It's comical how much time I've spent convincing people that tabs are a window manager feature not an application feature. People in the Alacritty issue on the subject were pissed!
I've heard this a lot on HN over the years but it doesn't make much sense to me. Some thoughts:
1. App tabs improves UX for 99.999% of users who aren't using a WM with a good tab solution (if one even exists).
2. WM tabs means launching a new app instance for every tab you might want vs having lightweight app tabs.
3. App tabs can do all sorts of app-level things and UX polish that dumb WM tabs can't do because they are so general. My terminal emulator tabs show a badge count of bell notifications, can be dragged around into groups, or dragging into other tabs as split panes. My browser tabs show you which tab is playing music and can impl right click -> mute.
4. I bet even the biggest WM tab cheerleader still uses browser tabs.
5. WM tabs are a different concern than app tabs, not a replacement. WM tabs are useful when you want tabs and the app doesn't provide a good tab metaphor or when you want to tile/group app instances a certain way. That doesn't mean it's not useful for the app instances themselves to have app tabs when it makes sense.
I would love tabs for Spotify. I just discovered I can at least open new windows from the linux YouTube music client by middle clicking, a revelation !
Every application (or concept) can introduce “tabs”, but it means something wildly different for that particular application. Tabs (or instances) in an application immediately bumps into the concept of state (statefull vs stateless) in applications.
Sometimes, it makes perfect sense. The reason tabs made sense for web browsers since 2004 is because each web page could be thought of as a “stateless” instance of an application. You’re not asking for “tabs”, you wish every application could be “Stateless”. Stateless is a beautiful thing, until you understand what state is, and who needs to manage it.
If every “tab” of Spotify had no idea what the other “tab” is playing and you had to switch back and forth between tabs to pause-and-play songs, that would be a bug, not a feature. While 2 “windows” playing audio (if you instruct them to) is expected.
And if the surprise is unpleasant you can disable it by turning off memories and holidays in the settings of the photo app. Not so easy to escape Copilot on Windows.
That's not nearly comparable tho. I don't care it's watching my photo as long as it doesn't annoy me when I want to watch them. Copilot is everywhere, you got to actively avoid it like the plague it is.
Even the linked blog post indicates that that is not the case. Windows has Copilot buttons on practically every built in application, a taskbar icon, and a dedicated physical keyboard key that people commonly accidentally hit (contractually required for OEMs to provide). They also actively promote Copilot in the OS (particularly Home Edition with nothing disabled e.g. "Tips," Notification Spam, Recommendations, etc).
Nobody can predict what Apple will do tomorrow, but as of today, they aren't really pushing Siri/Apple intelligence really hard particularly after initial setup. None of most of the above for example.
I have Pro Edition and for me Copilot only added two icons. One in Notepad and another one in Paint. I ignore both. There's also the Copilot app that I didn't even know I have installed.
I don't know what happens with Home Edition, but I though the pushback was mainly from Insider Preview?
You want to take a look at Microsoft office, my bad Microsoft copilot 365...
You can't even select a cell on notepad without a freaking copilot button pooping up every single time. Same on word, that's maddening !
You could argue that windows isn't Microsoft copilot 365, but then, why do people even use windows ? It's always because of the office, my bad, copilot 365 suite.
You can also get rid of both of them very easily with O&O Shutup 10++ (or any of many other GUIs or scripts designed for the same purpose of decrapifying Windows). I toggled off Copilot and Onedrive and haven't seen either in all the years I've been using Windows 11.
I'm not GP, so I can't comment on where their line is, but for me the difference between Copilot and Apple Intelligence is that I can turn off the latter and never see anything about it again. Copilot, on the other hand, is everywhere and it's almost all universally buggy garbage, even when it's disabled.
I actually trust the Apple Intelligence, when off, doesn't exfiltrate my data.
Oh yeah and even when you turn off preferences/settings/features in Windows, they mysteriously come back later in one of the unilateral forced updates, against your wishes.
> So the issue isn't actually that it's baked into the OS, it's that you should have control over when it's used.
Baked into the OS implies that it's integral to its operation in a way that the two are fundamentally inseparable. Having a global off switch implies that's not true.
There are other irritating baked in aspects of the newest macos and other recent versions that are arguably less avoidable, like Tahoe's entire UI design, or the Settings app.
The real issue is copilot is implemented in their apps inconsistently. Very clear there’s little cross app planning. Apples solution is global and apps and hook into it or not. And if you turn it off apps done break.
I don’t think I’ve ever even noticed Siri/Apple intelligence on macOS. I’ve disabled it somehow (probably at install) and have not heard about it since
Why would Apple Intelligence bother them? It's very unobtrusive and actually useful when it's visible. I literally don't notice it except when it's helpful.
Have you even tried it? I'm a Mac user for 20+ years and I'm running Tahoe. Not once have I ever thought about Apple Intelligence. I don't even notice it. I think you have to switch it on.
Nobody ever wanted to wire up RPC endpoints, in the form of Enterprise JavaBeans(tm), using XML files. That is one for the history books of ridiculous technology.
XML files are bad. Invisible magic is worse. The sensible way to wire up a bunch of RPC endpoints is, like the sensible way to do most things, plain old code.
It's clear to me as a more seasoned engineer that I can prompt the LLM to do what I want (more or less) and it will catch generally small errors in my approach before I spend time trying them. I don't often feel like I ended up in a different place than I would have on my own. I just ended up there faster, making fewer concessions along the way.
I do worry I'll become lazy and spoiled. And then lose access to the LLM and feel crippled. That's concerning. I also worry that others aren't reading the patches the AI generates like I am before opening PRs, which is also concerning.
A junior engineer who might spend a few hours trying to understand why you added a mutex, reading blogs on common patterns, might come back with a question about why you locked it twice in one thread in some case you didn't consider. Just because someone lacks the experience and knowledge you have, doesn't mean they cannot learn and be helpful. Sometimes those with the most to learn are the most willing to put the hours in trying.
That's actually one of the best parts. You can trust some of the context you have loaded is side loaded in the LLM, making task switching feel less risky and often improving your ability to work on needed and/or related changes elsewhere.
And yet people keep not learning same lesson. It's like giving extremely gullible intern that signed no NDA admin rights to your everything and yet people keep doing it
> I don't see why I would want magsafe on my phone at this point.
I've been charging my 13 Pro exclusively via MagSafe for a couple of years... out of necessity. The charging port has... an issue... and I've yet to get it resolved.
Honestly the only time I miss being able to use the charging port is on flights, where I'm using someone else's charging solution (i.e. a port I can plug in to).
Everywhere else (bedside table, in the car, or even out and about) it's MagSafe.
The only downside to this approach is that you need to be more specific about which case you buy (they don't all support MagSafe) but in terms of convenience it's night and day better.
I have one of those magsafe multi charger things that let you charge your iphone, watch and whatever you can lie on the base of the charger. I absolutely love it, since it doubles up as a bedside clock for me and it's nicer to snap things on the charger than to fiddle with the cables. I only use USB-C charging for my phone only if I need to charge it fast before leaving somewhere.
The biggest thing for me is not having a fragile connector involved when charging and using it at the same time. A MagSafe puck is super easy to charge your phone while browsing.
To be clear. Proper 2FA, via something like a smartcard or any truly external device is still much more secure. You could have one of those factors be a passkey, that's fine, and may be a good idea.
But there are UX issues with passkeys as well, that aren't all well addressed. My biggest gripe is that there is often no way to migrate from one passkey provider to another, though apparently there may be a standard for this in the works?
reply