While making a wrapper self-contained macOS app for a script, I went searching for some basic guidelines for light vs dark icons.
The host OS is High Sierra, there’s no dark UI in High Sierra so it’s only the menu bar, it was going to be quick. However, ADHD led me on that familiar journey so far off from where I started landing me on this page, with a little video showcasing that synthetic world Apple thinks we live in.
It’s about macOS’ design. At minute 7:35 (7:29… 7:— for context) the presenter says: “…and gives you this new look for free.” Keyword: (for) free.
I’ve been exposed to US culture long enough to know that whenever the word “free” is thrown around, it does not mean without cost, gratuito, pour rien, gratis or how we say in my totally-native-Japanese-and-not-the-lousiest-translation-I-found-in-the-Dictionary-app ただで, 無料で.
I won’t say it out loud because the wound is too Kyoto-fresh not because I know shit how to pronounce it and stuff. Bashful geisha emoji.
Free in English, I think all English but mostly North American, is emphatically saying that there’s a catch, or a chance for you to “beat the game” and happy US citizens and to an extent regular1 happy Canadians might try, and that’s fine if it’s like a happy hour, where even if you lose you have a blast but this if fucking Apple.
1: Regular Canadian happy’s US counterpart is not seen in the wild, it is very rare. It’s often confused with happy US citizen, or vacationing US citizen but they all have they same trait: stress. Regular Canadian happy’s US counterpart closest related species is coital US citizen. But so are every other counterpart in the world.
sensei v. — teriyaki muchas gracias
There’s no winning Apple. They forced the world into evergreen apps where all dev effort goes unpaid but it’s amazing for their marketing of purchasing once stays in your account forever. So we developed the most egregious and insidious tech in regards to privacy and addition.
And when that got old, we moved into subscriptions, to pay for the most basic, shit we’ve always have available on a recurring basis. e.g; Evernote, mail clients
You cannot escape it either, because these shitty devices need to be contacting the mothership if you have device tracking on, and now that macOS has a T2 chip and Activation Lock in it, it means there’s only one way of officially developing software for Apple devices, sure you may use your own shit before you get to it but nonetheless you’ll eventually will have to get to that point: Xcode.
Xcode, which happens to be an Apple product, along all of those other products policing what code that doesn’t make Apple’s own built-in code (i.e; apps) look too bad even thought they have unlimited reach over anything unlike your code so you can have Apple’s blessing (literally) to get published. After paying the fees, of course.
Apple welcomes every developer to run their web apps in its capable Safari browser. Mind you not extensions because those have to be written in Xcode too now so customers can conveniently find them all grouped with tens, even dozens others in a single leeching-developer-infested den in the app store where, when seen as a group, makes you reconsider using Safari.
Can you imagine if Apple wants to charge for design packs too? In-App Developer Purchases. Isn’t it already enforcing some stupid design guidelines? Which — to be fair — ain’t misguided; but Apple is since it has had no Jobs.