I think this is all related to the iOS X direction Apple is going with their desktops. they would rather force a broken implementation of full-screen which mimics iOS than rethink it for a desktop. And you know, I hate to say it (as a long time user of Apple computers) but in general they really need to pull their heads out of their arses when it comes to the bizarre direction they're going with the OS X user experience. Imaginary linen canvas everywhere? Horrible slow transitions everywhere, all the time?
Or maybe I just want to get some god damn work done here.
Apple, we know you can do this stuff ever since the days the genie minimize effect was introduced (or shift-minimize for ultra slow!). Please, get some sanity and just put an advanced panel somewhere in the system preferences with, among other things (tabs in Finder?) an animation = slow/normal/fast/disabled option. We should not need to resort to plist hacks.
I hope that they make OS 11 (or whatever the next major major version of the OS will be) more power user focussed. With the iPad becoming more of a replacement PC for normal users it makes sense they could focus the desktop OS on pro/power users in a couple of years time.
I can see such a scenario playing out, I think iOS is by a gaping chasm the proven consumer OS for Apple. I just hope during iOS's continued penetration into the consumer space that they don't mess-up OS X for the actual pro people who want to have nice UNIX based OS with an accessible filesystem etc. Hopefully they will at least give the user more control and options so they can tweak it to their needs/tastes. I am sceptical though. My favourite release of OS X for performance was Tiger, it was rock-solid in my experience and felt lightweight.
>I can see such a scenario playing out, I think iOS is by a gaping chasm the proven consumer OS for Apple.
That's assuming the contest is a mutually exclusive OSX vs iOS game and not OSX vs Windows. If you assume the latter, OSX is also a proven consumer OS for Apple along with iOS.
>Hopefully they will at least give the user more control and options so they can tweak it to their needs/tastes. I am sceptical though.
I think you are right to be skeptical. I think Apple considers both OSes their 'golden child', especially with the absolutely massive gains OSX is making in the PC segment, and they are fully embracing the general consumer computing market. Everything they are doing signals a move to simplicity and familiarity with OSX being the system that is 'reigned in and streamlined' in the process.
If grey linen and genie animations bum you out, I think it's going to get worse before it gets better, and also, it's not really going to get better.
I personally don't mind OSX taking design elements from iOS, hiding powerful features in the name of simplicity (as long as they are still there), animations, linen, etc. As long as the features are still there and the OS is fast, I'm good. Unfortunately, the OS isn't fast. SL-->Lion introduced a sluggishness that is very real and very annoying, though I would probably never notice it if I hadn't upgraded from a much snappier SL.
> That's assuming the contest is a mutually exclusive OSX vs iOS game and not OSX vs Windows. If you assume the latter, OSX is also a proven consumer OS for Apple along with iOS.
While that is imminently rational, the problem in many organizations is due to internal political struggles. Apple might be experiencing this, as iOS starts to vastly eclipse OSX in terms of installed base and profits.
Microsoft has definitely lived this for decades (and even explicitly enshrined it in their values by Gates, Ballmer, etc "don't threaten Windows") and IMHO, it has led to their stagnation.
Apple before has admitted to moving devs before between OS projects, as they share a LOT of common frameworks/codebase.
We will see. I hear what you are saying, but in practice what Apple seems to have done is used the massive groundswell of iOS adoption as a mechanism for converting these users to their other platform products. Rather than competing with iOS for organizational mindshare and other resources, OSX seems to be the biggest beneficiary of the larger iOS adoption. I think it is because of iOS that OSX is going gangbusters in the PC market. While the two may never merge, Apples platform is greater than the sum of its iOS and OSX parts, and Apple is developing increasing application, UI, and stylistic synergy between the two, with OSX bearing the brunt of the makeover.
As mentioned above, I did indeed mean accessible in the sense you can actually see the filesystem, create directories etc. If I am comparing to FreeBSD then not really going to argue about it being open to the user (though I think it is probably a very good thing that they hide all the UNIX system files from the average user, most people I know with a computer think the filesystem is called 'Desktop').
"I hate to say it (as a long time user of Apple computers) but in general they really need to pull their heads out of their arses when it comes to the bizarre direction they're going with the OS X user experience."
I don't think Apple cares, really. From their point of view, it's all about the consumer. If the consumer keeps buying their devices us power users ("developers") will continue to buy the hardware too. To write apps. And that's all Apple cares about.
Look Apple has never had great developer relations. Never. But I gotta tell you, right now it's the worse I've ever seen.
Look to sum up, most "regular" consumers are using one screen. Doesn't matter what us here use (and I'd call us power users). The masses uses one screen. And that's all Apple cares about. I doubt we'll ever see this issue resolved.
> Doesn't matter what us here use (and I'd call us power users).
I agree in a way, and I think we power users (as a whole) are a bit hypocritical. Whenever Apple leaves the most "backward" x% of users behind, it's just cutting stinky slack (no 32-bit, no iSync, no Rosetta...). When the tiny top x% of power users suffer, the iWorld is coming to an end and Apple is at fault.
But there's actually something that we can do: public shaming. Apple has already taken some steps back in 10.8: Ungrouping of apps in MC, pseudo-three-column layout in Address Book, less visual clutter in Calendar and the calendar list panel made it back. If blogs duly ridicule Lion as the Vista of OS X and keep going even after the release of ML, I have hope that Apple will take note. After all, there must be some people inside of Apple who agree with "us" too.
And even economically, Apple should be happy if we buy Cinema Displays or at least more of their overpriced adapters.
