> Have you clicked on try now?

That is hilarious.

Apple has become the very thing they criticized, or even worse. Microsoft had nagged me twice (one notification, one "try Edge" when switching to FF) about Edge.

I find the "reboot" advice equally funny. As if this notification itself is a bug and shouldn't have been there to start with. What's next - try scanning your drive for a virus?

Microsoft incorporate every possible anti pattern into pushing their products on Windows users. It's not even close.

My theory is they bought linked in for their dark pattern trade secrets.

MS bought LinkedIn for the foothold and mindshare they held in work-focused social media.

Was anyone else surprised Microsoft didn’t call the latest Gen Xbox the “Xbox One 360 Series X” with how excellent their branding has been as of late?

I have the latest newest xbox, and it's so confusing, I couldn't actually tell you the name of it. I think it's pretty close to what you have there. Maybe without the "360"? But I distinctly recall that it seems to be a mishmash of other xbox names.

Microsoft is pretty weird about all of these things. I get the "hey we could just import your bookmarks and you'd never have to see Chrome again" from time to time. I also remember some major Windows update when you couldn't see your desktop, and you got this super weird "ALL YOUR FILES ARE EXACTLY WHERE YOU LEFT THEM" slideshow.

Also, "are you sure you want to keep using X to open .xyz files?" Yeah I'm sure, that's why I checked the checkbox "don't ask me again". And now you're asking me again. (I get why they do this... people accidentally click "never ask me again" but didn't like the choice they made, and there is no obvious way to make it let you pick again.)

I wish they made Windows Pro+ where for an extra $20 it would turn off all "friendly" features. Controversial opinion: I just want my OS to provide some APIs and time slice between processes. Anything else can be done in userspace.

Windows Pro is already expensive enough. Switching to a non-nag, no Candy Crush mode should just be an option.

How did you manage this? MS constantly nags me about edge. It’s in menus, it sends me periodic “reminders”, etc.

When I gave up and just started using Edge to make it stop, they started nagging me about switching to Bing. They call it “recommended settings”.

In that case, I have no idea: I just don't get dumb shit from Windows. Maybe because I have the pro sku?

They did make it much harder to switch in 11 with individual URI associations, but FF does all of them when you tell it to become the default.

I agree they've been going downhill on these fronts, but... as someone who uses a Windows laptop for work and a Mac its not even close.

This reminds me of every Apple issue I’ve ever had. I try to Google it and the consensus from the Apple fans and managers in the threads is always that the people with the issues are wrong and Apple is right. No matter how crazy it is. If someone asks “How do I do X”, most responses will be “Well why do you want to do that? Just trust Apple to know what is best.”

It’s very different than when I Google about problems on other platforms.

You want to maximize the window? Just go Fullscreen! You want to see the dock? Just manually resize the window. It will remember the size you left it at! Except it doesn't, it resizes every window every time to some random two thirds of the screen, just in case I need to...?

Why on earth would the green arrows button do anything except fill the desktop with the window?

Because not every manager is, nor needs to be, Windows?

Prior to the green button gaining the fullscreen functionality, it used to toggle between two sizes: (A) a developer-determined default size and (B) as large as the window needs to be to accommodate the content at the content's current zoom level.

This is inherited from macOS' days as NeXTSTEP, since the "global menu bar" was originally a floating palette window whose submenus could be detached and float, too. If windows were allowed to fill the screen, they would have blocked access to the menus. So, windows were made only as large as necessary, no more than that.

To me, macOS' behaviour always made more sense. Why should a window need to be bigger than its content? Drives me nuts to see 27" diagonal displays with huge Chrome windows showing a column of text about 6" wide and then the remainder is just white space.

It feels like Microsoft cottoned on to that with its Aero Snap feature in Windows 7 that far too few people actually use. So much wasted screen real estate.

> Why on earth would the green arrows button do anything except fill the desktop with the window?

That's exactly what they do. You click the green button, it fills the screen with a window.

Ugh, this has never made sense to me. A “fit to content” button might make sense, but there should also be a maximize button (which is not the same as a full screen button). You might like having distractions everywhere on your screen, but I don’t.

I've used osx for maybe 15 minutes in my life, but I distinctly remember this question.

So like... I know everyone else probably already knows, but is there actually a way to do it?

You could use an app like BetterSnapTool or Tiles. With both, you can set up Aero Snap-like hot edges to change window size. With BST, you can also set right or middle clicking on the traffic lights to do custom actions, including Windows-style maximise.

The odd few times I need Windows-style maximise, usually in non-native apps that don't properly support AppKit/UIKit resizing behaviour (I'm looking at you, Teams, Discord, etc.), I'll use Tiles to do it. Free app.

https://folivora.ai/bettersnaptool

https://freemacsoft.net/tiles/

Hold option (alt) and click the green button in the bar at the top of the window.

(As you hover the button, a pop-up will appear, calling the option "Zoom," which means to "maximize.")

It really means "tell the app to size its window to fit the content" so the effect is not always to fill the screen. It's so inconsistently implemented that they might as well just make it work like maximize on Windows.

Or just double click the titlebar, less effort.

I have been told multiple times, "there's no reason anyone would want to do that." Totally nuts.

"You're holding it wrong" -- Steve Jobs, June 2010

Q.: How do I stop telemarketers from calling me about car extended warranty?

A.: Have you tried buying a car extended warranty?

P.S.: I don't have a car

P.P.S.: Have you tried buying a car?

To be fair, the "community specialist" is a base-level representative but is not capable of fixing the culture problem that led to the situation.

They could:

1. Suggest they follow the prompt.

2. Try to have a random user run Terminal commands to edit plist entries.

3. Explain that's just the way it is.

4. Offer condolences and promise to escalate the complaint.

None of these are great.

And yet, he didn’t escalate the complaint.

Have you worked in customer service before? Usually, the options you've got as a customer service agent are pretty limited. When I was at Best Buy, we had people ask us to escalate complaints about anti-features (like the pin pad that tried to sign you up for email spam) all the time, and had no ability to take action on them.

I’m not picking on his abilities, I’m just pointing out that Apple’s responsibility is engaged by having an ivory-tower structure.

The worst thing that could happen to their designers is, customer feedback.

they're not tonedef, theyre powerdrunk

Or it's some misguided attempt at increasing "user engagement." Same as those awful nagging newsletter signup popups that every site decided to add one day.

... and those "Try the new Safari" notification.

Oh, wait...