{"id":35185,"date":"2022-03-07T16:04:28","date_gmt":"2022-03-07T21:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=35185"},"modified":"2022-03-09T15:44:05","modified_gmt":"2022-03-09T20:44:05","slug":"mac-software-stagnation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2022\/03\/07\/mac-software-stagnation\/","title":{"rendered":"Mac Software Stagnation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Riccardo Mori<\/a> (tweet<\/a>):<\/p>\n

\n

In other words, if I open my toolbox with all the essential Mac apps I use on a daily basis for everything I do, what I see are old (some very<\/em> old), tried-and-trusted applications[…]<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

This may be a completely subjective observation, but I’ve been feeling a certain stagnation in Mac software these past few years. There are always exceptions and things I’ve missed, sure, but it seems to me that the landscape appears to be more tired than vibrant.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

The problem is that, while it’s true that iOS and Mac OS have remained two separate operating systems, Apple has been really pushing to have them both work in the same way when it comes to their underpinnings.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Remember when I was pointing out<\/a> that iPads were becoming incredibly powerful machines but with an OS that wasn’t capable of taking full advantage of that amazing hardware? Apple has managed to put the Mac in a similar position, in my opinion.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Tyler Hall<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Making cross-platform apps easy by removing the engineering friction is what I consider the root cause of so many iPad turned sub-par Mac apps.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

Catalyst, today, is somewhere in the middle. Not bad. Not great. It mainly “just works” with minimal effort in a way that is accessible to the larger pool of iOS developers. Apple succeeded with the goal Riccardo laid out. And we end up with apps that typically fall somewhere in between serviceable and usable - an uncanny valley of mish-mashed blah.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Tyler Hall<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Anyway, I made it for iPad. And after I finished, thought, “I wonder if this whole Catalyst thing works?”<\/p>

And it did. Thirty minutes later it was running on my Mac. Bravo, Apple.<\/p>

But the flip side - that aligns with my original thesis - is that while it works and is serviceable as a Mac app, it’s a terrible<\/em> Mac app. Unfortunately, because it does cross over the threshold of being just good enough<\/em> for my needs, I have very little reason or motivation to ever make it any better on macOS since that’s not my target platform for this app. That it works at all on a Mac is a happy bonus.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Christian Tietze<\/a> (Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n

I also don’t have any “new” apps, which in Riccardo’s sense doesn’t mean a new purchase in my library, but a new app on the marketplace.<\/p>\n

Maybe because I’m not purchasing a lot of apps in general?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m pretty happy with most of the third-party apps that I use, and they are mostly apps I’ve been using for a long time, so to some extent this is just a sign of maturity. And these apps are not stagnant; they keep getting better. Maybe the flurry of activity with new apps in the early years of Mac OS X was the aberration. But I don’t think it’s that simple because there was also a lot of interesting stuff happening in the late 90s, when the classic Mac platform was mature—and Apple was doomed.<\/p>\n\n

Sam Rowlands<\/a>:<\/p>\n

It’s my belief, the App Store has caused irrevocable harm to the Mac software industry.<\/p>

There is ‘sideloading’, but the Mac Media is just a shell of it’s former self after Apple gutted it, with a bait & switch campaign of affiliate links.<\/p>

Many indie developers can’t afford the kind of advertising that Apple’s “preferred” developers can.<\/p>

So we’re forced to adopt a Minimize Risk attitude, which reduces indie devs incentives to allocate years into building a complex, complete, great Mac application.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

All in all, developing for the macOS is not as great as it was 10 years ago, it’s become expensive to maintain a macOS application, which eats into the time an indie can be creative, and eats away at them emotionally.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Jeff Johnson<\/a>:<\/p>\n

What happened to the thriving 3rd party Mac software scene of the 2000s?<\/p>\n

Many factors involved, but the theme is simple: the iOSification of the Mac, starting in 2011.<\/p>\n

Preface: Mac hardware sales last quarter were 4.5x higher than 15 years ago. Mac has grown a lot, not shrunk.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Mac iOSification has undermined Mac developers financially, undermined them functionally, undermined their freedom to distribute, and undermined their workflow by constantly shipping OS bugs and breaking changes.<\/p>\n

Apple has also badly undermined the Mac developer documentation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Maciej<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

The sad part is that Catalyst and native iOS apps running on macOS aren’t even the largest offenders. That title goes easily to all those who push „apps” written in Electron and similar. Compared to those, Catalyst is marvellous.<\/p>\n

There’s also the matter of crappy documentation. I’m not a developer but this has been a recurring theme for years. Introduction of APFS is a great example. Major change with piss poor support articles. How can you write advanced software with crap like this?<\/p>\n

There’s the lack of effort on Apple’s part too. Why would 3rd parties be interested in developing exceptional software when even the OS maker doesn’t seem to be that interested? Music is a great example here. There are exceptions (iWork) but that’s what they are, exceptions.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

I think that (all faults aside) Setapp has done more good in terms of curating and giving easy access to quality Mac software than Apple over the past few years. If I had a new user in front of me I’d rather they sourced their apps from there rather than MAS, less overall crap. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Riccardo Mori<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

I want to thank you all those who have given me valuable feedback on the topic so far, and I’ll definitely be adding other personal thoughts and external contributions in the future. This is a subject that’s particularly close to my heart, because at this stage I think that Mac users — especially power users — do need more than just professional, ultra-fast Macs. Great hardware without great software isn’t enough to make a platform thrive or continue to thrive.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Dave Winer<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Then I came across something I posted on Facebook a few years ago, imagining that a programmer from the 80s had time-traveled to the 2020s and wondered why we used such crappy writing tools, when in the 80s we had a remarkable variety of excellent writing tools. In evolution terms here’s my theory of what happened, and I admit I’m vastly simplifying this, I know a lot more about it because I lived through it, and made software in this period, and until recently was puzzled why some ideas took off and other good ideas did not.<\/p>\n

In the early 90s a technological asteriod hit the software world called the web and wiped out all the GUI apps. To access the new network (the asteroid) all you needed was a web browser. And that was all that survived from the desktop operating systems of the 80s. The server operating system, Unix, came to dominate because it had the networking that the new world evolved from. The creatures from the network survived, the ones that lived on GUIs did not. To the animals that lived in UnixWorld, the web looked pretty amazing. But they liked their editors, and didn’t see the need for anything more. Further, the desktop writing tools couldn’t do the things a Unix programmer needed to do. So they just kept using the ones that came with Unix, Emacs and the like.<\/p>\n

Evolution could have taken a different path in regards to eyes and writing tools. If the first life evolved on land, our eyes would see much better in air. If the Macintosh developed open and easy networking as Unix had, making the switch to the web unnecessary, we could have kept using all our wizzy writing tools.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n