
MacOS 10.14 Wishlist - mofle
https://blog.sindresorhus.com/my-macos-10-14-wishlist-c499448afdd6
======
gnachman
Please fix the dumpster fire that is AppKit! Doing a grep for angry words in
my source code and commits reminded me of some traumas over the years…

* Core Data's generated classes are broken for one-to-many relationships

* NSTableView is a total mess. Lots of things don't work quite right. For example, calculating the correct height for a row of wrapped text is nearly impossible without hackily adding a few points here and there.

* In Metal, constant buffers over 64k get silently truncated on some GPUs.

* MTKView is half-baked. Resizing it stretches the window's contents, for example. If you don't use layers it overlaps the window's rounded corners. If you do enable layers, the framerate drops by half.

* The one field editor per window hack breaks expectations every time I use it. It should be done away with.

* NSTitlebarAccessoryViewController is officially supported but was never documented and forces the entire window to use auto layout

Please don't add any features. Just fix the garbage fire you already have
rather than throwing more garbage on it.

~~~
himom
Yup. Feature freeze / bug hunt challenge with some morale incentive
honorariums.

The only features that vital necessities.

* Peripheral Shield - “firewall” I/O security and disablement on 2008+ machines. Many a disk cloner and malware loaders use USB, Thunderbolt or FireWire to install their stack.

* Deep Sleep that works. /var/vm/sleepimage is 1 GiB but it has 16 of RAM.

* Official internal OS tweak platform that’s sandboxed.

* Open source much more of macOS and iOS.

------
SiVal
Topping my wishlist would be for Apple to not have to put every product in the
same "fashion bauble" category and consider pro, workhorse computers to be a
different type of thing with different criteria. Both the Mac Pro and the
MacBOOK Pro should be treated as workhorses, not show horses, and optimized
for practical usefulness. Less emphasis on looking thinner and more
fashionable and more on keyboards that feel great and go on working just fine
when splashed with bacon & eggs, thrown in a backpack, dragged around on a
desert adventure, lots of convenient connectors, maxed out on battery power,
useful buttons instead of gimmicky touchbar, and so on.

My wish would be that actual _computer_ users could look forward with
excitement, the way we used to, at what new improvements were about to become
available rather than dreading what they'll "courageously" take away next.

~~~
derefr
• Thinner means _lighter_ —i.e. more luggable, which you'd think would be an
important consideration for a workhorse.

• Apple's ecosystem (at least for business leasing) is sort of like the luxury
car ecosystem: there are rather few models, and they're not very customized,
but there's a dealership close enough to you that if there's any problem—any
problem at all—with your [under-warranty] device, the idiomatic "solution" is
to give you a loaner (the exact same model, with your data copied over) while
they _attempt_ to repair yours; and then either you get it back fixed, or you
keep the loaner. Like luxury cars, this enables them to use nice-but-brittle
components, under the expectation that nobody will actually have to _put up
with_ the component being broken, instead just being fed a steady supply of
working devices. (Anecdata: my MacBook's keyboard has failed five times. Do
you know what that means? It means that I've received a same-day replacement
MacBook five times!)

• I think you're confusing "professional" with "ruggedized." Apple has never
made, or claimed to make, ruggedized hardware. (The iPhone is waterproof, I
guess?) Apple has no product category aimed at e.g. the ThinkPad's "techs
performing maintenance on cell towers in deserts/jungles/swamps" use-case.
Apple makes its desktop products like most companies make servers, or
scientific equipment: intended for climate-controlled, central-air-purified
conditions, to be operated by techno-priests who take the proper ritual-purity
precautions before touching them. The Macs really _are_ workstations, in the
sense that they are intended to do their _work_ from a designated _station_.
;)

~~~
redial
Everything you said is right, but you are missing the point.

Thinner means more luggable, but if it restricts a workhorse machine from
having more than the 16gb of ram the base model can also have because they
can't fit enough battery to power it, then why not go all the way and shrink
it to the size of the 12" MacBook? Well, because of the other components you
might say! But, if the CPU throttles, the GPU throttles, the keyboard stops
working and the anti-reflective coating peels off, all because of the thermal
stress the machine is under when used as a workhorse, then is not much of a
workhorse is it? Besides, no one is asking for an aircraft carrier, the
thickness of the 2015 version was good enough for nearly everybody, specially
when you do have laptops like the MacBook that do make those compromises.

Apple is sort of a luxury brand but the problem is they want it both ways.
They want to be seen as an aspirational brand and as a workhorse brand. That
is why they keep releasing FinalCut, Logic, and XCode. At some point those two
ambitions are going to collide; most people think they already did.

No one is asking for a tank, you are presenting a false dichotomy as no one is
confusing professional with ruggedized. Every serious complain about the
MacBook Pro is about specs, ports and reliability, not unbreakability. In
fact, based on your previous point about luxury machines I say you are the one
that is confused. Are MacBook Pros professional machines or not? If they are
luxury items as you claim then by all means don't make them waterproof but if
they want to aim it at people editing 8K video on-site in Africa, which
happens by the way, then ffs make the screen less reflective.

