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Comment by makecheck | Hacker News Reader

I definitely agree with the tendency of late to have to "shut up" OS X. They need to fire the person at Apple who thinks it's OK to abuse notifications for things like "Try out the new Safari!". And the choices are "Try" or "Later"!?!? It's definitely feeling more spammy. And the only real option for something like that is to shut off all of the application's notifications (and part of me is pretty sure they'll re-enable the crap on the next "10.x.1" update anyway so I grow tired of disabling it). "Growl" by contrast had very flexible preferences, allowing application notifications to be disabled per-notification-type if necessary.

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> "Try out the new Safari!" with choices of "Try" or "Later"

truly, truly hate those. I disabled all notifications and i am totally fine without them, and welcome the regained sense of control I have over my machine.

I dread every OS X update because of things like this. I've found it better to just not upgrade - which is only suitable for so long.

The last OS X I truly liked was Tiger. Simple and fresh. Wild success and iOS-ification have turned a great system into something less appealing.

Yes. In the keynote where Steve Jobs introduces Leopard, when he presents the new appearance that replaces Tiger's clean look with unreadable transparent menus and a silly 3D dock, you can hear people laughing[1], presumably thinking it was a joke on Windows Vista's expense. I remember watching it at the time, laughing at the Vista joke... and slowly, gradually realizing that he was serious.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STuhwRwRqD4&t=2m

That was 8 years ago, and it doesn't look anything like that anymore. Anecdotally, I haven't really noticed any of the changes in the last few iterations, and I find all the grousing a bit mystifying. But in general I think all of the latest versions of Windows, OSX, and the popular desktop Linux distros are really nice and imminently usable, so maybe I'm just not critical enough.

Actually, I was wondering recently what features I use that were not present in Tiger or even earlier version. Off the top of my head: - multiple desktop - full screen mode (on the laptop) - now dual full screen mode - spotlight

What I do noticed is that each update breaks a little something, and it makes me lose time to fix it (especially homebrew, or some developer tools). I'm not so concerned about the notifications (I turned them off and never heard about them anymore).

I’m sure you also use Quick Look¹ too (way too useful not to use), and that was introduced right after Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger (in Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard).

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¹ — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quick_Look

Ah yes, the clean look of pinstripes and brushed metal.

Sorry, that's a quite bizarro theory. Nobody laughs in the video when he introduces the desktop, and surely not for considering this a "joke" aimed at Vista.

> Sorry, that's a quite bizarro theory.

Thanks.

> Nobody laughs in the video when he introduces the desktop

As others have pointed out, they do, in fact. Listen right after he shows the new look.

> and surely not for considering this a "joke" aimed at Vista

Making fun of Microsoft was something they did every now and then (maybe even earlier in that same presentation?), so it wouldn't have been unexpected.

Whether or not it's a joke on vista, I can't say, but the audience is definitely laughing when he says "It looks something like this (screen flick) This is the new Leopard desktop (laughter)"

There's quite an audible laugh. 2:21.

I wonder if it's the fate of all large corporations to make software that's bloated with anti-features. Microsoft with Windows, Redhat with their own flavor of Linux, Apple with OSX, Google with Android, Sun with Java, Oracle with their database.

News features drive sales. So it's pretty much inevitable.

With six years of experience running my own software company I can tell you that nothing we have ever done at Fog Creek has increased our revenue more than releasing a new version with more features. Nothing. The flow to our bottom line from new versions with new features is absolutely undeniable. It's like gravity.

From: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/12/09.html

There used to be a feature in many products, still exists in embedded, where unneeded features can be stripped by a configuration tool. I used to use this on desktops, too, to reduce amount of HD space and memory they use. It was more manual for sure but it helped. Security benefits showed up later when 0-days didn't affect what didn't exist.

I think more software should have that feature. Keep adding stuff to attract clients. Yet, keep the core interface and setup simple with extra stuff subject to hiding or automated stripping. Hell, even MS Office Install has that feature to a degree.

It's basically a plugin architecture. Firefox was wildly successful because of it: Mozilla took the old, massive, full-featured suite, chopped it up, then released a basic no-frills super-fast browser, turning all "questionable" features into plugins. I agree that it's usually a great idea; however, it's also hard to do well and maintain in the long run. Mozilla arguably struggled with development velocity at various points, in part because of them having to avoid breaking compatibility in the plugin infrastructure too often.

