You can be right as much as you want, but the majority of users do not care.
Native apps are better in so many ways, and users continue to not care. And that’s what apple is just ignoring. That’s what users like you are missing.
Native apps are better in so many ways, and users continue to not care. And that’s what apple is just ignoring. That’s what users like you are missing.
At that point the Mac becomes just an expensive, sleek looking device running an OS with a fancy theme that you but might as well replace with a similar looking fancy device running Windows or GNOME - there is no real reason to use it beyond being fashionable or as a status symbol akin to some clothing and accessory brands.
I wouldn’t be happy without the excellent suite of native 3rd party software and I’m not happy about 1Password’s decision to go from native to Electron, but the core Macintosh operating system features are still a compelling package.
You can't use Spotlight to find a channel in Slack
> I would still have Quick Look
You can't Quick Look a Google Docs document
> I would still have a POSIX environment
You can't `grep` any of your Google Keep notes
> I would still have Exposé
Not really useful if all your "apps" are really browser tabs
> I would still have Time Machine
Can you back up your Figma designs in Time Machine?
Or to clarify, my list was mostly (but not entirely) a unique combination of things that distinguish the Macintosh. I can run Emacs anywhere, and every platform more or less has a set of PIM applications like the ones that come preinstalled on Mac OS X, but there’s a core set of features that makes my experience doing stuff I could in theory be doing on other platforms better.
I'm not GP, but, well, I guess I'd be curious to hear what else you think is relevant, because this is generally along the lines of my thinking on the matter too. The features which make macOS special become increasingly less relevant as apps move away from the traditional macOS paradigm.
It's a spectrum, to be sure—Exposé is still useful even if all of my windows are Electron apps (although, not if they're browser tabs). But if I'm actually just working in Chrome all day, I really can do that on any machine and have the same (IMO, lesser) experience.
I mean, presently, pretty much anything on a fresh install of a Mac in /Applications or /Applications/Utilities. The Catalyst crap aside that honestly may as well be Electron apps, Apple still has very good application software, most of which I’ve never felt compelled to replace and wouldn’t just magically disappear just because 3rd parties choose Electron. OmniGroup, Panic, Flying Meat, SmileOnMyMac and Bare Bones are still making excellent software that I use every day, and I have no indications that any of them are thinking Electron might be in their future.
Personally I still avoid Electron as much as possible, but when 1Password 8 hits, well, I’m not replacing it with something else unless it actually is somehow terrible. Agile Bits has made excellent Mac software for 15 years in Cocoa, if they went this route, I’m willing to chance it.
My real concern is that there’s no fresh blood developing new and interesting native apps. In the last 5 years, there has been IINA which replaced QuickTime 7 for me, Retrobatch from Flying Meat and I’ve been keeping an eye on nvUltra (a kind of expansion or rethinking or something of Notational Velocity) for a couple of years but it still hasn’t been released. Flying Meat is also basically just one guy and his wife who has a day job, so what happens to Acorn and Retrobatch when he retires?
My other concern is that a lot of the people at Apple that knew how to write good Mac software seem to have already retired, so I’m not holding out for good new and interesting app software on that front.
If there’s a future that’s mostly Electron for me, it’s probably from what I have atrophying and decaying with only Electron-based replacements.
Macs are a computer with excellent build quality, great battery life, and let users do the things they want without fiddling plenty fast. Like put on your end user hat, what else could you even ask for?
There’s zero self-awareness why someone might choose to buy a computer that isn’t a spec sheet with the biggest numbers shoved into the cheapest injection mold plastic money can buy. Like we’re nerds — we’re the equivalent of people who drive stripped down street racing cars with all aftermarket parts and the metal struts exposed saying “haha look at those idiots buying Honda Civics, must be for the badge.”
No.
I'm saying that the software doesn't take full advantage of the tool people have bought, -to use a similarly bad analogy- like forcing them to use their motorized screwdriver without using the motor by instead by twisting it around like a classic hand operated one because that is the approach that works on all screwdrivers.
Personally i do not even really use macOS myself anymore as a main OS since around 2011 and the last Mac i bought was in 2012 (a Mac Mini that i gave away to my mother a few years ago so the only Mac i have around is a 2009 iMac - and whatever is the last version of macOS that runs on it).
I could use OLE and COM automation on Windows as a different example, though i'm not sure if even Microsoft cares about those anymore despite allowing for things you can't get in lowest-common-denominator multiplatform applications.