~~~
derefr
> why not go all the way and shrink it to the size of the 12" MacBook?

Personally, I see the MBP as a hybrid use-case device, much like the Nintendo
Switch: it throttles when freestanding (because it has nowhere to dissipate
its heat to), but it runs more quickly when "docked." So you can use it for
light things portably, and for heavy things at a desk.

Unlike the Switch, there's no first-party dock for the MBP, but search "mbp
cooling dock" and you'll see many accessories designed specifically for the
MBP to enable this workflow.

> FinalCut, Logic, and XCode

Two of those persist for the sake of enterprise media-production companies
that fund the engineering resources for them all on their own. If Apple were
trying to push these for _new_ customers, they'd still be making Xserves, as
the hardware to go with this software. New companies need render-nodes, right?
But they aren't, because these apps are only for these "legacy" media
companies that already have render-farms and don't need Apple selling them
render-nodes.

Xcode exists because Apple uses it to make macOS and iOS. (And because the
period where MPW sucked and CodeWarrior was third-party and so hard to get new
features supported in was a bad time to be an Apple system-software
developer.)

> No one is asking for a tank

No, but a keyboard that'll keep working when you spill bacon grease on it, or
a computer that won't choke in a sandstorm, is pretty damn ruggedized. Most
computers, regardless of manufacturer, are not capable of surviving those
onslaughts.

> editing 8K video on-site in Africa

See, this is what I was getting at with the difference in perspectives here. A
_ruggedized_ workstation would work just sitting around outside in the heat
and dust and light of the savannah. Whereas a _professional_ workstation
is—like a server, or (in previous decades) a news crew's satellite
uplink—something that exists in a designated editing-room in a designated
trailer you're hauling around with the crew.

~~~
redial
> I see the MBP as a hybrid use-case device, much like the Nintendo Switch: it
> throttles when freestanding (because it has nowhere to dissipate its heat
> to), but it runs more quickly when "docked." So you can use it for light
> things portably, and for heavy things at a desk.

MacBook Pros throttle even on "docks". They can't magically dissipate more
heat when stationary on a desk.

> New companies need render-nodes, right? But they aren't, because these apps
> are only for these "legacy" media companies that already have render-farms
> and don't need Apple selling them render-nodes.

Companies need lots of things. One of them is a Pro Apple laptop. Apple has no
problems charging Pro prices, they should in return give a Pro machine.

> No, but a keyboard that'll keep working when you spill bacon grease on it,
> or a computer that won't choke in a sandstorm, is pretty damn ruggedized.

You are being unreasonably extreme. _No one is asking for anything more than
what we already had_. A keyboard that is defeated by dust particles, dust!, is
a failed product at any price and in any category, let alone in the luxury
non-pro market where you want Apple to focus on. You should be even more
outraged than the rest of us! Which Rolex dies when you eat a sandwich wearing
it?

> See, this is what I was getting at with the difference in perspectives here.
> A ruggedized workstation would work just sitting around outside in the heat
> and dust and light of the savannah. Whereas a professional workstation
> is—like a server, or (in previous decades) a news crew's satellite
> uplink—something that exists in a designated editing-room in a designated
> trailer you're hauling around with the crew.

You should tell all the pros carrying their laptops into war zones that
they've been doing it wrong all these years. No, wait, they have been working
fine even in the dust and in sunlight, despite not having armor.

~~~
derefr
> MacBook Pros throttle even on "docks". They can't magically dissipate more
> heat when stationary on a desk.

 _Cooling_ docks. The kind of docks that have case-fans in them, and often are
made of porous metal than makes direct contact with a large portion of the
surface-area of the bottom of the device, making them gigantic heat-sinks.

> You should tell all the pros carrying their laptops into war zones that
> they've been doing it wrong all these years. No, wait, they have been
> working fine even in the dust and in sunlight, despite not having armor.

