For what it's worth, when I have to use mac os I am shocked by the lack of basic window management functionality, so I can believe that OP is too.

By shocked I mean that I literally don't understand how Apple has produced something so terrible, when their hardware (and most of rest of the software) is so good.

Ask / Tell HNs definitely can be click/engagement bait, and this probably is.

Engagement bait doesn't serve any purpose on HN. On other social media it's necessary to send a relevance signal to the algorithm. You don't win any prizes for posting a lot on HN.

Do you not get HN points if the post is heavily upvoted? Individuals with high point counts are perceived as being influential (are, in fact, influential) which has value.

Note I'm not claiming the person who posted this Ask HN is trying to build points in order to sell influence. But it's a thing that happens all across the internet.

It happens elsewhere on the internet because other sites encourage the concept of "following".

My HN karma trounces that of the topic poster, and I can assure you no one considers me to be influential on this site.

I am a Mac user for many years now. The first thing I always set up is Magnet. A third party app that allows me to have proper window management. So yes, in my opinion it really is shocking if even Windows manages to have a better user experience in something so basic, for more than 10(?) years.

I also use Magnet - it's great and I would hate to be without it. But at this point it's bizarre that I still have to install a third party app to get such a basic UI feature.

I actually prefer that they don't build it in. I just wish that the APIs for working with windows were a bit more robust so we could get better performance out of applications that do something less trivial than moving a window to the left side of the screen.

Things like Amethyst and Yabai are really slow, especially when you compare it against auto tiling wms in linux. I don't even want auto tiling, I just want a more performant way to perform window movements and to query the state of the space so you can swap windows around or move directionally between windows on the screen.

When the OS starts creating new shortcuts that cannot be altered, it becomes a headache. I'd point out the majority of Windows' winkey shortcuts, like one to activate the gaming menu or to bug you about microsoft office as examples.

No operating system has a complete, sane stack when it comes to dealing with window management, but I do appreciate that the choice for window management apps in MacOS is extensive and diverse.

I just bought it and am blown away. Thank you, sincerely, for your comment.

Alternative options include Rectangle (free and open source) and Raycast which is a Spotlight replacement but also includes window management

Apple refuses to do things all the time.

Aside from the aforementioned window-management gaffes, here's what I think is the most ridiculous design defect of the iPhone, which I reported first as an engineer there and repeatedly as an independent dev: It does not provide audible notifications of MISSED CALLS. I mean... WTF? A 1990s StarTAC (and probably most other phones) provided this obvious feature. So did 1980s answering machines. My 1992 microwave beeps if I forget to take the food out. But Apple's handheld Unix computer-phone remains silent if you happen to miss a call while you're in the shower, or down the hall doing laundry, or watching a noisy movie. If my parents have some kind of emergency, they're going to CALL ME. But Apple doesn't think that's important.

That was the first bug I filed against the iPhone, probably on the day we were given them (the day of release). FIFTEEN YEARS LATER, it's still not fixed. But what did Apple petulantly do instead? Add repeating notifications to TEXTS... but leave that option off of the essentially identical settings screen for the Phone app.

That is Apple refusing to do something, to the detriment of all customers. I was not the only person to file this bug; I checked Radar (Apple's bug-tracking system). So it's not as if they haven't heard the complaint. You can also find plenty of references to it in a general Web search.

When Apple finally allowed developers to write real applications, I expected that problem to be addressed quickly (by me or someone else). But NOPE; developers can't access telephony functions.

“Apple” is too broad. Likely some mid-level manager made the decision to do nothing and never revisited.

I remember a bug I wrote 15? years ago for gtk/gnome file manager. The left pane tree widget doesn’t support the arrow keys we used extensively in WinXP. Also doesn’t support the full context menu. Why? No reason, some mid-level person decided the left pane should be gimped.

> gnome

Gnome is the Apple of Linux world. A lot of Linux people hate gnome.

