Where is rolling OS X?

Michael Grotos, FastCompany site editor, interviewed the developers of four popular Mac-applications: the developer China Scrivener Blount Developer MoneyWiz Ilya Erdanova, head of the development department Pixelmator Simonas Bastis and product manager Adrian Equinux Thomas. During the substantive discussions was a lot of interesting thoughts on the current state of affairs in the Mac OS X and its future. We are confident that our readers will also be the topic of interest, so we publish the translation of the articles.

If you believe the rumors, the World Conference rarabotchikov Apple WWDC, to which the left has less than two weeks, the first time in history will not focus on iOS. Instead kupertinovtsy going to spend more time on the new version of OS X.

If changes occur, and they will not be instant, consider 4 developer of popular applications for OS X. They say that in recent years a desktop operating system from Apple receded into the background in comparison with the mobile as a result of which it is very behind in the field of innovation and design. Here are the main problems to be solved Apple.

* * *

Where it is easy?

"If we compare the three most recent versions of OS X, the only difference of which they distinguish between the majority of users will standard wallpaper "- said Adrian Thomas, product manager Equinux, creator of the popular applications, the Mac-Spot Maps, VPN Tracker 7 and Mail Designer Pro.

"As a result, we are increasingly moving toward a fully customizable interface elements in our products, to offer new interfaces and to keep pace with the changing tastes of design "-. says it.

This lack of progress in the development of the user interface is quite troublesome, because of past five years, users are used to simplify the interface thanks to a mobile OS like iOS and Android. At the same time, Thomas understands the desire to focus on Apple iOS-devices with annual sales of tens of millions of devices, in contrast to the poppies that are sold on a smaller scale. However, he stressed that iinovatsii in desktop operating systems are also important because there are some tasks that can only be solved with the help of desktop applications.

"There is a huge field for the desktop operating system innovation, since new ideas and concepts of user interfaces. If you look at potrebiley, our people are struggling with tasks that should be easy for everyone, the stagnation in the development of the desktop operating system becomes more obvious. Ogranizatsii workspace file management, application management - all these things can be made more intuitive. In recent releases of OS X have been feeble attempts to improve file management - tags, Finder and tab etc. However, none of them was not innovation, in terms of how we use the OS "-. Says Adrian.

A fresh look at old problems could help resolve many of the difficulties encountered by users on desktops, he says.

"Often, they are reduced to simple things, which are struggling consumers. Things like disk images, zip-archives or working space organization becomes a big problem for users. design level of current releases of OS X still does not allow to easily control the computer. "

For a company whose products are known for simplicity and clarity, Thomas assertion may sound contradictory, but other experienced developer agrees. Simonas Bastis, is the head of the development department PixelmatorOne of the most prominent OS X-application in the past five years. Its design, functionality and simplicity led many come to believe that Pixelmator features enough for any task (sorry, Adobe).

Bastis said that the biggest problem yavletsya nenastraivaemy interface for developers AquaAnd outdated colors and fonts. But these problems are merely symptoms of a global problem, mentioned by Thomas.

"An even greater challenge OS X is that it is a huge and complex product, which could be a little simpler and easier for the user. Pixelmator is deeply integrated into OS X and has many of the native features, such as color palettes, fonts, full screen mode, the iCloud, keyboard shortcuts, and more. Sometimes, helping our users to perform certain tasks in Pixelmator, we inadvertently teach them to use the OS X functions as a whole. There is nothing wrong with that, but I think that from the standpoint of simplicity of the user interface, OS X still has much to learn from iOS. »

Contradictions OS X

But the prolonged absence of progress in terms of simplicity and design are not the only problem afflicting a desktop operating system Apple the past few years. The reality is that it is not just stagnated, and actually step back, as indicated by some developers.

"The only consolation is the fact that Apple has always provided developers clear guidance on the creation of interfaces and ensure that, that they adhere to them, "- said Keith Blount from Literature & Latte, developer Scrivener, a text editor for the Mac, a lot of marked awards.

"This has led to the emergence of a unified user experience so that users know where are certain quote Browse menus and controls, regardless of the application in which they They are. This order of things was not so brilliant, but it increases the usability of an application and platform as a whole. "

According to Blount, the problem lies in the fact that over the last few iterations of OS X, the luster began to fade.

