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The reason things are this way is that in Apple’s view, third party devs are effectively misusing menu items. Originally it wasn’t even possible for third part
by cosmic_cheese 7mo ago
The reason things are this way is that in Apple’s view, third party devs are effectively misusing menu items.
Originally it wasn’t even possible for third parties to add new menu extras using public APIs. That was something reserved for Apple. Third party devs had to use a tool called MenuCracker.
When Apple finally added the API used now, the intention for it was for full fat GUI programs to provide ephemeral menu item companions that disappear when the host app is quit. It was never intended to facilitate persistent third party menu extras.
So the issue hasn’t been fixed because in Apple’s view it’s a problem of third party devs’ own creation. If all third party menu items were ephemeral nobody would have enough for them to overflow into the notch area.
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Personally I think they should offer a way to extend the Control Center and push devs who want persistence towards that. That would afford better organization for users and allow them to better control which are immediately visible (since some apps don’t offer an option to hide their menu item).
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- kemayo 7mo ago> Personally I think they should offer a way to extend the Control Center and push devs who want persistence towards that. They actually added that in macOS 26. Just like on iOS, apps can now offer custom actions that you can add into the control center.
- cosmic_cheese 7mo agoI haven’t looked into it, but does it allow arbitrary UI? It sounds like they’re just buttons that trigger a single action, which isn’t sufficient for replacing menu items.
- sysworld 7mo agoIt's also abused by soo many devs, just wanting there app to be seen 24/7 by the users, regardless if there app gains anything from being in the menu bar. That's why many users run out of space. Most people don't look at settings or ways to remove them (if they even give an option), so they quickly fill up the menu bar. Back in the day without a notch, people would have so many that some menu items would disappear too.
- saagarjha 7mo agoI am so glad that macOS Tahoe just lets me banish those apps to the shadow realm
- bayindirh 7mo agoA couple of my colleagues have so many applications running at the menu bar, so they have to use Bartender to be able to have anything resembling a functional menu bar. I understand power users, but I don't understand these users.
- dieulot 7mo agoThere’s no statement or action (such as banning menu-bar-only apps from the Store or even changing the APIs) supporting that Apple still wants menu bar items to be ephemeral.
- cosmic_cheese 7mo agoIf they wanted to enable persistent third party menu extras they’d open up the same APIs that Apple themselves use.
- apple4ever 7mo agoThey basically did.
- VerifiedReports 7mo agoThat's not really defensible as an excuse, especially considering Apple's grooming of users to believe that they never need to quit applications. All Apple had to do was add a "more" indicator at the end of the area, at the very least. Or... to give all applications' entries equal footing, collapse them all into a disclosure control once there are too many to show. But no... once again, a simple and fair solution eludes Apple's "designers."
- osicjwjxiwu 7mo agoIf the “simple and fair solution” makes it so lazy developers lose money over putting things in the menu bar where they most definitely should not be putting anything, then so be it. Stop putting things in the menu bar. End of.
- cosmic_cheese 7mo agoYes, the number of apps that actually deserve space up there is rather small. The last thing Apple should do is enable a Windows tray style free for all.
- VerifiedReports 7mo agoI don't disagree.