"Its not that Windows can't handle drawing Macintosh looking buttons or something." It's an unfortunate misconception about Mac OS X's UI that it's just a pret

"Its not that Windows can't handle drawing Macintosh looking buttons or something." It's an unfortunate misconception about Mac OS X's UI that it's just a pretty skin. It really isn't, and this is why people complain about things not 'feeling' right. OS X's UI is all about exposing direct manipulation. When you change a setting in OS X, its effects are supposed to ripple through the UI instantly, without having to click "Ok". There's no "Cancel" either, because the cancel action should be obvious: simply uncheck whatever you just checked. In other words, OS X acts like a light switch: you should feel free to turn it on or off as much as possible. Windows acts like a light switch that not only requires you to confirm turning it on or off, but where the switch actually closes itself off every time you change it, requiring you to open it up again. The evolution of web apps in the 2000s is explained by the fact that web developers switched to Mac en masse. As a result, web apps slowly but surely adopted a similar model. They didn't just become prettier, but they drastically simplified their model, moved away from the "open new form, fill out form, submit form, see result" model to a text view turning into a text field and then back again, all without ever leaving the page. There's basically an entire contingent of programmers who are utterly blind to all this. They operate computers using the mental model of how the hardware and software works, and then laugh at users who feel it makes no sense. In fact, it is the computer that makes no sense, and doesn't act like any other object in your house. So I disagree that it has nothing to do with engineering. It really does, but it's about the kind of engineering that simply isn't on most programmer's radars. It solves problems they don't have, because they work around them in their heads every time they use it, so the computer doesn't have to. Case in point: I go to install a game on Steam. It tells me I don't have enough disk space available. I go remove some files to make room. The total in Steam's dialog does not update. Their "disk space available" display is basically a lie, yet it's a lie that people simply accept as "how things are".