As a non Mac user I was hoping he would give more examples of the specific implantations he objects to. I use Windows and Linux, and am more used to criticisms against Windows in how it is...
As a non Mac user I was hoping he would give more examples of the specific implantations he objects to. I use Windows and Linux, and am more used to criticisms against Windows in how it is changing to support less sophisticated users.
In a way, I think the world is sort of catching up to tech companies, and not always in a good way, where scrutiny is applied to tech providers that don't go to great pains to protect unsophisticated customers.
Precisely. Apple is free to make it a PITA so non-technical users don't get bamboozled into enabling it. But it should be trivial for a technical user to jump through the hoops to say that they...
Precisely. Apple is free to make it a PITA so non-technical users don't get bamboozled into enabling it. But it should be trivial for a technical user to jump through the hoops to say that they want to run any software, without restrictions.
Of course, I feel the same about iOS, so it's unlikely that Apple will do this in macOS. I suspect they're likely to make it even more annoying!
Part of the issue here, I think, is the increased potential for blowback that comes with greater popularity and serving larger numbers of less-technically-capable users. If the OS does nothing to...
Part of the issue here, I think, is the increased potential for blowback that comes with greater popularity and serving larger numbers of less-technically-capable users. If the OS does nothing to protect these users from catastrophic slip-ups, the blame will fall on Apple and Macs/iDevices will gain an unwanted market-limiting reputation as being for experienced users only.
This used to be less of a problem because far fewer people were using computers in the first place, and the handful of non-technical users who sought not only to buy a computer, but specifically a Mac somewhat self-selected for not being afraid to get their hands dirty learning the ins and outs of things, including personal responsibility for screwups. Mac OS still tried to limit the likelihood of these screwups of course, but it didn't need to be stringent because of this.
It makes me wonder if a single platform can serve both non-technical newbies and power users equally well in the modern age. Seems like compromise is difficult to avoid.
One of the things I liked about the early Chromebooks was that they had a developer switch inside the case you could flip, and then hold a key combo at a certain point during boot, and enable...
One of the things I liked about the early Chromebooks was that they had a developer switch inside the case you could flip, and then hold a key combo at a certain point during boot, and enable developer mode. At that point you could run your own shells and really dig into the system. Something like that for Mac's might not be a bad way for Apple to let power users really drop the bumper guards.
Many of the safeguards can already be disabled by booting into the recovery environment, changing some settings in a security settings app, and/or running a terminal command (both of which require...
Many of the safeguards can already be disabled by booting into the recovery environment, changing some settings in a security settings app, and/or running a terminal command (both of which require an admin password). That's probably difficult enough for hapless users to stumble into.
If you disable all these, it won't remove all the nags, but in many ways it'll revert things to a "classic" OS X style environment without an immutable OS image and other measures for making sure the OS remains uncorrupted and not tinkered with and you can sudo rm -rf / to your heart's content. I don't really like running this way though, because it feels a bit like walking around naked with all the exploits flying around these days.
Yeah, I get not wanting to disable protections. I tend to run a lot of VM's and containers to isolate things I'm worried about having on my main user system. That and I got tired of cluttering my...
Yeah, I get not wanting to disable protections. I tend to run a lot of VM's and containers to isolate things I'm worried about having on my main user system. That and I got tired of cluttering my system with millions of runtime libraries and software chains that could interfere with my general purpose applications.
But for most users that's too technical a solution, so immutable OS's and signed software nags keeps them safe(er).
Serious question: when did the popular perception and expectation of computers shift from being these arcane things you had to learn how to use, to machines that should be intuitive to use and...
It makes me wonder if a single platform can serve both non-technical newbies and power users equally well in the modern age
Serious question: when did the popular perception and expectation of computers shift from being these arcane things you had to learn how to use, to machines that should be intuitive to use and "just work"?
I think I was introduced to computers (general purpose computers, not a smartphone or tablet) at too young of an age to ever really be able to see computers as something I didn't already know how to use. Kind of a like a kid who starts working with their dad in the garage at a young age. By the time they're an adult, cars are just something they've always known how to work on. They can't understand what it's truly like to not know how to work on cars because they quite literally cannot remember a time that they didn't. That's basically me when I am trying to answer this question for myself.
If I had to guess though, I'd say the answer has to do with old Macintosh stuff from the late 80s or 90s, or maybe it really was the phones all along?
I bring this up though, because I'm not sure that moving away from the popular perception of computers as "arcane things that must be learned" was a great idea. I think we've swung way too far in the other direction now, where the popular expectation is almost entitled, in how strongly computers are expected to "just work", be intuitive, and if you can't figure something out the first time without help then it's just "bad design" or whatever. I think that's a super unhealthy and unrealistic way to think about computers and their design.
