<![CDATA[I'm wondering why people are praising the way you install apps on macOS.]]>I'm wondering why people are praising the way you install apps on macOS. Sure, the idea that you can just drag and drop the app bundle into the applications folder is kinda neat.

But, IMHO, the user experience is pretty poor. You basically get no feedback. Did the copying succeed? Is it still ongoing? How do I actually start the "installed" app? Do I need to double-click the app icon? Why is the app not in my dock?

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/topic/628bc93b-a7c2-4523-ae29-ba108fab7e02/i-m-wondering-why-people-are-praising-the-way-you-install-apps-on-macos.RSS for NodeSun, 31 May 2026 02:07:58 GMTMon, 25 May 2026 18:53:02 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to I'm wondering why people are praising the way you install apps on macOS. on Tue, 26 May 2026 14:46:28 GMT]]>@haeckerfelix @nclm They still do this? I remember when I brought some files on a USB drive to a Mac user, and after they finished copying it, they dragged the USB icon to trash, and I went "Don't!", because I thought they were going to erase the drive.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://infosec.exchange/users/jernej__s/statuses/116641417665765887https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://infosec.exchange/users/jernej__s/statuses/116641417665765887Tue, 26 May 2026 14:46:28 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to I'm wondering why people are praising the way you install apps on macOS. on Tue, 26 May 2026 14:42:00 GMT]]>@haeckerfelix@mastodon.social

you are omiting so many things and I have to wonder, are you using macos currently?

I have to say, its the same stuff with windows and linux. it does weird stuff, its just that we are used to all of it

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://gabboman.xyz/fediverse/post/3b201bdd-708e-4c19-91e3-c4b1f9a6a5cahttps://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://gabboman.xyz/fediverse/post/3b201bdd-708e-4c19-91e3-c4b1f9a6a5caTue, 26 May 2026 14:42:00 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to I'm wondering why people are praising the way you install apps on macOS. on Tue, 26 May 2026 14:37:50 GMT]]>@haeckerfelix I say it's time to not care about Microsoft and Apple. They need to be left behind for there horrible products and services not to mention how awful the treat their customers.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://fosstodon.org/users/adamsdesk/statuses/116641383720775050https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://fosstodon.org/users/adamsdesk/statuses/116641383720775050Tue, 26 May 2026 14:37:50 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to I'm wondering why people are praising the way you install apps on macOS. on Tue, 26 May 2026 10:56:59 GMT]]>@haeckerfelix for now the only OSs that take advantage of this OTB are the universal blue ones.

On the others you have to deal with: what is flatpak/snap/rpm/deb/appimage? ecc ecc
even on fedora... (fedora flatpaks exists sadly)
which is not ideal for new users at all.

Hoping in future this will change!

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/ap/users/115864488027701818/statuses/116640515294636486https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/ap/users/115864488027701818/statuses/116640515294636486Tue, 26 May 2026 10:56:59 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to I'm wondering why people are praising the way you install apps on macOS. on Tue, 26 May 2026 10:27:44 GMT]]>@haeckerfelix indeed. Even far-reaching software like OBS Studio works impressively good on flatpak nowadays.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://social.lol/users/alvan/statuses/116640400321502258https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://social.lol/users/alvan/statuses/116640400321502258Tue, 26 May 2026 10:27:44 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to I'm wondering why people are praising the way you install apps on macOS. on Tue, 26 May 2026 09:56:30 GMT]]>@haeckerfelix
Another issue is that drag and drop is an action that can only be performed by advanced and valid people. Old people struggle with the difference between click and double click and often can't do drag and drop. Also it's not easily discoverable it's something you have to learn. So overall it's a bad UX.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mamot.fr/users/bohwaz/statuses/116640277489435194https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mamot.fr/users/bohwaz/statuses/116640277489435194Tue, 26 May 2026 09:56:30 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to I'm wondering why people are praising the way you install apps on macOS. on Tue, 26 May 2026 09:22:41 GMT]]>@haeckerfelix indeed, this way of installing apps on macos always baffled me. I guess brew helps a ton.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/mihamarkic/statuses/116640144554657080https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/mihamarkic/statuses/116640144554657080Tue, 26 May 2026 09:22:41 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to I'm wondering why people are praising the way you install apps on macOS. on Tue, 26 May 2026 08:44:22 GMT]]>@haeckerfelix macos: apps are just "files". you copy them to your filesystem.