"In recent OS X releases have begun to creep into the various inconsistencies. A simple example - View menu that vsterchaetsya in almost all applications. According to the manual, it should be located just behind the Edit menu, and all the specific menu of the application must be between the View and Window. However, in some Apple applications, including Pages, and iPhoto, View menu is located right next to the Window menu, while in others, for example, Safari or Mail - no. "

This new standard, and developers should stick to it? Blount, as well as other developers do not know. But the menu location - not the only inconsistency has crept in OS X. With the Tiger Apple introduced black translucent HUD-Panel, which were used for floating panels containing different controls. And although Apple opened them to developers, they are available in white. This means developers using such panels in their applications, it is necessary to attend to the creation of custom controls that creates fragmented user experience. Other inconsistencies are icons of applications - some of them high-gloss, others are flat; sidebar, which are color or monochrome.

"Each of these defects itself is a trifle, but all together, they grow up in an avalanche that threatens to upset the order. For Apple has always been the norm to experiment with new design standards in their applications and then present them as the developers obscheprinyatnye norm in the next update of OS X. But over the past few years, Apple has been experimenting, but never returned to the same standards of any the SDK, not in the OS as a whole nor its guideline. Now, when Apple went from skeuomorph, I would like to see that Apple engineers will review all of their experiments and present clear, uniform design in all of its applications and operating systems in general, and also provide clear guidelines for developers. "

The lack of new features, interesting users

At the time, as it seems that the user experience OS X deteriorated over the past few years, another striking example how complicated the Apple OS X for the inhabitants - the lack of new features that are somehow visible to the end user.

Previously, each version of OS X have been drastic and very noticeable to the average user features. But since Apple switched to an annual update cycle and made a free OS X, such dramatic features have disappeared. It could be argued that this is a compromise to get things for which previously had to pay $ 129, but the developer MoneyWiz Ilya Erdanov says that small and almost imperceptible new features kill user interest in OS X, which in turn affects the sale of third-party applications, and in turn, profit developers.

"It is obvious that in recent years, Mac OS X has lost a lot in terms of development and progress. In addition to the small interface updates, the only significant advantage of OS X, which comes to mind, and for which its value users, is a 64-bit architecture and prestige of the Apple brand. "

Erdanov also says that OS X has become less stable and it appeared much more bugs. Five years ago, any system errors were nonsense, whereas now they have become commonplace. But the main problem, he says, is the lack of new features, as those that have been introduced (Eg, versioning of files and "natural" scrolling direction), it has been taken by users rather cool.

"I am of the opinion that all the innovations that have been introduced by Apple in recent years, only complicated the use of OS X. People are confused with the scroll direction, versioning of documents and so on. They experimented with various technologies, which have been poorly received by users, and, in my opinion, violate the OS. "

Muddle Mac App Store

App Store has been incredibly successful for iOS, it appreciated by both users and developers. But with the Mac App Store it is not so, he has a lot of disadvantages. One of the most significant is the lack of paid upgrades to applications, but developers say that in addition to this there are also other important issues affecting both them and users.

"As developers, we are interested in attracting the largest number of users, without spending wasted resources needed to run multiple versions of the same application, "- said Adrian Thomas of Equinux. "But the application of the Mac App Store application and signed with the Gatekeeper, it is not the same thing. Current limitations Mac App Store, as well as its acceptance by users without much enthusiasm, it another one of the reasons why we prefer to distribute applications through their own score. At the same time, some functionality is available only applications from Mac App Store. »

Functionality, which says Thomas, is the integration with iCloud and Push-notifications. They are available only to applications that are distributed through the Mac App Store. However, in some applications beyond has features that Apple prohibits applications Mac App Store. This means that developers have to create two versions of their applications with different functionalities.

Thomas and Equinux team solution is to make a single set of functions for applications from the Mac App Store, and for application signed by a Gatekeeper.

We believe that now there are still many reasons to justify the distribution of applications outside the Mac App Store, and the future would like to see that Apple will give us the ability to provide a consistent user experience for both groups consumers. If we could offer such an advanced application as a VPN Tracker 7 is not available in Mac App Store, but has features that allow users get the maximum efficiency from the Apple ecosystem, we think it would be a victory not only for Apple, but also for all Mac users.

Erdanov of MoneyWiz agrees and also points to the many other Mac App Store issues affecting both developers and users, including a lengthy approval process applications in the first publication in shop.