Ultimately, I don't think talking about the design of computers and software in terms of how intuitive it is or how easy it is to use, is the right way to think about the fundamentals of using computers. I don't think it's a matter of being easy or hard or confusing at all really. I think it just comes down to conviviality.
And to be clear, when I say computers should be convivial, that isn't just my opinion. That is (or was) a popular belief that had an overwhelming influence on the design of personal computers in the 70s and 80s. We can still see hints of that convivial nature today. Like when you get a new iPhone, and your setting it up for the first time, there's the fancy boot logo, and it transfer your stuff from the old phone like magic. You have this brand new phone in your hands, but somehow it's always been yours because all of your stuff is already on it, all the photos you cherish, the people you love, your conversations with friends. That entire experience, that little ritual you perform whenever you get a new iPhone, it's convivial.
And admittedly a lot of the conviviality of that ritual does come from the "just works" tech magic that goes on in the background. The automatic transfer of your data from your old phone to the new one, and so on.
But then take another example from a hyper nerd like me, who uses an arcane distribution of an arcane operating system to manage all of his computers declaratively from a single text file. You can't explain this setup to regular people, I've tried, they don't get it. This isn't something that "just works". It's difficult to set up, even more difficult to actually understand. Yet, it is configurable, reliable, and transferable. I can put this magic text file on any computer and that computer automatically becomes mine with all of my files and programs and everything that makes the digital version of me me is there.
That too is convivial, because conviviality isn't about easy or hard or simple or complicated. Conviviality is about fun and autonomy and creativity. Is it really any wonder that we're having this discussion now, about the muddled nature of computers, when those things, the fun and creativity and autonomy of computers and especially the internet, barely exist anymore?
I don't really know when things went wrong. It probably wasn't the Macintosh in the 90s, it probably wasn't the phones. It was probably economics and politics and law and civilization like always.
I'm going to drop this oldie but goodie I witnessed this shift in real time in the USA between me and my siblings starting around 2000. The general-purpose computing classes where we learned to...
When it became apparent that computers were going to be important, the UK Government recognised that ICT should probably become part of the core curriculum in schools. Being a bunch of IT illiterates themselves, the politicians and advisers turned to industry to ask what should be included in the new curriculum. At the time, there was only one industry and it was the Microsoft monopoly. <sarcasm>Microsoft thought long and hard about what should be included in the curriculum and after careful deliberation they advised that students should really learn how to use office software</sarcasm>. And so the curriculum was born. <sarcasm>Schools naturally searched long and hard for appropriate office software to teach with, and after much care they chose Microsoft Office</sarcasm>. So since 2000 schools have been teaching students Microsoft skills (Adobe skills were introduced a little later).
I witnessed this shift in real time in the USA between me and my siblings starting around 2000. The general-purpose computing classes where we learned to write HTML by hand were replaced with Microsoft Office training classes inside of 6 years. It was sad.
My perspective as someone who was born in the late 80s and grew up through the 90s and 00s is biased, but I don't think it was with the 80s/90s Mac. Though that was a lot less arcane and more...
My perspective as someone who was born in the late 80s and grew up through the 90s and 00s is biased, but I don't think it was with the 80s/90s Mac. Though that was a lot less arcane and more intuitive than DOS/Windows was in that era, it still had plenty of ways that users could accidentally goof things up pretty badly, some of which are hinted at in the article. One of the most common was accidentally installing conflicting extensions, each of which modified the in-memory copy of the system and could easily step on each others' toes, rendering the system unstable or fully unbootable. It was easy to fix if you knew what you were doing (hold down Shift while booting to temporarily disable extensions, then remove the conflicting extension), but if you didn't know you were stuck.
The exact location of the line is hard to pin down. It's fuzzy. Maybe with Windows 8, which tried to shoehorn a "tablet OS" sort of experience onto all desktop and laptop PCs. Though this ultimately failed, aspects of that tabletification linger even now.
As for computers "just working", I think this became more important as non-specialist general populous started to be expected to be able to use them reasonably effectively with little or no training. OSes that companies can't sit a novice in front of and have them be productive in short order are going to lose out on that business, and nobody selling them wants that.
On the surface, this does sound reasonable. The question though, also raised in the article, is if this was not already done enough to a satisfactory degree.
Part of the issue here, I think, is the increased potential for blowback that comes with greater popularity and serving larger numbers of less-technically-capable users. If the OS does nothing to protect these users from catastrophic slip-ups, the blame will fall on Apple and Macs/iDevices will gain an unwanted market-limiting reputation as being for experienced users only.