Err... those _are_ ruggedized devices, whatever you want to call them. By
"ruggedized" I'm not referring to laptops with extra armour tacked onto them
(e.g. "mil-spec ruggedization"); but rather to laptops built to certain specs
regarding tolerances of heat/cold/light/dust/radiation/vibration/etc. You
know, like how a satellite is ruggedized.

 _A lot_ of laptops are ruggedized, by this standard. Everything produced
under the ThinkPad brand, the HPe brand, etc. is ruggedized. But, outside of
these, most laptops aren't. Your average HP Pavillion, or Asus Chromebook,
won't survive a war zone. In general, _consumer electronics_ won't survive a
war zone. (Some lower-quality consumer electronics won't even survive the
cargo hold of a plane.)

And everything Apple makes, even for "professionals", is consumer electronics.

You wouldn't expect the iPad Pro to survive in a war zone without absolutely
"babying" it, right? It's a piece of delicate, finicky consumer electronics
that happens to be targeted at one particular type of
professional—artists—whose needs don't include ruggedness. Well, Macs are
pieces of delicate, finicky consumer electronics that happens to be targeted
at college students, businesspeople and engineers, none of whose needs
_usually_ include ruggedness either. No real difference.

\---

> You are being unreasonably extreme. No one is asking for anything more than
> what we already had.

To be clear, I was replying explicitly to this line from the root of this
comment thread:

> keyboards that ... go on working just fine when splashed with bacon & eggs

That's not your average laptop keyboard; that is, in fact, _only_ the
keyboards in ruggedized laptops that can do that.

------
crsv
How about an iTunes experience that doesn't make me want to jump off a bridge.

I can't name a single more consistently infuriating piece of software to
interact with. It's been horrible as long as it has existed, without fail.

On second thought, perhaps its stalwart consistency as one of the most
unusable applications in the history of consumer software is one of the few
constants in this fast changing world. Perhaps its flawed nature is meant to
remind us all of our own deep imperfections.

God I hate iTunes.

~~~
justinator
Version 1 was really good.

That's where my frustration over the app comes from. It _used_ to be pretty
much perfect.

~~~
rbanffy
It's an app to play music. How bad can it be?

~~~
justinator
It _was_ an app to play music. I fear that is has been transformed into some
amalgamation of an app/media store, a mobile device wrangler, one interface to
your Apple ID account - and a lot of good features that now kinda are half
broken. Lots of stillborn features too - wasn't there a music social media
integration that went nowhere? It's not very light on memory usage, either.

It was so nice to rip a CD, have it part of your library, and well that's it.
Search worked great, everything just worked.

The UX is just so bad now, I don't even want to listen to the music I have
saved. It's literally changed my music listening behavior.

~~~
rbanffy
I get it became a way to sync all your mobile devices with a music and apps
library, along a music player and music/mobile app store (which, I agree,
should all be moved to the App Store and become a "Store"), but that's the
extent of my usage of it and it's mostly fine (apart from the fact it's
becoming harder to manage my music library - I ripped all my CDs back when my
Mac had a DVD drive).

So far, the stillborn features don't bother me that much.

It's heavy and _should_ be lighter, with the features not being used quietly
swapped out and remaining there - it seems like it's trying to reanimate the
parts that are not in use all the time and that may be the root cause of the
humongous memory footprint.

Moving the store and sync out would somewhat make things better, but Windows
users would need to run 3 apps instead of one.

------
jsjohnst
> True Color and hyperlink support in the Terminal app

Why? Isn’t iTerm better in every imaginable way?

> Markdown support in the Notes app. Including code blocks and syntax
> highlighting.

1) there’s plenty of good apps (better than Notes.app anyway) that support
this already

2) I’d argue <1% of Mac owners know of Markdown, let alone use it. Sure, _we_
both do, but I’d rather them focus on the important bits
(stability/performance/etc) and leave the niche app features to the ecosystem.

~~~
lashkari
I get your point, and somewhat agree, but I think it's important to remember
that the two (feature updates to Terminal and Notes vs.
stability/performance/etc.) aren't typically mutually exclusive; the developer
that would implement Markdown support in Notes isn't likely the same developer
that would be implementing performance/stability enhancements to the core of
the OS.

~~~
jsjohnst
Each new “nice to have” feature requires QA testing time that steals away from
potentially more important things. Nobody writes bug free code forever, so I’d
rather they focus on the very important issues and make sure they are solid
before adding nice to haves, especially ones easily solved by other existing
apps.

------
derefr
> No More iTunes!

(Desktop) iTunes is the way it is in order to present a unified, familiar
experience between the macOS _and Windows_ iTunes desktop apps.