linux guy: everything is a file? who came up with this bonkers concept. thats way too uncomplicated for me to understand.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://social.yetzt.me/users/yetzt/statuses/01KSHQ9PA9VGD161M2CZJKBAVWhttps://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://social.yetzt.me/users/yetzt/statuses/01KSHQ9PA9VGD161M2CZJKBAVWTue, 26 May 2026 08:44:22 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to I'm wondering why people are praising the way you install apps on macOS. on Tue, 26 May 2026 07:57:15 GMT]]>@haeckerfelix @nclm every time I see a new Mac user who has just installed some apps, they leave every single DMG mounted and they don't even shut down their computer as they're all Macbook users who would rather close the lid into standby every single time.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.uno/users/gianmarcogg03/statuses/116639808592559419https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.uno/users/gianmarcogg03/statuses/116639808592559419Tue, 26 May 2026 07:57:15 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to I'm wondering why people are praising the way you install apps on macOS. on Tue, 26 May 2026 07:35:50 GMT]]>@haeckerfelix dmg files are a remnant of a distant macOS past, back when zip would fail to properly include the resource forks. This has been irrelevant for more than 20 years.

The proper way to distribute a mac app is:
- zip the app file
- have it detect that it’s running from ~/Downloads, and offer to move itself to /Applications.

And I’m saying this as someone whose daily job involved setting up dmg files with custom background and carefully positioned icons. But that was 20 years ago.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mamot.fr/users/_nb/statuses/116639724377599461https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mamot.fr/users/_nb/statuses/116639724377599461Tue, 26 May 2026 07:35:50 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to I'm wondering why people are praising the way you install apps on macOS. on Tue, 26 May 2026 07:19:51 GMT]]>@haeckerfelix In terms of its quality it's ahead of what you get on Google Play / App Store as well, imo.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/giantpinkrobots/statuses/116639661503838083https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/giantpinkrobots/statuses/116639661503838083Tue, 26 May 2026 07:19:51 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to I'm wondering why people are praising the way you install apps on macOS. on Tue, 26 May 2026 05:37:04 GMT]]>@haeckerfelix nono, let Apple and Microsoft continue enshittifying their OS. Whatever makes the Linux desktop more attractive the better 😛

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://social.treehouse.systems/users/TheEvilSkeleton/statuses/116639257386496705https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://social.treehouse.systems/users/TheEvilSkeleton/statuses/116639257386496705Tue, 26 May 2026 05:37:04 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to I'm wondering why people are praising the way you install apps on macOS. on Tue, 26 May 2026 04:16:32 GMT]]>@haeckerfelix @jvnknvlgl drag & drop has a clear and distinct audio cue on completion, and the accessibility option is for the menubar to flash.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/metaning/statuses/116638940705733004https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/metaning/statuses/116638940705733004Tue, 26 May 2026 04:16:32 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to I'm wondering why people are praising the way you install apps on macOS. on Tue, 26 May 2026 01:10:21 GMT]]>@kgMadee2 @haeckerfelix @nclm they’ve broken / removed so many of those small A/V helpers, no doubt in service of a “cleaner UI”

so clean it makes no dang sense!

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/splendorr/statuses/116638208610897355https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/splendorr/statuses/116638208610897355Tue, 26 May 2026 01:10:21 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to I'm wondering why people are praising the way you install apps on macOS. on Tue, 26 May 2026 01:09:12 GMT]]>@haeckerfelix @jvnknvlgl I noticed this a couple years ago; there used to be a progress bar pretty much regardless of time. Now if something copies instantly, yeah, no feedback.

Completely agree that Macs haven’t handled / improved this stuff well at all. I infer they think everything should be on the app store, which sucks generally and ALSO hasn’t received any major improvements in a decade :[

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/splendorr/statuses/116638204043755811https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/splendorr/statuses/116638204043755811Tue, 26 May 2026 01:09:12 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to I'm wondering why people are praising the way you install apps on macOS. on Tue, 26 May 2026 00:57:51 GMT]]>@haeckerfelix I grew up with the Mac in the 1980s, and there's always been two processes for installing software. The one way was to drag the executable onto your hard drive (and later on there was the somewhat more neat-and-tidy "Applications" folder). The other is to run an installer.