On the surface, this does sound reasonable. The question though, also raised in the article, is if this was not already done enough to a satisfactory degree.
It’s hard to know. It might sound ridiculous to those of us who’ve been using computers for a significant percentage of our lives, but allegedly many young people who grew up on smartphones and...
It’s hard to know. It might sound ridiculous to those of us who’ve been using computers for a significant percentage of our lives, but allegedly many young people who grew up on smartphones and tablets have trouble understanding a traditional computer filesystem, which makes me imagine that this group also has other major gaps in computing knowledge.
Combine that with the various news stories over the years of third party software being caught doing things it shouldn’t and it’s easy to see a case for adding further protections.
I currently use a Mac mini. The new security features are super annoying with constant popups and I cant install certain software that isnt signed Apple. Combine that with poor support for games...
I currently use a Mac mini. The new security features are super annoying with constant popups and I cant install certain software that isnt signed Apple. Combine that with poor support for games and the integration of AI, I am going back to Zoriin OS a linux distro.
You can open them! It's not obvious at all but if you right-click and hit Open, the first time there will be a warning but you'll be able to open it and subsequent times it won't bother you (even...
You can open them! It's not obvious at all but if you right-click and hit Open, the first time there will be a warning but you'll be able to open it and subsequent times it won't bother you (even after updates).
As a non Mac user I was hoping he would give more examples of the specific implantations he objects to. I use Windows and Linux, and am more used to criticisms against Windows in how it is changing to support less sophisticated users.
In a way, I think the world is sort of catching up to tech companies, and not always in a good way, where scrutiny is applied to tech providers that don't go to great pains to protect unsophisticated customers.
I should be able to disable code signing checks in Security & Privacy settings. So annoying having to disable the quarantine bit in indie apps.
Got it, like disabling remote script signing globally in PowerShell on Windows? So you don't get nagged or workaround everyone you run a new tool?
Precisely. Apple is free to make it a PITA so non-technical users don't get bamboozled into enabling it. But it should be trivial for a technical user to jump through the hoops to say that they want to run any software, without restrictions.
Of course, I feel the same about iOS, so it's unlikely that Apple will do this in macOS. I suspect they're likely to make it even more annoying!
I use this, works a treat in macOS 14: https://alfred.app/workflows/vitor/remove-quarantine/
Not sure if/how it'll be affected in macOS 15.
Part of the issue here, I think, is the increased potential for blowback that comes with greater popularity and serving larger numbers of less-technically-capable users. If the OS does nothing to protect these users from catastrophic slip-ups, the blame will fall on Apple and Macs/iDevices will gain an unwanted market-limiting reputation as being for experienced users only.
This used to be less of a problem because far fewer people were using computers in the first place, and the handful of non-technical users who sought not only to buy a computer, but specifically a Mac somewhat self-selected for not being afraid to get their hands dirty learning the ins and outs of things, including personal responsibility for screwups. Mac OS still tried to limit the likelihood of these screwups of course, but it didn't need to be stringent because of this.
It makes me wonder if a single platform can serve both non-technical newbies and power users equally well in the modern age. Seems like compromise is difficult to avoid.
One of the things I liked about the early Chromebooks was that they had a developer switch inside the case you could flip, and then hold a key combo at a certain point during boot, and enable developer mode. At that point you could run your own shells and really dig into the system. Something like that for Mac's might not be a bad way for Apple to let power users really drop the bumper guards.
Many of the safeguards can already be disabled by booting into the recovery environment, changing some settings in a security settings app, and/or running a terminal command (both of which require an admin password). That's probably difficult enough for hapless users to stumble into.
If you disable all these, it won't remove all the nags, but in many ways it'll revert things to a "classic" OS X style environment without an immutable OS image and other measures for making sure the OS remains uncorrupted and not tinkered with and you can
sudo rm -rf /to your heart's content. I don't really like running this way though, because it feels a bit like walking around naked with all the exploits flying around these days.Yeah, I get not wanting to disable protections. I tend to run a lot of VM's and containers to isolate things I'm worried about having on my main user system. That and I got tired of cluttering my system with millions of runtime libraries and software chains that could interfere with my general purpose applications.
But for most users that's too technical a solution, so immutable OS's and signed software nags keeps them safe(er).
Serious question: when did the popular perception and expectation of computers shift from being these arcane things you had to learn how to use, to machines that should be intuitive to use and "just work"?
I think I was introduced to computers (general purpose computers, not a smartphone or tablet) at too young of an age to ever really be able to see computers as something I didn't already know how to use. Kind of a like a kid who starts working with their dad in the garage at a young age. By the time they're an adult, cars are just something they've always known how to work on. They can't understand what it's truly like to not know how to work on cars because they quite literally cannot remember a time that they didn't. That's basically me when I am trying to answer this question for myself.
