5 ms·

Putting myself in Apple's shoes: I just don't see the financial incentive to invest a whole lot in the native GUI story for the Mac in 2022 Regular people most

Putting myself in Apple's shoes: I just don't see the financial incentive to invest a whole lot in the native GUI story for the Mac in 2022 Regular people mostly use iOS. Many don't have traditional computers at all. That was originally the Mac's core market. It still has a strong professional market- but many of the serious professional tools (Adobe, Blender, IDEA, etc) use their own custom in-house GUI frameworks, or maybe something like QT And then most of the rest of the space is covered by web apps and/or Electron Personally I can think of... three third-party native Mac GUIs that I use on my work computer, and two are background apps whose only GUI is a settings window you can open The Mac is just... not really a GUI platform the way it used to be. Desktop OSes in general aren't. It's a bummer, but it feels like the new reality

grishka 4y ago
You know, actively making stuff worse costs money. Not touching it is free.
dangoor 4y ago
The Mac is a nearly $40B annual business: https://www.statista.com/statistics/263428/apples-revenue-from-macintosh-computers-since-first-quarter-2006/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/263428/apples-revenue-fr... It's small compared to iOS, sure, but I think it's still an important part of Apple's overall portfolio. It's currently what all of the iOS developers need to use. Its what Apple's own people use for their work. I guess the difference of opinion may turn on the phrase "invest a whole lot". I have no idea what kind of investment Apple is making in Mac native GUI frameworks. It's obviously non-zero and is likely what most would deem non-trivial, but I'd argue that it's worth a decent size investment because it is still a potential differentiator for a $40B part of their business. I will also note that there are some excellent professional native Mac apps, even beyond Apple's own. Things like Pixelmator and the Affinity suite, for example. I'm definitely running a combination of native Mac and Electron apps right now, but I still appreciate the native apps when they're available for the job at hand.
- KerrAvon 4y ago
  I would also say that if Apple didn’t actually care about macOS, the money spent on it would probably be better spent on porting Xcode to Windows.
shp0ngle 4y ago
This. People just are not building, crafting and using desktop apps specifically for Mac anymore. That ship has sailed. They either use their own frameworks and build on all 3 platforms, or use Electron. On a lot of daily things people use iOS. I am thinking what apps I actually use on my Mac the most. It’s Chrome, VSCode, Terminal. I still use Preview a lot though… I hope the Swift pushers won’t touch that. If they screw up Preview, I don’t know what I’ll do. Preview is amazing honestly.
- elcritch 4y ago
  Preview is amazing. And now I'm worried the Swift pushers will screw it up. More likely they'll release a new "better" Preview thats half as fast, buggy, and missing most features.
- Lio 4y ago
  This. I had a contract a while back that meant I had to work on desktop Linux for the first time in years. The experience on my XPS13 is not as good as macOS[1]. It’s not far off though …and FOSS is always improving. They have the edge right now but if Apple keeps neglecting macOS, degrade it to be more like iOS[2] or keep adding rent seeking nagware, Linux will be “good enough” for me. 1. Seriously, why can’t I have subtitles off by default as a preference in Gnome Video again? 2. Why is there an unused dictation toggle on my iOS keyboard but no undo key? Why can’t I copy and paste in every iOS app? Why is the spell checker so hard to trigger? etc, etc
  - KerrAvon 4y ago
    Can’t answer the rest of it, but copy and paste works anywhere there’s a standard text field unless the developer has gone to the trouble of disabling it. There are ways to make it work in non-standard text fields as well. You should send bug reports to the developers of the apps where it’s not working, same as you would if it didn’t work in macOS apps.
- kcplate 4y ago
  Yes, Apple folks that are listening…please do not screw up preview.
te_chris 4y ago
This. Ableton still works great on Mac, so do all the plugins I use. Logic Pro is still excellent, and I assume final cut is too. I often find these rants a bit surreal.

grishka 4y ago

You know, actively making stuff worse costs money. Not touching it is free.

dangoor 4y ago

The Mac is a nearly $40B annual business: https://www.statista.com/statistics/263428/apples-revenue-from-macintosh-computers-since-first-quarter-2006/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/263428/apples-revenue-fr... It's small compared to iOS, sure, but I think it's still an important part of Apple's overall portfolio. It's currently what all of the iOS developers need to use. Its what Apple's own people use for their work. I guess the difference of opinion may turn on the phrase "invest a whole lot". I have no idea what kind of investment Apple is making in Mac native GUI frameworks. It's obviously non-zero and is likely what most would deem non-trivial, but I'd argue that it's worth a decent size investment because it is still a potential differentiator for a $40B part of their business. I will also note that there are some excellent professional native Mac apps, even beyond Apple's own. Things like Pixelmator and the Affinity suite, for example. I'm definitely running a combination of native Mac and Electron apps right now, but I still appreciate the native apps when they're available for the job at hand.

KerrAvon 4y ago
I would also say that if Apple didn’t actually care about macOS, the money spent on it would probably be better spent on porting Xcode to Windows.

shp0ngle 4y ago

This. People just are not building, crafting and using desktop apps specifically for Mac anymore. That ship has sailed. They either use their own frameworks and build on all 3 platforms, or use Electron. On a lot of daily things people use iOS. I am thinking what apps I actually use on my Mac the most. It’s Chrome, VSCode, Terminal. I still use Preview a lot though… I hope the Swift pushers won’t touch that. If they screw up Preview, I don’t know what I’ll do. Preview is amazing honestly.

elcritch 4y ago
Preview is amazing. And now I'm worried the Swift pushers will screw it up. More likely they'll release a new "better" Preview thats half as fast, buggy, and missing most features.
Lio 4y ago
This. I had a contract a while back that meant I had to work on desktop Linux for the first time in years. The experience on my XPS13 is not as good as macOS[1]. It’s not far off though …and FOSS is always improving. They have the edge right now but if Apple keeps neglecting macOS, degrade it to be more like iOS[2] or keep adding rent seeking nagware, Linux will be “good enough” for me. 1. Seriously, why can’t I have subtitles off by default as a preference in Gnome Video again? 2. Why is there an unused dictation toggle on my iOS keyboard but no undo key? Why can’t I copy and paste in every iOS app? Why is the spell checker so hard to trigger? etc, etc
- KerrAvon 4y ago
  Can’t answer the rest of it, but copy and paste works anywhere there’s a standard text field unless the developer has gone to the trouble of disabling it. There are ways to make it work in non-standard text fields as well. You should send bug reports to the developers of the apps where it’s not working, same as you would if it didn’t work in macOS apps.
kcplate 4y ago
Yes, Apple folks that are listening…please do not screw up preview.

te_chris 4y ago

This. Ableton still works great on Mac, so do all the plugins I use. Logic Pro is still excellent, and I assume final cut is too. I often find these rants a bit surreal.