David Chartier Is Sick of Making Excuses for Mac OS X

David Chartier:

Every time I have to explain one of OS X’s bizarre, (sometimes arguably) buggy behaviors or windowing idiosyncrasies to my father in law, I dearly wish the iPad had been out when he was in the market.

Exhibit A: Open Mail, find a message with a zip attachment, and double-click it. Nothing happens? Oh something happened. Archive Utility opened to work its magic on the zip file, but you missed its appearance in the Dock if you blinked. Don’t see anything else? Of course you don’t, because Finder opened a new window to reveal the spoils of Archive Utility’s victory behind Mail and didn’t bother to tell you. No Dock bounce, no Finder brought to the foreground to show you the folder.

Great example. iOS enforces a visual obviousness that makes computing better for nearly everyone. If you do something, the result will be shown to you, front and center.

★ Tuesday, 27 November 2012