None of us back then had a problem with it; are people today just too stupid for their own good and probably shouldn't be using computers to begin with?

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/QuarkMaker/statuses/116638159448777100https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/QuarkMaker/statuses/116638159448777100Tue, 26 May 2026 00:57:51 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to I'm wondering why people are praising the way you install apps on macOS. on Tue, 26 May 2026 00:18:56 GMT]]>@haeckerfelix At one point internet hosted .pkg.zip files got deemed too easy to install and apple started putting up security roadblocks to them. Beyond signing pkg files and making them software can be delivered that way it still works tho.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://hachyderm.io/users/trode/statuses/116638006435390588https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://hachyderm.io/users/trode/statuses/116638006435390588Tue, 26 May 2026 00:18:56 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to I'm wondering why people are praising the way you install apps on macOS. on Tue, 26 May 2026 00:15:25 GMT]]>@haeckerfelix @lisamelton also, remember: inside macos there are two wolves: one is howling “make it simpler!” and the other is howling “i want more control!”
🤣

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/argonaut/statuses/116637992604793805https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/argonaut/statuses/116637992604793805Tue, 26 May 2026 00:15:25 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to I'm wondering why people are praising the way you install apps on macOS. on Tue, 26 May 2026 00:11:48 GMT]]>@haeckerfelix @lisamelton
to be fair, they upgraded it to “search-and-click” on the app store, but not everyone likes that method 😉

also what we call an app is just a folder in fancy dress, and that is exactly what you’d do with a folder.

also, there are libs for devs to make the app move to the apps folder on double click.

also, more than that, would be good to hear better ideas, cause those, historically speaking, are all pretty good.

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/argonaut/statuses/116637978380003273https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/argonaut/statuses/116637978380003273Tue, 26 May 2026 00:11:48 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to I'm wondering why people are praising the way you install apps on macOS. on Mon, 25 May 2026 23:35:10 GMT]]>@haeckerfelix THIS! THIS RIGHT HERE!! the same happened to me the first time i was using macos, people praised it for how simple it is, no!! you just got used to how messy it is!!!]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://akko.wtf/objects/a1697446-aff2-43dc-bba4-cc7a7dc21a68https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://akko.wtf/objects/a1697446-aff2-43dc-bba4-cc7a7dc21a68Mon, 25 May 2026 23:35:10 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to I'm wondering why people are praising the way you install apps on macOS. on Mon, 25 May 2026 23:03:13 GMT]]>@quixoticgeek @haeckerfelix drag it from the Applications folder to the trash (or select it and press delete)

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://pnw.zone/users/klikini/statuses/116637708660082120https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://pnw.zone/users/klikini/statuses/116637708660082120Mon, 25 May 2026 23:03:13 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to I'm wondering why people are praising the way you install apps on macOS. on Mon, 25 May 2026 23:00:11 GMT]]>@haeckerfelix @nclm fun fact: the trash icon in the dock used to turn into an Eject icon when you dragged a filesystem icon. Since High Sierra (or earlier, can't test) that stopped working.
Great visibility, very regression, much wow

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mathstodon.xyz/users/kgMadee2/statuses/116637696726275739https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mathstodon.xyz/users/kgMadee2/statuses/116637696726275739Mon, 25 May 2026 23:00:11 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to I'm wondering why people are praising the way you install apps on macOS. on Mon, 25 May 2026 22:53:07 GMT]]>@haeckerfelix and how do you uninstall it ?

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://social.v.st/users/quixoticgeek/statuses/116637668943740577https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://social.v.st/users/quixoticgeek/statuses/116637668943740577Mon, 25 May 2026 22:53:07 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to I'm wondering why people are praising the way you install apps on macOS. on Mon, 25 May 2026 21:19:37 GMT]]>@spyke yeah, developing with a sandbox in mind might be more challenging, but making a large app store without any sandboxing is a security nightmare.

Also ~58% of Flathub apps are verified
https://flathub.org/en-GB/statistics

]]>https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/aninus/statuses/116637301300996646https://board.circlewithadot.net/post/https://mastodon.social/users/aninus/statuses/116637301300996646Mon, 25 May 2026 21:19:37 GMT