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Comment by JumpCrisscross | Hacker News Reader

> Stop changing the UI like you’re working at Hermès. It’s not fashion.

Of course it is. Our phones are intimately close to us. Physically, cognitively, socially and even emotionally. They may be the most widely-owned intimately-connected object humans have ever invented outside religion.

Our computers don't occupy as close of a niche. But they're in a similar space.

I agree with your observation that the new OS feels like molasses. I wish they went for a "snappy" feel. (Though keyboard shortcuts get around that.) But ignoring that Macs and iPhones are objects of fashion as well as computing devices misses a deep part of what Jobs saw that technologists missed.

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I'm surprised they're getting rid of long held keyboard shortcut conventions though. Previously, modal popup options (i.e. for saving docs) could be selected via Option-letter, i.e. "Save _a_ll" could be selected with Option-a. Their new popups which may or may not be prettier force you to either use the mouse or turn on "Use keyboard navigation to move focus between controls" globally and tab around. Neither of these options is as elegant as being able to select what you want with a single command.

In Apple's defence, I've been exclusively a mac user (work and personal) for going-on eight years now and I had no idea about the Option-letter shortcut. I've always found keyboard nav within modal popups confusing. I consider myself lucky if hitting Space selects the primary button. Doesn't sound like the change is necessarily an improvement, though.

Wow, I didn’t know about that either. And yet Windows 95 had this solved: just show the shortcut letter underlined and/or bolder.

Even Windows 3.11, NT 3.51 did this... and my Atari ST... probably windows 1.0 even because a mouse was not always guaranteed to be attached and/or working on early PC's. In my case in the mid 90's I remember I sacrificed the serial port the mouse was attached to run another modem for dial-in access to our officer on NT 3.51 server... THAT tought me fast how to get around a windows desktop with the keyboard - and it impressed me you could access everything - switching windows, menus, etc without getting "stuck" . With a mac, your computer would be useless, or at best infuriating (ie using some plug in to slowly nudge the pointer around the screen with arrow keys....)

Apple never did a good job with this. Probably because their GUI machines always came with a mouse. Microsoft Windows was always mouse optional; the 'settings' panels are a lot harder to use with a keyboard than the 'control panel' settings were though.

MacOS used to show the keys when you held down the command key, but they foolishly removed that a while ago.

I agree: this kind of thing is infuriating because it's such a slowdown to have to go touch the mouse and find the pointer on the screen. Really interrupts the workflow.

The stopwatch consistently proves it takes less time than using the keyboard. Apple's HCI research showed that people "lose" the time it takes to hunt and acquire the keyboard shortcuts.

So don't use it? Why prevent people from using their computer how they would like.

assuming you're referring to https://www.asktog.com/TOI/toi06KeyboardVMouse1.html, I find this dubious for a number of reasons and would like to see Tog's methods and data. for example if I want to cycle through undo, I can hold down command and hit Z and shift-Z as many times as I want, as quickly as my fingers can press the keys. acquiring the menu item for this over and over would get tiresome quickly. similarly with opening new tabs and switching between them. I suspect his data only holds for inexperienced users using typical shortcuts in typical applications, not for expert typists who spend all day with their hands on the keyboard. the amount of complicated text manipulation I can do at speed with keys in emacs and vim would be absolutely infeasible if I were clicking through some massive menu.

> Apple's HCI research showed that people "lose" the time it takes to hunt and acquire the keyboard shortcuts.

This may be the case for "casual" computer users, but not for "power" users.

I always found that study unconvincing. I am sure there are people who need to look at the keyboard but surely anyone who leaves their hands on the keyboard all the time and never looks down finds the keys instinctively.

Agreed. I wrote a whole post on Apple and fashion. I'm sympathetic to the complaints about Apple's obsession with aesthetics, but the obsession is certainly motivated by what people want.

https://horriblyunderqualified.com/posts/apple-and-fashion/

> but the obsession is certainly motivated by what people want.

that may be true, but businesses would be keen to also give us what we need more than just what we want... thats how you get "faster horses" vs the automobile

> It’s not fashion.

For the most part, you are correct. Yes there are design trends, but that isn't the primary factor here. Staff designers have to justify their existence by making changes to established design patterns. They don't have to be good, just different.

Bonus points for following a public design trend, but so long as the visual diff is big enough, you get your pay check.

> Staff designers have to justify their existence by making changes to established design patterns.

Yet another example of the bullshit jobs David Graeber warned us about.

>> Stop changing the UI like you’re working at Hermès. It’s not fashion.

> Of course it is. Our phones are intimately close to us. Physically, cognitively, socially and even emotionally. They may be the most widely-owned intimately-connected object humans have ever invented outside religion.

"Phone" =/= "UI"

but that said, I'm actually puzzled as to how "fashion" plays such a central role in your model of human society. Even if UI was the fetish object (which it is not) in what sort of cultural matrix does the core fetish object mutate constantly "like fashion"?

Well said.

I think the beauty of the iPhone lies in its elegance, but I suspect I'll always code on my Linux computer.

But one can choose to ignore fashion and wear comfortable clothes.

Apple has chosen to make everyone live in its crazy world. Letting users skin the OS would be a better choice.

Usual answer is: go buy other vendor product.

Judging from HN posts that's what a lot of people are doing

Judging from news about sales and profits that’s what a lot more people are not doing.

Letting users skin the OS would be a better choice.

There's a huge amount of skinning going on with iOS 14 now [1].

[1]: https://mashable.com/article/how-to-customize-ios14-home-scr...

The proximity is exactly why I don’t want it to change.

I think Apple continues to push the manufacturing precision of their devices. Some of the bezel gaps and tolerances are impossibly precise and tight. That's a positive change on the axis of luxury.

There is an orthogonal axis - which is functionalism. You can continue to make products that are both luxurious and functional. See Olivetti (Sottsass), Braun (Rams), Herman Miller, Vitra, USM, etc. I think they are pretty fashionable products if we considered their popularity and some of them are in MoMA as iconic designs. Apple seems to be going negative on the axis of functionlism past few years. What if I told you that you don't need to make something look ugly to make it functional, utilitarian and usable?

I think they can make UI very marketable + functional if they hired the right folks. In fact, Apple is going back to skeumorphism (hey, its called neuomorphic UI now). Have you seen the battery icon? This kind of trend chasing without any purpose is my main gripe. Also, the windows 95 comment was sort of tongue-in-cheek to exemplify how bloated modern operating systems have become.

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