[everyone]

As someone who only occasionally has to use macOS and iOS for work. The gestures and key combos required to do even the most basic things are insane.. and there is (almost) zero discoverability or affordances for them. On iOS gestures with multiple fingers, on macOS keyboard shortcuts with 3 or 4 keys.

I also dont often use Linux, but I could try some new distro with a completely different windows manager I have never seen before and I can figure it out and be happily computing in no time.

apple stuff always requiring searching on the internet to find out how how to do even most basic functions.

Also, not relevant, but I gotta mention as it grinds my gears so bad.. The only reason I have to use macOS is that it's required to build to iOS, which is just uniquely egregious. That sort of business should actually be illegal. Hopefully it will be in EU soon.

[gwright]

> there is zero discoverability

The shortcuts associated with menu items are shown in the menu item. I realize that there other discovery problems with keyboard shortcuts (on all platforms) but there is non-zero discoverability for "the most basic things" on Mac OS.

Gesture discoverability is much closer to zero, IMHO.

[egypturnash]

what you mean most people don't go explore every single page of the System Preferences when they get a new computer and look at all the helpful animations in the Gestures pane, I'm shocked

(yeah this is the computing equivalent of a locked file cabinet in a disused toilet stall in a dark basement with a sign on the door that says "Beware The Leopard")

[9935c101ab17a66]

macOS help menus are incredibly useful, system preferences is helpful, and support.apple.com actually has some useful guides. Apple also provides free training sessions at Apple Stores, and free remote support 24/7 AFAIK through AppleCare.

What do you expect? Unskippable videos when you first set up a mac followed by a mandatory test that you have to pass before you can use the computer?

[kergonath]

> yeah this is the computing equivalent of a locked file cabinet in a disused toilet stall in a dark basement with a sign on the door that says "Beware The Leopard"

OTOH it makes complete sense to have a look at the Trackpad pane to see how it works. It’s not like it’s hidden behind a defaults command line, and it even has movies. It’s much worse on phones.

[jjoonathan]

Mac OS Help menu search is spectacular for discoverability. Start typing what you want and it pops up the menu with an arrow and it shows you the shortcut.

Everyone else does it worse, except maybe the VSCode command palette.

[yourad_io]

This is the only thing I miss about macos. Last Mac used was snow leopard and I _still_ sometimes find myself wishing for menu search on Linux

[everyone]

Yeah fair enough, I was being hyperbolic, edited my comment to be more accurate.

[robertoandred]

How do you discover key combos in Linux?

[OJFord]

You read the man page/documentation for the software you installed that they're for, or else you defined them yourself and don't need to discover them.

[awad]

Apple also provides ample documentation

[OJFord]

Sure, but the complaint was discoverability, my point is that on Linux you start with something you don't need to discover: you either defined the shortcut yourself, or you installed something that defines it by default. There are no 'system shortcuts'.

[everyone]

Generally speaking, you dont actually need them in Linux, you can do everything with mouse.. however you can't actually use macOS without them.