In Windows, iTunes is essentially "just enough macOS to manage an iOS
device"—with every disparate responsibility that management entails all
smushed together. (It's been this way since it was iPods that were being
managed.) And macOS iTunes is the same codebase(!) as Windows iTunes, so it's
not like that codebase is somehow going to compile as eight apps with their
own UIs on macOS, vs. one on Windows. It's going to look, and work, on macOS
as it does on Windows.

------
erichurkman
I want customizable "later/snooze" options for reminders/calendar
notifications. Specifically, I want a "Snooze until tonight" or "Snooze until
I get home".

… Mostly when I tell Siri to remind me to do something and she records the
wrong time and the reminder comes up at 2pm at work instead of 8pm like I
tried to record it.

------
dawnerd
> Remove old junk like the Dashboard and DVD Player apps.

Should just include those the app store as well.

Not mentioned are the many years old bugs with multi displays and networking.

I just want Apple to take a year and really fix all the core problems they've
introduced. No more new features until the existing stuff works!

~~~
rbanffy
The App Store is Apple's package manager. It's not going anywhere.

~~~
dewey
They are not saying that the app store should go away, they are saying that
the apps should be added to the app store like the other utilities that the
blog post mentions.

------
cjoy
I’ll be happy if the only thing that ships with 10.14 is a bugfix for the
Preview.app. It amazes me that they have not yet unfucked the PDF rendering
with a minor release. It amazes me even more, that this issue is not present
on the linked wishlist. Do people not view PDFs on their Macs?

~~~
tom_
The Preview PDF handling drives me mental too. Luckily it's not outright
unusable for me, but it's still a pain. Buy Apple, they said... Apple always
looks after the details :(

Happens on both my Macbook Pros, too - a early 2015 13" (i7-5557U) with
Sierra, and a mid 2014 15" (i7-4980HQ with discrete GPU) with High Sierra. The
symptoms for me, with the proviso that I'm not in OS X right now to double
check:

1\. set Preview to open PDFs at 100% zoom, 1 page at a time. Open a PDF.
Preview opens the window at the right size, then pops some scrollbars in. Now
the client area is smaller, and that means the window is the wrong size! -
which means the mouse wheel scrolls the view, rather than scrolling from page
to page. Gets me every damn time.

(This could be related, I imagine, to that setting that forces scrollbars
always to be displayed. I suppose it's too much to expect Apple's QA to have a
test matrix that encompasses this case)

2\. scroll from page to page. Each new page appears blurry - or, if lucky,
merely wonky - for a fraction of a second, then replaced with the clearer
rendering one might expect. Actually quite distracting when scrolling page by
page! - and when scrolling at keyboard repeat rate, the clearer version never
has time to appear, making it impossible to scroll through a document visually
at full speed

3\. when resizing the Preview window, some sizes look mucky - looks like the
sort of thing you get if you render to an offscreen buffer that's 1 or 2 pixel
the wrong size, or add the 0.5 to only one edge of your quad, and so on.
Really annoying

~~~
jonhendry18
"scroll from page to page. Each new page appears blurry - or, if lucky, merely
wonky - for a fraction of a second, then replaced with the clearer rendering
one might expect."

THIS drives me nuts.

------
kronie
Can you just include a little checkbox in the mouse settings that lets me
reverse mouse scroll independently from the touch pad's two-finger scroll
without having to pay for an app?

That'd be swell.

~~~
glitch
(I have not tried either of these solutions, so I'm not sure if they actually
work.) Although still separate applications, Karabiner and Scroll Reverser are
both free. (I mention this since you stated having to "pay for an app".)

(1) Karabiner:
[https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/](https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/) → Cf.
Kellen Mace, "Separate Trackpad & Mouse Natural Scrolling in Mac OS X" (2014)
[https://kellenmace.com/automate-trackpad-mouse-natural-
scrol...](https://kellenmace.com/automate-trackpad-mouse-natural-scrolling-in-
mac-os-x/)

(2) Scroll Reverser:
[http://pilotmoon.com/scrollreverser/](http://pilotmoon.com/scrollreverser/)

~~~
kronie
Wow, thank you for this. Scroll reverser did the job.

------
djcollier
It's abundantly clear to me that Apple is not interested in improving the
desktop experience. They simply want to show some shiny new features, and to
continue to reduce the dimensions and weight of their laptops (even at the
cost of usability). At this point I am hoping for a new unix-based alternative
to windows with the same level of stability and usability as macOS. Long gone
are the days where I would expect Apple to do what so many of us want with the
operating system.

