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Comment by uniqueid | Hacker News Reader

This blog post is more a statement on the sorry state of the Mac than it is a reflection of iOS's improvements. I don't mean that as a wise-crack, though I'm sure it sounds like one. On the Mac, sandboxing limits what a user can comfortably do, while the UI is increasingly ugly and inconsistent. Meanwhile developers focus on iOS, since that's where the big numbers are. Sigh.

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> On the Mac, sandboxing limits what a user can comfortably do,

I do development work all day on a mac. What is sandboxing preventing me from doing?

> while the UI is increasingly ugly and inconsistent.

As a long time Apple user I agree, particularly with the early Catalyst apps. But, in some ways macOS is a victim of its own success here. Apple users have become so accustomed to pixel perfect UI consistency that even the smallest deviation is noticed. It does look like Catalyst is much improved in Big Sur, and the new Messages app seems to show off a best in class Catalyst app.

> Meanwhile developers focus on iOS, since that's where the big numbers are.

And ARM macs are getting ready to get access to the entire universe of iOS apps. IMO, macs are about to enter another golden era.

With the push for Universal / SwiftUI apps coming I imagine we will see a lot more apps on the mac, if developers are easily able to port and test the waters they might improve the experience for macOS.

    > we will see a lot more apps on the mac

I agree, but I worry they'll be a lot more bad apps :( Apps that are hermetically sealed off in a little rectangle, apps that make you click-and-hold to bring up hamburger menus, apps that are missing Menubar commands, apps with GUIs that are framed oddly, apps that only save documents to "the cloud", apps that nag you to "sign up" to their service, etc.

I liked Mac apps, especially when they followed the HIG. Too many iOS apps reinvent the wheel.

> I liked Mac apps, especially when they followed the HIG

Me too, I think there is a niche group of people who will always prefer native (in the UI sense) apps on Mac, there is a small market catering to those people so I hope that doesn't disappear completely.

What exactly does sandboxing limit on macOS?

If you've avoided sandboxing issues with currently-shipping software, you're lucky. I run into them all the time. Nearly every aspect of the Mac requires priv's now, so the issues are hard to sum up. Some of the common ones are: editors that need to access sibling folders of a project, which they can't do without presenting a dialog, and editors requiring permissions to, for example, listen to keyboard events, which also requires a dialog. "Well, a dialog box isn't onerous!" I hear you say. The thing is, when an operation fails, half the time an app doesn't recover properly, and the action you wanted to finish is just cancelled. That puts a mental tax on the user, because he or she has to figure out if the action was aborted or not, or if the app needs be quit and relaunched to recover. This isn't one app I'm talking about, either. For me, this is a common occurrence. Maybe I'm unlucky.

Then there are sandboxing issues that ended or hobbled previously-shipping software. Backup utilities, software that customized system software, security tools, etc. That's not as apparent, because all we see are the blog-posts of their sad developers.

To be fair, sandboxing is probably the best way to keep a machine secure. It does make my Mac less enjoyable to use, though.

> If you've avoided sandboxing issues with currently-shipping software

I have a set of tools I use, and once I granted them access I was done. I haven't seen a permission box in months. It did highlight what the tools wanted to access which is a good thing. See all the shadiness coming to light with the new clipboard highlight feature in iOS14.

> Then there are sandboxing issues that ended or hobbled previously-shipping software.

Unfortunately this is the cost of progress, particularly around security. And, while some tools can't work, many are that the developer does not want to make them work.

    > once I granted them access I was done

That works fine for most apps. But if you need to work with documents in varied locations, you have to grant access repeatedly. In recent memory this caused me headaches with a LaTeX editor that used links "../" to media outside the document files I was editing.

    > many are that the developer does not want to make them work.

I don't know, friend, I can't read their minds :)

    > the cost of progress

I imagine that's largely true. I was more productive without it, but it's a bit academic since the option did not yet exist to lock the machine down back then. If it had, would I have chosen to sandbox myself? Mmm, probably.

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