Re: Apple GUI Bug

From	Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid>
Newsgroups	comp.os.linux.advocacy, comp.sys.mac.advocacy
Subject	Re: Apple GUI Bug
Date	2026-05-11 06:19 +0000
Organization	A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID	<10trscu$tabj$2@dont-email.me> (permalink)
References	(1 earlier) <FpmcnS1ZBsAd2Jz3nZ2dnZfqnPWdnZ2d@supernews.com> <10tribu$r55l$1@dont-email.me> <6a01669b$0$23$882e4bbb@reader.netnews.com> <10trq82$spn3$2@dont-email.me> <6a016e28$0$43783$882e4bbb@reader.netnews.com>

Cross-posted to 2 groups.

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On 11 May 2026 05:50:32 GMT, Brock McNuggets wrote:

> If you think in terms of applications it is intuitive.

This is all just speculation on your part. Nobody from Apple’s UI
group has ever explained the rationale behind this.

But I think I have an explanation, in the form of the usual
“historical reasons” -- it’s a hangover from the original 1980s MacOS.
If you remember, that was single-tasking. So it was quite possible to
have an app running with no windows open, and this was less likely to
confuse the user, since the desktop would be completely blank, while
the menubar still gave a hint that an application was running. The
reason for allowing this was it often took significant time for an app
to start up, so it made sense to keep it running until the user
explicitly quit it.

When multitasking was added to MacOS, this legacy behaviour simply
continued on. It was now potentially more confusing, but the saving of
time restarting an app that the user didn’t want to quit still
applied. And when MacOS was replaced by OS X/macOS, something of the
original GUI underpinnings must have been carried over. Why? For the
usual reason: it was easier to leave things that way than try to
figure out how to fix the code.

Unix systems, on the other hand, were multitasking right from the
beginning. So they never felt the need to implement such a concept.

> Where do you think they are more document centric?

*Were* -- back when they were championing OpenDoc.

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Thread

Apple GUI Bug Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-05-10 20:05 +0000
  Re: Apple GUI Bug Brock McNuggets <brock.mcnuggets@gmail.com> - 2026-05-10 20:34 +0000
    Re: Apple GUI Bug Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-05-10 22:41 +0000
      Re: Apple GUI Bug Brock McNuggets <brock.mcnuggets@gmail.com> - 2026-05-10 22:58 +0000
        Re: Apple GUI Bug Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-05-10 23:07 +0000
          Re: Apple GUI Bug Brock McNuggets <brock.mcnuggets@gmail.com> - 2026-05-10 23:42 +0000
  Re: Apple GUI Bug CrudeSausage <crude@sausa.ge> - 2026-05-10 17:45 -0400
    Re: Apple GUI Bug Brock McNuggets <brock.mcnuggets@gmail.com> - 2026-05-10 22:36 +0000
      Re: Apple GUI Bug Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-05-10 22:38 +0000
        Re: Apple GUI Bug Brock McNuggets <brock.mcnuggets@gmail.com> - 2026-05-10 23:03 +0000
          Re: Apple GUI Bug Jim <slimjimmy1959@yahoomail.com> - 2026-05-10 23:47 +0000
            Re: Apple GUI Bug Brock McNuggets <brock.mcnuggets@gmail.com> - 2026-05-11 00:08 +0000
  Re: Apple GUI Bug Nick Charles <none@none.none> - 2026-05-10 22:56 -0400
    Re: Apple GUI Bug Brock McNuggets <brock.mcnuggets@gmail.com> - 2026-05-11 03:26 +0000
    Re: Apple GUI Bug Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-05-11 03:27 +0000
      Re: Apple GUI Bug Brock McNuggets <brock.mcnuggets@gmail.com> - 2026-05-11 05:18 +0000
        Re: Apple GUI Bug Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-05-11 05:42 +0000
          Re: Apple GUI Bug Brock McNuggets <brock.mcnuggets@gmail.com> - 2026-05-11 05:50 +0000
            Re: Apple GUI Bug Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-05-11 06:19 +0000
              Re: Apple GUI Bug Brock McNuggets <brock.mcnuggets@gmail.com> - 2026-05-11 06:44 +0000
                Re: Apple GUI Bug Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-05-12 02:46 +0000
                Re: Apple GUI Bug Brock McNuggets <Brock.McNuggets@gmail.com> - 2026-05-12 03:04 +0000
          Re: Apple GUI Bug Alan <nuh-uh@nope.com> - 2026-05-11 11:34 -0700
            Re: Apple GUI Bug Brock McNuggets <Brock.McNuggets@gmail.com> - 2026-05-11 18:47 +0000
              Re: Apple GUI Bug Brock McNuggets <Brock.McNuggets@gmail.com> - 2026-05-11 18:59 +0000
                Re: Apple GUI Bug Brock McNuggets <Brock.McNuggets@gmail.com> - 2026-05-11 19:25 +0000
                Re: Apple GUI Bug Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-05-11 22:40 +0000
                Re: Apple GUI Bug Brock McNuggets <brock.mcnuggets@gmail.com> - 2026-05-11 22:53 +0000
                Re: Apple GUI Bug Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-05-12 02:50 +0000
                Re: Apple GUI Bug Brock McNuggets <Brock.McNuggets@gmail.com> - 2026-05-12 03:07 +0000
                Re: Apple GUI Bug Lawrence D’Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> - 2026-05-12 07:09 +0000
                Re: Apple GUI Bug Chris <Christech@protonmail.com> - 2026-05-12 01:41 +0000
                Re: Apple GUI Bug Brock McNuggets <brock.mcnuggets@gmail.com> - 2026-05-12 01:45 +0000
  Re: Apple GUI Bug Alan <nuh-uh@nope.com> - 2026-05-10 21:42 -0700

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