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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
"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. ;)
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.
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.
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).
――――――
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).