Mac App Installation: A Surreal Drag-and-Drop Ritual
As a Windows user, it's a surreal way to install a program
The author, a Windows user, explores the peculiar macOS app installation process where apps arrive as .dmg files that mount as virtual drives, requiring users to drag the app icon to the Applications folder. This ritual often involves creatively customized Finder windows with arrows, instructions, and backgrounds. The post showcases a variety of these designs, from simple arrows to elaborate scenes, and discusses the design challenges and gestalt issues they present. It also highlights apps like Firefox that maintain elegant install windows and modern examples that continue the tradition.
As a Windows user, it's a very surreal way to install a program.
- dabinat
I think that if every app has to explain to the user how to use their own operating system, that operating system is not intuitive. I’ve been using Macs for a long time but I had to look up how to install an app the first time I did it.
- adzm
I'm just glad I'm not the only one who says damage in their head for .dmg files
- frollogaston
The dmg thing makes no sense. I do like that the app is self-contained, unlike Windows where it's always an installer, but don't like how deleting the app doesn't clear whatever files it put all over the place.
- simplesocieties
I'll be honest given the article title I was hoping for a detailed rant on the complex installation process that most Windows apps hide, but this was also a nice read. And as a user of Raycast they do indeed have a very nice installation background.
- cosmic_cheese
It makes more sense if one thinks of the disk image files as digital analogues to thumb drives, optical discs, etc.
In the Classic Mac OS days a decent chunk of software (especially shareware/indieware) didn't have an installer and was just a folder you copied from a floppy disk or CD, which this process kinda mimics. You're just opening a file instead of putting in a disc.