"If the consumer keeps buying their devices us power users ("developers") will continue to buy the hardware too. To write apps."
Such an important point I thought I would highlight it. On HN there is often talk of "good will" with developers and the effect of that. The fact is good will doesn't trump market opportunity. Market opportunity is like good looks. It gets you the girl (even if you're a dick). Helping the girl with her physics homework gets you good will but won't get you laid.
> I think this is all related to the iOS X direction Apple is going with their desktops. they would rather force a broken implementation of full-screen
Indeed the current implementation is severely lacking. It's jarring when you plug a MacBook to a TV, pop in a DVD video, which starts the official DVD Player, and put it in full screen. Possible scenarios include:
- you are in mirror mode: this means the TV and the internal display will be at their common denominator, suboptimal in both resolution and aspect ratio.
- you are not in mirror mode: the primary display is irrevocably the built-in one. DVD Player goes fullscreen on that 13", while you can enjoy 42" of glorious Lion linen. Of course you don't want to close the screen, unless you have both fed the laptop with AC and have an external peripheral at hand to control Apple Remote, an external keyboard or a Magic Trackpad, which is a ludicrous situation.
The current solution is of course to use VLC, which goes around Lion's fullscreen API.
Yet I see a solution ahead.
In Lion an app "going fullscreen" really means "the app gets its own space" (I thus prefer the term "fullspace" instead). What's more, since Spaces have been introduced, a multihead setup lies in a single, giant Space all across. It follows that since the two screens are one unique Space, an app going fullspace will (under the current implementation) take over the two screens.
That's the problem, and so there's the solution: in a dual-head setup, the two screens should be two independent spaces, not one across.
This solves a good deal of issues:
- fullspace immediately occupies only one screen, with the other ones available to desktops or other fullspace apps
- windows can be moved from one monitor to an other monitor from Mission Control. This is not possible currently: you have to exit Mission Control and drag the window to the other screen.
- windows can be moved from one monitor to another space on another monitorfrom Mission Control. This is not possible currently: you have to exit MC, drag the window as the previous case, enter MC again and drag the window to the other space.
- and why not, Spaces could be rearranged not only inside each monitor, but across monitors. Take Desktop2 on Screen1, drag it on Screen2 after Desktop3, take fullspaced QuickTime on Screen3, put in on Screen1. There are problems to be solved, like when resolutions differ, but that's really not the end of the world.
MC literally begs for those four features.
I don't know if Apple thought of it yet (probably) and if they want to go that way (who knows, really). For all I know it would mean a heavy deal of refactoring of the current Spaces implementation (e.g see how currently Desktop1 is never reorderable, how fishy...).
I've learned to treat spaces as complete context switches. I think I like it better this way (though I know I'm in the minority here).
Space 1: Left Monitor - Chrome (Work profile), Middle Monitor - IDE, Right Monitor - Terminal
Space 2: Left Monitor - Chrome (Personal profile), Middle Monitor - Itunes and Spotify, Right Monitor - Misc. non work stuff.
If I'm working on two projects, each gets its own space and browser window.
This way I can more effectively tune out Personal distractions.
> - you are not in mirror mode: the primary display is irrevocably the built-in one. DVD Player goes fullscreen on that 13", while you can enjoy 42" of glorious Lion linen. Of course you don't want to close the screen, unless you have both fed the laptop with AC and have an external peripheral at hand to control Apple Remote, an external keyboard or a Magic Trackpad, which is a ludicrous situation.
You can change which screen is the 'primary display'.
Thanks for that. Talk about non-obvious. I could swear there's a checkbox for that on my dual head Hackintosh that is not present on my MacBook when I plug an external screen. Or it could be me (that time we used the MacBook as a fallback of the fallback — dedicated DVD player died + suddenly no 5.1 sound on XBox360, so I was quite enraged).
Edit: ah, after checking, the drag-the-menubar thing is actually written in the prefpane, and there's no checkbox. Silly me.
Ah I could not remember which of xmonad or awesome was doing that. Mission Control bird's eye view makes workspace management admittedly much less confusing than either one.
It could be hidden behind the existing — and checked by default — option "Automatically rearrange Spaces".
God forbid someone get confused at the expense of a better and more efficient implementation. Little children get confused by long English words. We should take them out of the dictionary.
I would love to have multiple monitors, and have multiple desktops per monitor that I change independently.
For instance on one monitor I could flip between email, the specs for what I'm working on, etc in different desktops. The other monitor can have a browser that I'm testing in, my code, etc in different desktops.
It exists for most directly-controllable animations. Show dashboard super slowly? Shift+12. Show desktop super slowly? Shift + F11. Show Mission Control super slowly? Shift + Mission Control Shortcut.
switching between desktops is slower. It eases as a much slower rate at beginning and end. I've also noticed that you cannot cancel a desktop switch until the previous is complete, and thus cannot cancel a desktop move.
Wait. Slower than Lion? Lion is already considerably slower than Snow Leopard. It can't possibly be any slower. I really, really hope you're confused. I'm already using some sub-par-experience tool to override Spaces/MissionControl to speed up the four finger swipes.
Or maybe I just want to get some god damn work done here.
Apple, we know you can do this stuff ever since the days the genie minimize effect was introduced (or shift-minimize for ultra slow!). Please, get some sanity and just put an advanced panel somewhere in the system preferences with, among other things (tabs in Finder?) an animation = slow/normal/fast/disabled option. We should not need to resort to plist hacks.