Apparently one would consider macOS, iOS, iPadOS and watchOS real applications, written by developers.

Or maybe they just appear out of thin air, created by pixie dust.

If your parents had an emergency why would they call once and only once?

Every person thinks that their missing feature is the most important feature ever and they’re mad Apple hasn’t implemented it yet. You have even resorted to incorrectly labelling a nonexistent feature as a bug. Imagine what iOS would be like if Apple actually implemented the billions of niche edge-case features like this. It would be an absolute disaster.

I’m glad that Apple sticks to their guns instead of bending to loud niche users.

What a dumb argument. This is a feature that was standard for years on existing products, which Apple "forgot." Your objection is ridiculous. In the modern world, it is expected that if you call someone, they will be notified. Why on earth should someone have to call every few minutes until he "gets through?"

Do you think this is the '50s, where someone tells the operator "Keep trying!"

Come on, have some self-respect.

I would HATE if my phone kept on informing me of missed calls or messages when I’ve put it down somewhere. I’ll check it in my terms; that’s why it’s not in my hand

One of my previous (Android) phones had a red light that would blink if there was a missed call or message. I found it extremely convenient.

1990s phones had this option, in addition to AUDIBLE alerts.

Again, as an OPTION. It's incredible that people go apeshit when you suggest this optional feature that everyone accepted as standard for years. You can see it right here in this thread of "tech" people.

This is why design and usability are going backward.

That's why it is an OPTION. An OPTION.

Nobody said you'd be FORCED to endure the horrible nightmare of being informed of missed calls.

What world do you live in?

+1

I've owned personally, and used macs for work since around 2009. I've never installed any third party window-snapping or management systems, and I don't consider it a big deal.

I do use window snapping on Win10/11 periodically, but TBH I find that the beefed up snapping in Win11 is more annoying than it is useful, often snapping things to quarters of the screen when I just wanted to move a window.

Likewise, I've seen non-programmer users on win10 hit the window snapping by accident and be confused and put off by it.

Would I like it if Apple were to build a power-user window snapping feature into macOS? Yes, I would. Am I upset at them for not including it? Certainly not. Were I a product manager for macOS I would find it hard to justify the investment, given all the other things they can and do work on.

Can an Ask HN response comment be off the mark? Apple is a trillion dollar company and no doubt has encountered this issue when their power users (and employees) look to get work done quickly.

They spent countless hours and dollars into making stage manager but don't implement a simple yet powerful feature.

The wrong question is why would someone want this. The right question is why hasn't Apple addressed it.

Almost everyone I know immediately installs a third-party app to handle windows when they get their Mac. That includes me.

And nobody I know does that. Neither of our and data is particularly useful.

I almost always disable window snapping on Windows and Linux. Having a single window maximized, or even snapped to 50% of the screen is wasteful of screen space. I currently have 6 firefox windows visible, they're just overlapped. I can quickly access them, move them and resize them using the mouse.

Engineers know engineers. Engineers are often working in more than one app at a time (probably at least an IDE and some terminals). They get really anal about how their screens are set up for efficiency.

All my friends with non-tech jobs all seem to use just one app at the time and use macos fullscreen apps and switch between using the four finger sideways swipe.

I am extremely confident that this is not true. Either that or you don't know a single person who doesn't work in tech.

"The fact that you’re “shocked” by something as banal as “lack of window snapping” is kind of funny actually."

No, his point is a very specific one - how do the employees of apple themselves manage their own work ?

One answer is that they have alternative tooling or special features enabled or some other inside track to making (for instance) triple and quad monitor setups work in any sane way whatsoever.

I hope this is the answer.

Because the other answer is:

They are not power users by any definition. The reason they aren't decrying multi monitor support is because they don't use multiple monitors. The reason they don't fix window management is because they really are infantile GUI mousey-mouse for everything users.

The reason 'X' doesn't work is because they never need X.

I hope that's not the answer.