------
mbell
Realistically, all I want are performance and stability improvements.

Unrealistically, there are number of relatively simple things Apple could do
to improve the hackintosh experience.

------
Lramseyer
How about the _option_ to remove the dock entirely? Spotlight and Launchpad
are preferable alternatives for opening apps, Mission Control works way better
for switching between apps, and the list of running apps can be stuffed into
the top menu with a pulldown list that can display diagnostic info and give a
nice way to switch-to or force quit.

I hide the dock and keep it off to the side, as I find it more annoying than
useful.

~~~
bradknowles
Whereas I cannot stand Spotlight, Launchpad, or Mission Control.

Any time I use a different machine, those are the first things that I
completely and totally disable.

For me, the dock and the menu bar are much better solutions than any of the
above, and they are in the category of "if it ain't broke, don't bloody
flippin' fix it!!!"

~~~
natecavanaugh
I have to agree with you, with the exception of Spotlight. Spotlight for me is
just simpler of an app launcher for my rarely used apps than Alfred (though I
use Alfred for other features), though I do miss Quicksilver. But Launchpad is
worthless for me, and I've never had a time when Mission Control hasn't just
choked for a noticeable amount of time (I've even had 4 seconds of UI lockup
just waiting for it to show up). Granted, I tend to keep a lot of apps open,
but still, it's irritating whenever I accidentally trigger it or accidentally
move a window to a different Space (this is on a still very capable mid-2014
Retina MBP with the highest specs available), and I much prefer using Keyboard
Maestro to open/focus my most used apps (if the app is open, focus the
foremost window, hit the combination again to bring all app windows forward;
if it's closed, open it), and for window switching, Witch does the job faster
and more logically than Mission Control. And I agree about the Dock and menu
bar. Sadly the Dock is easy to hide for those who don't want it visible, but
Mission Control and Spaces can't be disabled (AFIK, I'd love to be wrong).

------
jtbayly
Lots of people still have macs that have DVD players. Why delete the DVD
player app?

~~~
rbanffy
Putting it on the App Store could be a good idea though.

------
maxxxxx
They could fix the free disk space indicator. Mine goes up and down between
50GB and 200GB. I know this is because of local snapshots and supposedly it
will clean up space as needed but I have no idea how much space is exactly
available to me. Some versions ago the free space indicator was accurate. When
you emptied the trash free space went up exactly by the amount of deleted
files. Now it doesn't change at all.

------
EdwardCoffin
How about APFS on Fusion drives?

~~~
glhaynes
Sounds like it's coming soon (or being cancelled soon, of course):
[https://www.macrumors.com/2018/05/22/craig-federighi-apfs-
su...](https://www.macrumors.com/2018/05/22/craig-federighi-apfs-support-
fusion-drives/)

------
fauigerzigerk
I wish reminder alerts were triggered at the correct time or as soon as my Mac
wakes from sleep, not hours later or even on the next day.

~~~
erichurkman
Or reminders that reliably synced across Mac/phones. It works _most_ of the
time, but there's at least 4 or 5 times a week I open one of my macs and it
reminds me to call my mother even though that was checked off my list.. four
days ago.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Maybe that’ll improve with Messages on iCloud finally being delivered?

------
rbanffy
My vote is for forcing Microsoft to respect Control-A for beginning of line
and Control-E for end within all Office applications.

------
kickingvegas
My developer wish would be a redo of the Keychain Services API.
[https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/keychain_...](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/security/keychain_services?language=objc)

------
m-p-3
If they could allow non-iCloud authenticated users to update and install free
apps, that's be great.

------
carloscheddar
I would love the ability to customize the location of notifications so that I
can set them on the bottom right corner instead of having them fixed to the
upper right. Really hate how calendar notifications can hide my chrome
extensions and many other things.

~~~
bradknowles
Funny. I just heard exactly the same comment from a co-worker yesterday.

You two are the first people I've ever heard of complain about this issue.

------
SippinLean
>Better Window Management

YES! Please add native Snap in MacOS (and native Exposé in Windows).

~~~
Karliss
Isn't the second one already available in windows 10?

------
archagon
Still hoping for some kind of integration between iPad + Pencil and macOS. (I
think it was vaguely rumored last year.) It would be so amazing for art. Not
holding my breath, though.

------
8bittaco
The option to enable Windows-like click-through behaviour would be great.

------
FraKtus
Give a little love to OpenGL. Sure Metal is great... but...

