I’ve been using your company’s products since the early ’90s. They have always been inspiring to me because of their design (Thanks, Johnny Ive!) and innovation. But please, what is this? macOS Sequoia is far from being a masterpiece. What is built into other operating systems and therefore considered “standard” forces me to find and install apps for almost everything.
To keep my Mac alive, I need to install an app like Caffeine, which is awesome by the way because it does exactly what it promises. Next, to access my clipboard history, I have installed Maccy. It looks ugly, is inconvenient to use due to its position in the status bar, and is just a compromise. Look at Windows and how it’s implemented there: one keyboard shortcut, a pop-up window next to your cursor—and without having to use the mouse, you can paste in a few keystrokes what was copied before. Awesome!
Now, let’s talk screenshots—one of the most used features for the majority of macOS users. Apart from the fact that you had the chance to implement a dedicated key on the keyboard (or maybe an easier shortcut—I’d suggest CMD+P, and SHIFT+CMD+P for printing), you could also rethink the complete UI/UX for the screenshot app. The basics are no longer enough! Everyone would like to have a dedicated database for screenshots, similar to Snag-It (which would be the ultimate app if it were more lightweight and better integrated into the system).
When using third-party mice (which everyone does, since the Apple Mouse is a nightmare and causes lots of pain—not just RSI), one needs to install Scroll Reverser; a mouse with side buttons additionally requires the support of the Sensible Side Buttons App. I’ve mentioned five additional apps already. But that’s not all, yet.
Let’s talk about the stop-light buttons—the red, yellow, and green buttons at the top left of each window. Nobody uses the green button; we all want to keep the status bar in sight. Why not make the green button just maximize the window, like Windows does? Use yellow for hiding the app and red for closing the app (not just the window). Most users already use shortcuts (CMD+Q, CMD+H, CMD+M) anyway (whereas CMD+M should maximize, not minimize, the window!). Ok, I can install another app like Supercharge (or use terminal commands) for that. But is that the purpose? Can’t I just get the super duper operating system, my quite expensive hardware deserves? User Experience out of the box!
You keep on talking about privacy, yet one still needs to manually search, find and install ad-blockers themselves. That ain’t the way to do! This should be in the operating system itself: privacy, ad-blocking, remove trackers and so on!
If you allowed users to use any other OS on your hardware, I wouldn’t even rant, but I need to use macOS on my MacBook. There’s no other choice, and the OS is really super bad! Instead, you implement nonsense like Stage Manager, which nobody uses, I suppose. And how about Apple Intelligence that you announced a while back? All hardware is branded with “Built for Apple Intelligence,” but I don’t see any real use cases for that. Mail cannot summarize my emails; notifications are summarized in a totally weird way; Apple Intelligence (and Siri) cannot interact with my system. I am highly unsatisfied—and I’m sure I’m not alone!
No, you focus on buying companies like Pixelmator (which should also be built in), focus on VisionOS, and on that ugly, nonsensical VR glasses!
Tim Cook, I dare you! My will to switch to Linux has grown increasingly strong lately, empowering me to buy the hardware I want—one with a dedicated PrintScreen key, for example. Do something—focus on your users, not on your shareholders!
I surely wish, you’d end your career at Apple and choose a successor who’s focus is to bring Apple back to think differently, being a leader, fostering a product line-up that makes sense for the users, developers and, if you wish so, stakeholders.
Thanks for your attention to this matter.
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