I witnessed all of this since I started using Macs around '84/'85 and programming them around '89. I'm still in mourning about:
* Since Classic MacOS (OS 9 and below) didn't have a command line, it had GUIs for tweaking system settings. Better yet, it had a budget for preventing user interface issues in the first place. The user experience on Classic MacOS was simply better than anything we have today, on any platform (including iOS - and yes I realize this is subjective). The flip side is that the platform evolved faster until the late 2000s because developers could tinker more freely. Since the vast majority of users are not programmers, I don't think this was a win. To me, something priceless was lost, that may never be regained even with the incubator of the web pushing the envelope.
* I often wish that Apple had made a Linux compatibility layer. That entire ecosystem of software is simply not in the Mac fanbase's radar. This isn't such a huge issue now with containerization, but set everything back perhaps 10-20 years. Apple did little to improve NeXT (to make it something more like BeOS, or the Amiga). We really needed an advanced, modern platform like Copland or A/UX like the article said. But in the end, Steve Jobs knew that didn't really matter to like 99% of users, and he was probably right. Still, I'm in that lucky 1% that sees the crushing burden of console tool incompatibilities and an utter lack of progress in UNIX since the mid 90s.
* Much of the macOS GUI runs in a custom Apple layer above FreeBSD (rather than using something like X11). I'm not really convinced that the windowing system is that optimized, because it used to use a representation similar to PDF. So for example, I saw weird artifacts and screen redraws back when I was doing Carbon/Cocoa game programming, especially around the time OpenGL was taking off. Quartz is powerful but I wouldn't say it's performant. A 350 MHz blue & white iMac running OS X had roughly the same Finder speed as an 8 MHz Mac Plus running System 7 or a 33 MHz 386DX running Windows 95. Does anyone know if the windowing system is open source?
I could go on, in deeper detail, but it's futile. I think that's what I truly miss most about Classic MacOS. If you ever watch a show like Halt and Catch Fire, there was a feeling back then that regular folks could write a desktop publishing application or a system extension (heck whole games like Lunatic Fringe ran in a screensaver) and you could get Apple's attention and they might even buy you out. But today it's all locked down, we're all just users and consumers.
I still love the Mac I guess, and always come back to it after using the various runner ups. But I can't get over this feeling that it stopped evolving sometime just after OS X came out, almost 20 years ago. There is this gaping void where a far-reaching, visionary GUI running on top of a truly modern architecture should be. All we have now is a sea of loose approximations of what that could be. I wish I knew how to articulate this better. Sorry about that.
* Since Classic MacOS (OS 9 and below) didn't have a command line, it had GUIs for tweaking system settings. Better yet, it had a budget for preventing user interface issues in the first place. The user experience on Classic MacOS was simply better than anything we have today, on any platform (including iOS - and yes I realize this is subjective). The flip side is that the platform evolved faster until the late 2000s because developers could tinker more freely. Since the vast majority of users are not programmers, I don't think this was a win. To me, something priceless was lost, that may never be regained even with the incubator of the web pushing the envelope.
* I often wish that Apple had made a Linux compatibility layer. That entire ecosystem of software is simply not in the Mac fanbase's radar. This isn't such a huge issue now with containerization, but set everything back perhaps 10-20 years. Apple did little to improve NeXT (to make it something more like BeOS, or the Amiga). We really needed an advanced, modern platform like Copland or A/UX like the article said. But in the end, Steve Jobs knew that didn't really matter to like 99% of users, and he was probably right. Still, I'm in that lucky 1% that sees the crushing burden of console tool incompatibilities and an utter lack of progress in UNIX since the mid 90s.
* Much of the macOS GUI runs in a custom Apple layer above FreeBSD (rather than using something like X11). I'm not really convinced that the windowing system is that optimized, because it used to use a representation similar to PDF. So for example, I saw weird artifacts and screen redraws back when I was doing Carbon/Cocoa game programming, especially around the time OpenGL was taking off. Quartz is powerful but I wouldn't say it's performant. A 350 MHz blue & white iMac running OS X had roughly the same Finder speed as an 8 MHz Mac Plus running System 7 or a 33 MHz 386DX running Windows 95. Does anyone know if the windowing system is open source?
I could go on, in deeper detail, but it's futile. I think that's what I truly miss most about Classic MacOS. If you ever watch a show like Halt and Catch Fire, there was a feeling back then that regular folks could write a desktop publishing application or a system extension (heck whole games like Lunatic Fringe ran in a screensaver) and you could get Apple's attention and they might even buy you out. But today it's all locked down, we're all just users and consumers.
I still love the Mac I guess, and always come back to it after using the various runner ups. But I can't get over this feeling that it stopped evolving sometime just after OS X came out, almost 20 years ago. There is this gaping void where a far-reaching, visionary GUI running on top of a truly modern architecture should be. All we have now is a sea of loose approximations of what that could be. I wish I knew how to articulate this better. Sorry about that.