AppleScript is really a macOS superpower, it’s amazing to be able to script apps that precisely, targeting pretty much any GUI element by name or ID. And apps can expose extra APIs with documentation you can browse right from the AppleScript Editor. Really one of the better sides of Apple’s software integration.
It’s sad the ecosystem and Apple itself is mostly moving away from it, but I expect it’ll stay half alive for a while.
I wish JavaScript For Automation (JXA) was more user-friendly. Trying to log basically any object will throw a type conversion error or print “undefined” so it’s very difficult to go from idea to complete script.
Isn’t it the case for many power user features in macOS? When the writing was on the wall way back in 2012 (pretty much after Steve Jobs died and the bean counter took over) I switched to Linux, never to look back again. It’s easy to forget how unixy macOS (still) was back then, now it’s babysitting you at every step. Thank god I left this sinking ship…
And it’s a sad state of affairs, as macOS nails many things, e.g. colour and device management.
Yes a lot of features half die out, but I don’t think it’s related to management changes (or really macOS specific). Even just looking at user scripting, under Jobs they introduced Automator in 2005. AppleScript had been around since 1993 (Jobs was not at Apple then). They had already made the same mistake with Automator that was repeated in Shortcuts: not deeply integrating with the AppleScript infrastructure. Though Shortcuts was an external company Apple bought so it’s more understandable.
I would attribute macOS loosing it’s power user edge to the iPhone. Remember on release there was no App Store! The vision was to use Web Apps for everything. It’s the jailbreak community that we can thank for basically forcing Apple to (half) open the platform so they keep control of the platform and rake in that sweet money.
macOS is moving towards iOS in terms of platform security which in Apple land also usually means stripping user freedom.
I haven’t used macOS in a while either but my only laptop is an old MBP (> 10 years) I haven’t bothered installing Linux on because I use it once every 6 months.
This is a very balanced take, thank you! I distinctly remember leaks from the mid-2010’s where Apple execs actually planned to phase out professional Macs, and the ever-increasing time windows between refreshes only confirmed that in my eyes. They got back on track since then, but I think this is a good example for when bean counters run companies.
They probably highly overprioritised the iPhone/iPad segment, given the Mac became less and less of a core business. However, the mistake was that Macs are the machines that apps are developed on and there is just a high ratio of consumers versus producers. To look at it differently, if you think of the market segment as a bell curve, the boundaries of said bell curve can be highly relevant, which I find quite fascinating.
AppleScript is really a macOS superpower, it’s amazing to be able to script apps that precisely, targeting pretty much any GUI element by name or ID. And apps can expose extra APIs with documentation you can browse right from the AppleScript Editor. Really one of the better sides of Apple’s software integration.
It’s sad the ecosystem and Apple itself is mostly moving away from it, but I expect it’ll stay half alive for a while.
I wish JavaScript For Automation (JXA) was more user-friendly. Trying to log basically any object will throw a type conversion error or print “undefined” so it’s very difficult to go from idea to complete script.
Isn’t it the case for many power user features in macOS? When the writing was on the wall way back in 2012 (pretty much after Steve Jobs died and the bean counter took over) I switched to Linux, never to look back again. It’s easy to forget how unixy macOS (still) was back then, now it’s babysitting you at every step. Thank god I left this sinking ship…
And it’s a sad state of affairs, as macOS nails many things, e.g. colour and device management.
Yes a lot of features half die out, but I don’t think it’s related to management changes (or really macOS specific). Even just looking at user scripting, under Jobs they introduced Automator in 2005. AppleScript had been around since 1993 (Jobs was not at Apple then). They had already made the same mistake with Automator that was repeated in Shortcuts: not deeply integrating with the AppleScript infrastructure. Though Shortcuts was an external company Apple bought so it’s more understandable.
I would attribute macOS loosing it’s power user edge to the iPhone. Remember on release there was no App Store! The vision was to use Web Apps for everything. It’s the jailbreak community that we can thank for basically forcing Apple to (half) open the platform so they keep control of the platform and rake in that sweet money.
macOS is moving towards iOS in terms of platform security which in Apple land also usually means stripping user freedom.
I haven’t used macOS in a while either but my only laptop is an old MBP (> 10 years) I haven’t bothered installing Linux on because I use it once every 6 months.
This is a very balanced take, thank you! I distinctly remember leaks from the mid-2010’s where Apple execs actually planned to phase out professional Macs, and the ever-increasing time windows between refreshes only confirmed that in my eyes. They got back on track since then, but I think this is a good example for when bean counters run companies.
They probably highly overprioritised the iPhone/iPad segment, given the Mac became less and less of a core business. However, the mistake was that Macs are the machines that apps are developed on and there is just a high ratio of consumers versus producers. To look at it differently, if you think of the market segment as a bell curve, the boundaries of said bell curve can be highly relevant, which I find quite fascinating.