Comment by lynndotpy
1 day ago
This post is very well presented and it highlights how absolutely bizarre the latest update was. The video demonstration was also very well done.
I remember a few years ago, people complained when Apple merely made the entire operating system uglier. (Something about a gradient on the battery?) A lot of people would talk hyperbolically ("apple KILLED macos!"), and that's indistinguishable to an outsider when an update like this brings other people out of the woodwork to say, "Hey, these changes are genuinely bizarre and absurd, what happened?"
I especially liked the part with the hand trying to grab the plate. Perfect imagery.
That was a sensible chuckle indeed... but then it also made me realize that grabbing things IRL _moves_ them, not _resizes_ them. Nothing IRL really resizes.
So while it makes a lot of sense to grab inside the object to move it, IMO it actually makes less sense to grab _inside_ the object to resize it. (Imagine the reverse argument -- IRL you can actually grab the middle of the plate to move it, but if grabbing the middle of the window resized it, that would also be very bad.)
I've been trained to grab the edge to resize windows. So I wouldn't try to reach so far inside the rounded rectangle as OP, although it doesn't invalidate their entire argument.
> Nothing IRL really resizes
A few things sorta do.
If you want to increase the size of saran wrap or aluminum foil, you grab the edge and pull. Same for increasing the size of toilet paper before tearing it off.
When you want to stretch your fitted sheet onto your mattress, you grab the corner and pull to stretch it over.
When you want to make your pizza dough larger, you toss it above your head in a circle, so I guess that one doesn't really match the macOS gesture, I guess you should be spinning windows to make them bigger.
However, when you're doing other baking things, like placing fondant or a pie crust, you do stretch from the edges some.
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> IRL you can actually grab the middle of the plate to move it
Really wouldn't recommend it though, all sorts of consequences for the food (if present), your hand, the hygiene of the plate and potential damage to underlying surfaces. Generally preferable to pick it up and put it down again.
You grab the corner to move the corner, not the window. You grab it and move it (the corner), just like the plate.
I laughed at the animation quite hard - it’s the perfect analogy for the issue at hand!
Pun intended?
Me too, made me chuckle :)
The graphic actually helped me a lot to understand why you have to touch things to grab them, seeing as I am a 2-day-old baby.
imo this comment wasn't worth creating a new account for
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It's funny. one of the most significant UI axioms I ever learned came from Bill Atkinson: "Always make the 'click zone' a little larger than the visual indication of the affordance." This becomes tricky or impossible for some things like touch-keypads, but for most things it makes the difference between frustrating and magical.
Apple seems to have forgotten its own innovations.