I'm wondering why people are praising the way you install apps on macOS.
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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?
@haeckerfelix It’s the weirdest thing. Here’s the app but actually it’s a disc image. You have to double click it to mount the disk image. Pretend you got the app on a cd. Then open the disk image, in which there is your app. But you shouldn’t the app just yet, no! You must first move it to another folder. The app developer manually added a shortcut to that for your convenience. Then you open this folder, then you launch the app. The disk image? It’s still there, don’t forget to unmount it.
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@jvnknvlgl yeah, sometimes you get a progress dialog, sometimes not. I guess it depends on how long the copy operation takes.
The behavior isn't really consistent. In the past, I've wondered whether the drag-and-drop was successful, as I didn't get a progress dialog.
@haeckerfelix that's fair and I definitely understand what you mean.
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@haeckerfelix It’s the weirdest thing. Here’s the app but actually it’s a disc image. You have to double click it to mount the disk image. Pretend you got the app on a cd. Then open the disk image, in which there is your app. But you shouldn’t the app just yet, no! You must first move it to another folder. The app developer manually added a shortcut to that for your convenience. Then you open this folder, then you launch the app. The disk image? It’s still there, don’t forget to unmount it.
@haeckerfelix I’m guessing it’s really a leftover from apps on cd-roms, and from a point when you might have wanted to launch the app directly from the disk (occasional use or not enough hard drive space) and not always install it. I discovered macOS in 2010 after years of Linux and Windows, and it was already then and still now feeling to me like the most convoluted and absurd install process.
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@haeckerfelix I’m guessing it’s really a leftover from apps on cd-roms, and from a point when you might have wanted to launch the app directly from the disk (occasional use or not enough hard drive space) and not always install it. I discovered macOS in 2010 after years of Linux and Windows, and it was already then and still now feeling to me like the most convoluted and absurd install process.
@haeckerfelix They could so much have a “Download the .app / Double click it / Get prompted if you want to install or just launch once / That’s it” process? Like an Appimage with Gear Lever on Linux. I know .apps are just folders but they could have a variant in which it’s a zip or something.
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@haeckerfelix It’s the weirdest thing. Here’s the app but actually it’s a disc image. You have to double click it to mount the disk image. Pretend you got the app on a cd. Then open the disk image, in which there is your app. But you shouldn’t the app just yet, no! You must first move it to another folder. The app developer manually added a shortcut to that for your convenience. Then you open this folder, then you launch the app. The disk image? It’s still there, don’t forget to unmount it.
@nclm and you unmount it by dragging the "desktop icon" for the app to the trash.
From a user POV, why do I have to “unmount” the “installer” for my app to begin with??
So intuitive!
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It's obvious to tech-savvy/experienced macOS users, but I'm surprised that this is still the default way to install stuff after all this time, and that Apple has not come up with something better.
Sorry, but the macOS App Store is a joke.
@haeckerfelix App Store is a joke for the same reason why there is such an opposition to Flatpak and Snap: many devs don't like sandboxes. I wonder which % of Flathub are community repackages and wrappers. Even big names like Proton don't have official flatpaks.
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I’m excited to see the massive progress that Linux has made with the Flathub/Flatpak ecosystem over the last few years.
I don’t think there’s anything comparable for desktop systems out there. The macOS App Store and the Microsoft Store are nothing in comparison. Want to install Thunderbird or Steam? Well, tough luck. You’ll have to figure it out for yourself.
It's time for Microsoft and Apple to catch up. Not the other way around.
@haeckerfelix Found this bad quality picture I tweeted back when the Mac App Store was released https://twitpic.com/3nlngq
(if I remember correctly I followed with a video installing simultaneously the same app on both, and the result was it was installed and running much sooner on Linux while the macOS process was more complicated, like asking for credit card while the app was free)
To be clear Linux had its fair share of UX issues, but installing apps always felt simpler and smoother to me.
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It's obvious to tech-savvy/experienced macOS users, but I'm surprised that this is still the default way to install stuff after all this time, and that Apple has not come up with something better.
Sorry, but the macOS App Store is a joke.
@haeckerfelix I've never used macOS myself. Why is the app store a joke?
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@haeckerfelix I've never used macOS myself. Why is the app store a joke?
@ju the selection of apps is tiny.
I don't think I've been able to install a single app from the App Store on my machine
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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?
@haeckerfelix wish there was flatpak on mac
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@haeckerfelix App Store is a joke for the same reason why there is such an opposition to Flatpak and Snap: many devs don't like sandboxes. I wonder which % of Flathub are community repackages and wrappers. Even big names like Proton don't have official flatpaks.
@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 -
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?
@haeckerfelix and how do you uninstall it ?
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@nclm and you unmount it by dragging the "desktop icon" for the app to the trash.
From a user POV, why do I have to “unmount” the “installer” for my app to begin with??
So intuitive!
@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 -
@haeckerfelix and how do you uninstall it ?
@quixoticgeek @haeckerfelix drag it from the Applications folder to the trash (or select it and press delete)
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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?
@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!!! -
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?
@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.
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@haeckerfelix @lisamelton
to be fair, they upgraded it to “search-and-click” on the app store, but not everyone likes that methodalso 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.
@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!”
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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?
@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.
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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?
@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?
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@jvnknvlgl yeah, sometimes you get a progress dialog, sometimes not. I guess it depends on how long the copy operation takes.
The behavior isn't really consistent. In the past, I've wondered whether the drag-and-drop was successful, as I didn't get a progress dialog.
@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 :[