"You will not be able to release an update to patch once a week, because by the time it is approved, you already will be ready the next update. And if it is rejected, you will need it again to argue thus making confusion in the application code because of its differences, so that these unjustified risks. For this reason, we have a very fast development cycle on Windows and Android platforms, and very slow on OS X / iOS. This is bad for our users. "

Major improvements in the interaction of applications

Now quite strange to understand that desktop operating systems still need to be improved in terms of opening access to application interaction with each other and exchange data. Such a problem does occur on OS X, and is considered by many developers over the past few years, she began to gain momentum, and this, in turn, is another sign of regression OS X.

"Fuss with sandboxing, possibly improved safety OS X and iOS, but it also set us back a few years with terms of the ways in which applications can communicate with each other "-. says Thomas of Equinux. "The work of some of our products, such as Mail Designer and Stationery Pack, depends on the communication between applications. According to current rules, this functionality is severely limited. There are a few workarounds, but on the whole Apple did not attempt to solve this problem. "

The lack of such cooperation also extends to the file formats, explains the developer Keith Blount Scrivener:

"Apple now gives developers the ability to import and export documents in Word format, but does not support documents Pages, besides Pages is a closed format, which means that developers can not write means of import and export independently. This, of course, baffling new Scrivener users who can import Microsoft Office documents, while the import of documents in the Apple format is unavailable. "

Blount draws attention to the fact that before Apple has used this fact to demonstrate the enhanced support for collaboration and communication between applications.

"In the Tiger show time at WWDC, we were told that the new To-Do lists, which have been added to Mail, will available in the form of a framework, which means that their use in any application that supports frameworks. Create a To-Do list in Mail and it will appear in your own application. Unfortunately, it did not work out, but I think that this integration would be stunning for Reminders, Messages, Mail, Notes and others. In the same way you would add a note on my iPhone and it would soon be available not only in Notes.app on a Mac, but also, say, Scrivener or in the sidebar Pages. Or you could use your email address to send messages directly in the application. I could come up with many different usage scenarios for the Scrivener, if it can connect and interact with all these applications. "

Blount notes that this could cause a security issue, but Apple already has a functioning mechanism to prevent them. For example, at the moment, users can specify which applications are allowed to access the contacts OS X.

Thomas of Equinux team said that the decision is obvious, since it already exists in iOS.

"The iOS is an interesting framework Multipeer Connectivity, which allows you to create a new category for iOS apps. His counterpart in OS X has helped to solve a lot of problems with the interaction with each other applications that we now face in OS X. »

iCloud should "just work» ©

The presence of iCloud in the list of things in OS X do not work as we would like, it is not surprising. Apple's cloud storage from the beginning was confusing and did not give such simplicity and ease of use as other similar solutions, for example, Dropbox or Google Drive. Because of incorrect work iCloud affects developers and users, which are blamed for the loss of their data developers, not Apple.

"At the moment iCloud perfectly coexists with simple file formats, for example, our Scapple application works well with the iCloud», - says Blount of Scrivener team. "But Scrivener uses .bundle format - in fact, it is a normal folder with the file that is downloaded to the cloud and stored there, providing the ability to work with them without the need to store this data in memory. iCloud still does not work with such formats. I would like to see improved and expanded API, allowing to work with iCloud .bundle files, as well as separate files in a single project. "

Blount says that users expect great opportunities to synchronize applications, but developers are currently forced to use a confusing decision to do so.

«ICloud put a great start in order to make it easier, so I want to see what he will develop further and will provide us with more opportunities."

The future of the desktop operating system Apple

Despite the well-founded complaints, the developer MoneyWiz Ilya Erdanov acknowledges that Apple's, most likely took the right decision by changing the priority of running OS X on iOS, as the mobile market grows more. If they had not already done so, you have missed the biggest technological boom over the past 20 years.

"Mobile platforms are cheaper, portable, easy to use, and for the average user provides similar functionality. Ordinary users roam the Internet and social networks, listen to music, watch videos, play games and read books. Before the advent of the iPhone and iPad for all that was needed computer. Now there is no."

At the same time, Erdanov other developers emphasize that desktops and laptops will continue to be demand, so innovation in these areas are very important, and for Apple now is the time to return to their sources. Developer Scrivener Blount says:

"These developers, as I feel that OS X was too long" second class citizen "in Apple's campus."

We can only hope and believe the rumors that in a few weeks WWDC we will see the return of the priority back to Apple OS X.

"Despite all the problems," - says product manager Equinux Thomas - "we cheer for the development of OS X, and attach great importance to Mac as a third platform, along with the iPhone and iPad. Some people compare the iPad and Mac with a passenger car and a large truck. It seems that there is still a huge amount of people who want to drive a truck. "