![]() ![]() ![]() I’m not only talking about the original Xerox PARC set of metaphors of windows and a mouse pointer. The metaphor of the desktop is really powerful. I don’t have a fully formed manifesto here, just a sort of rumbling feeling that the dominance of the smartphone made us (and the companies that make them) take the desktop for granted. Chrome OS is improving through a mix of Android apps and extensions. iOS will soon have Siri Shortcuts, which could empower iOS users to really personalize how their iPhones and iPads work. I tend to prefer using computer platforms that make it relatively easy to fix that one thing through little add-ons (Mac and Windows) that others do not (iOS and Chrome OS). It’s empowering, just as much as the current push to teach people to learn to code. At some point, everybody hits a moment when they think, “Ugh, why does my computer make doing this one thing so annoying?” Giving people the ability to solve that kind of problem is important. The trick is creating a learning curve that allows people to get better at using them. I want to be clear that I believe computers should be made in a way that makes them simple and accessible enough for everybody. (There’s another category we should leave behind us.) I think they’re useful for everybody. I don’t think these sorts of utilities are useful just for computer nerds. Increasingly, though, I am uncomfortable with the distinction we casually make between “pro” users and “regular” users. This week’s episode of Processor is another one of these “pro tip” kinds of videos, where I just lay out six of the menu bar utilities I’m using on my Mac. I’ve ranted on The Vergecast about how the iPad doesn’t quite work as my main computer because I always seem to want just one more app on my screen. I’ve spent way too many hours trying out different menu bar utilities that provide helpful functions that aren’t built in the OS. I’ve set up and configured Alfred with a bunch of little custom-built utilities for searching the web. I’ve written a few times now about the lengths I’ve gone to tweak how I interact with my computers.
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