If I had to guess though, I'd say the answer has to do with old Macintosh stuff from the late 80s or 90s, or maybe it really was the phones all along?
I bring this up though, because I'm not sure that moving away from the popular perception of computers as "arcane things that must be learned" was a great idea. I think we've swung way too far in the other direction now, where the popular expectation is almost entitled, in how strongly computers are expected to "just work", be intuitive, and if you can't figure something out the first time without help then it's just "bad design" or whatever. I think that's a super unhealthy and unrealistic way to think about computers and their design.
Ultimately, I don't think talking about the design of computers and software in terms of how intuitive it is or how easy it is to use, is the right way to think about the fundamentals of using computers. I don't think it's a matter of being easy or hard or confusing at all really. I think it just comes down to conviviality.
And to be clear, when I say computers should be convivial, that isn't just my opinion. That is (or was) a popular belief that had an overwhelming influence on the design of personal computers in the 70s and 80s. We can still see hints of that convivial nature today. Like when you get a new iPhone, and your setting it up for the first time, there's the fancy boot logo, and it transfer your stuff from the old phone like magic. You have this brand new phone in your hands, but somehow it's always been yours because all of your stuff is already on it, all the photos you cherish, the people you love, your conversations with friends. That entire experience, that little ritual you perform whenever you get a new iPhone, it's convivial.
And admittedly a lot of the conviviality of that ritual does come from the "just works" tech magic that goes on in the background. The automatic transfer of your data from your old phone to the new one, and so on.
But then take another example from a hyper nerd like me, who uses an arcane distribution of an arcane operating system to manage all of his computers declaratively from a single text file. You can't explain this setup to regular people, I've tried, they don't get it. This isn't something that "just works". It's difficult to set up, even more difficult to actually understand. Yet, it is configurable, reliable, and transferable. I can put this magic text file on any computer and that computer automatically becomes mine with all of my files and programs and everything that makes the digital version of me me is there.
That too is convivial, because conviviality isn't about easy or hard or simple or complicated. Conviviality is about fun and autonomy and creativity. Is it really any wonder that we're having this discussion now, about the muddled nature of computers, when those things, the fun and creativity and autonomy of computers and especially the internet, barely exist anymore?
I don't really know when things went wrong. It probably wasn't the Macintosh in the 90s, it probably wasn't the phones. It was probably economics and politics and law and civilization like always.
I'm going to drop this oldie but goodie
I witnessed this shift in real time in the USA between me and my siblings starting around 2000. The general-purpose computing classes where we learned to write HTML by hand were replaced with Microsoft Office training classes inside of 6 years. It was sad.
My perspective as someone who was born in the late 80s and grew up through the 90s and 00s is biased, but I don't think it was with the 80s/90s Mac. Though that was a lot less arcane and more intuitive than DOS/Windows was in that era, it still had plenty of ways that users could accidentally goof things up pretty badly, some of which are hinted at in the article. One of the most common was accidentally installing conflicting extensions, each of which modified the in-memory copy of the system and could easily step on each others' toes, rendering the system unstable or fully unbootable. It was easy to fix if you knew what you were doing (hold down Shift while booting to temporarily disable extensions, then remove the conflicting extension), but if you didn't know you were stuck.
The exact location of the line is hard to pin down. It's fuzzy. Maybe with Windows 8, which tried to shoehorn a "tablet OS" sort of experience onto all desktop and laptop PCs. Though this ultimately failed, aspects of that tabletification linger even now.
As for computers "just working", I think this became more important as non-specialist general populous started to be expected to be able to use them reasonably effectively with little or no training. OSes that companies can't sit a novice in front of and have them be productive in short order are going to lose out on that business, and nobody selling them wants that.
On the surface, this does sound reasonable. The question though, also raised in the article, is if this was not already done enough to a satisfactory degree.
It’s hard to know. It might sound ridiculous to those of us who’ve been using computers for a significant percentage of our lives, but allegedly many young people who grew up on smartphones and tablets have trouble understanding a traditional computer filesystem, which makes me imagine that this group also has other major gaps in computing knowledge.
Combine that with the various news stories over the years of third party software being caught doing things it shouldn’t and it’s easy to see a case for adding further protections.
I currently use a Mac mini. The new security features are super annoying with constant popups and I cant install certain software that isnt signed Apple. Combine that with poor support for games and the integration of AI, I am going back to Zoriin OS a linux distro.
You can open them! It's not obvious at all but if you right-click and hit Open, the first time there will be a warning but you'll be able to open it and subsequent times it won't bother you (even after updates).