In Apple's case, tbh, the overwhelming feeling I get is that the problems are almost entirely due to a fixed release schedule rather than actual "featuritis". As it is, they are forced to release OSX yearly in order to match iOS, which in turn has to match hardware releases come rain or shine. iDevices now drive Apple profits, not Mac; OSX stability is sacrificed in order to keep iPhone sales healthy. It sucks, but I don't see it changing anytime soon.

Plugin architecture is one form of it. I was referring to a superset of software that's designed for stripping of system components themselves. Examples are eCos and Windows Embedded configuration. An extreme example is Poly2 project using it for security boost by actually removing code from internal functions. I knew a guy who got a fully functional WinXP box, w/ browser & office software, down to under 650MB by just deleting stuff and seeing if things still work. Now, had there just been an automated way to do that...

"in part because of them having to avoid breaking compatibility in the plugin infrastructure too often"

Backward compatibility often makes it challenging. Should ease things a bit if the software is straight-up designed for stripping at client sites. I'd imagine the interface level would stay fixed, though, for compatibility.

"As it is, they are forced to release OSX yearly in order to match iOS, which in turn has to match hardware releases come rain or shine. iDevices now drive Apple profits, not Mac; OSX stability is sacrificed in order to keep iPhone sales healthy. It sucks, but I don't see it changing anytime soon."

Sounds believable. I'm not an Apple customer so I can't speak to it except to say Mac OS X is definitely a second-class citizen right now for reason you said. Apple themselves push strongly things like tablets to replace the Mac's where possible. Part of a larger drive to keep people consumers instead of producers. But that's another topic. ;)

> Redhat with their own flavor of Linux

I wonder what you have in mind here (and for god's sake, please don't let it be systemd). The Red Hat ecosystem has become incredibly good in the last few years (and let's not talk about how their contributions pushed the whole Linux ecosystem ahead). Fedora is an amazing distro and GNOME has never been better for me.

Interesting observation. But fate? I'm not sure thats the word I'd use. But is it easy for a large company to do so? certainly. It's very easy.

Apple's downward spiral in software started when Steve stepped away, and has only gotten worse. I think when there is a curator that can say "this sucks" you'll get a more opinionated, focused product.

Just like dictatorships. If you ignore everything that's wrong with them, you see that there are some pretty great advantages.

I think Snow Leopard was a good spot, as the system was really starting to improve from both the user's and developer's sides. It had the system-wide UI consistency of Leopard but the stability improvements from 10.6.

And it's not that OS X hasn't gained some good features since. Once they got the bugs out a lot of the iOS integrations like Messages and even Notes aren't too bad anymore. The problem is, they keep adding half-baked things that don't change, and re-re-re-iterating on things that were perfectly fine to begin with (like Exposé from 10.3).

The ridiculous level of in-your-face-ness was basically the reason I switched from Windows to Linux a decade ago. I did run OS X a short stint back when it was version 10.5, and it's a shame to hear it's gone downhill since then.

It hasn't -- technologically it's better than ever.

It's mostly people bored with what they have + romanticizing those "perfect" versions in the past (for which a quick Google search will reveal tons of similar complaints, including for Tiger).

How is it better than ever if people are complaining same as before?

Because people complaining is not necessarily correlated to product quality. Some people will always complain (in general), others will lament the changing of favorite features (while others liking the new functionality more), and a number will always have legitimate issues.

Is there anything to show that those "legitimate issues" are of graver importance and more damaging than those complained about in the past? I've not seen anything to justify that. It's mostly people not liking X or Y UI change -- meanwhile the platform has record sales, so it doesn't seem to have lowered its reach and popularity.

When people really get into the changes, like in John Siracusa's reviews, the story is different. While they might complain about this or that change, the overall verdict is positive for newer versions, especially including the non-UI layer changes (kernel behavior, new APIs, etc).

I see. I agree with your view.

Because there will always people who complain. In the meanwhile, at most dev shops and dev conferences, most people are using Macs.

Okay but popularity is not an objective metric of product quality. In my experience, developers are highly susceptible to group think and make irrational choices when it comes to tech. YMMV.

>In the meanwhile, at most dev shops and dev conferences, most people are using Macs.

You may certainly believe so.

  > 10.5, and it's a shame to hear it's gone downhill since then.

It hasn't.

Also, could I please please please have the option to move the notifications to some place other than on top of my browser tabs? I know it sounds like this wouldn't come up that often, but it is literally every day that I get annoyed by this.

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