everyone uses mobile as primary devices” and I think it’s a better guess. Or maybe “everyone have at least two computer devices”. I feel like the goal is to have the most seamless experience between tablets, smartphones and desktop, and impactful changes that don’t work towards that goal are just discarded.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

brundolf 4y ago

Window management has continued to evolve in nontrivial ways, imo. More fundamental interactions probably won't and probably shouldn't change; those idioms are mature and deeply engrained at this point. It would alienate swathes of users to rock such an established boat.

philistine 4y ago
Microsoft tried with Windows on their phones. Look where that led them.
- pjmlp 4y ago
  To 10% market share in Europe right before they decided to drop it all. It was starting to become the alternative to Android for many of us. Had they provided a proper migration path from Windows Phone 7 into 8, and then from 8.x UA model into 10 UWP, and more Win developers would have followed along, instead of hating them for all the rewrites.

sys_64738 4y ago

If you look at independent developers working on the Mac OS, you find it's pretty much dead. Only the name programs get updated nowadays whereas everybody else has moved to iPhone/iPad as that's where the money is. Open source still chugs along though.

josephcsible 4y ago

Do you have specific improvements in mind, or are you saying you want them to change stuff just for the sake of changing it?