The post introduces GridLion, a macOS app that brings back the old grid-based layout for virtual desktops, or “Spaces,” that existed before Apple flattened the model into a single horizontal strip. The author’s claim is simple: the grid matched human spatial memory better, made navigation faster, and let people build muscle memory around where work lived. For people who used rows and columns as mental categories, the current Mission Control model feels like a downgrade, not an evolution.
If your power users now need a stack of hacks and utilities to get back baseline workflow speed, that is not nostalgia. It is product debt, and it creates an opening for competitors that respect customization and expert use.
Frustrated and nostalgic. Most people agreed that macOS desktop UX has regressed for power users, with Apple removing or degrading workflows that once felt fast and spatially intuitive, while adding security friction and animation-heavy behavior that feels optimized for safety theater or polish rather than daily productivity.
01 The missing feature is bigger than a grid.
Several people argued that operating systems still lack a real task or project primitive that groups windows, browser tabs, terminals, chats, and tools into one recoverable workspace. Arc, KDE Activities, Niri, and AeroSpace were cited as partial answers, but the underlying point is that app-centric window management is the wrong abstraction for modern knowledge work.
The opportunity is not just better window switching. It is an OS-level model for project context that survives across apps.
02 Apple’s permission model is forcing broad dangerous capabilities because the OS lacks narrower APIs for common jobs.
The concrete example was bundling arbitrary screen recording with simple window previews, and bundling keylogging with hotkey activation. That reframes the problem from “too many prompts” to “bad capability design,” where developers ask for scary permissions because the platform gives them no safer way to achieve normal features.
Better security UX starts with better primitives. If the API surface is too coarse, every app looks more invasive than it needs to be.
03 macOS has an uninstall and persistence problem that pushes users into unofficial maintenance tools.
Comments about login items, background agents, package installs, Homebrew --zap, Forklift, UninstallPKG, and Lingon X show that Apple never built a coherent first-party lifecycle for apps that scatter files, install launch agents, or re-enable themselves at startup. That weakens Apple’s claim to simplicity because the clean drag-and-drop app story only describes the happy path.
A platform that hides complexity still has to own cleanup. If it does not, third-party janitors become part of the real operating system.
04 The workspace complaints are not just taste.
They are about breaking spatial memory. People want persistent visual previews, stable ordering, and names because that is how a desktop stops being a list of windows and becomes a map. Once spaces reorder themselves or collapse into unlabeled strips, users are forced back into memorization and serial search.
Good window management is navigational, not decorative. Spatial consistency beats clever animation every time.
01 Apple’s tedious security flows are doing exactly what they are supposed to do.
Several people argued that average users rarely hunt through settings to disable friction permanently, but they do mindlessly accept prompts and follow scam instructions, so forcing a multi-step trip into System Settings is a meaningful defense against accidental self-compromise.
What looks insulting to an expert can be effective for the median user. Extra friction is sometimes the product, not a bug.
02 Most users probably do not want any of this complexity in the first place.
One commenter argued that civilians are happy with a full-screen browser and a simple launcher, and that Mission Control, Spaces, and Stage Manager may represent niche power-user demands that Apple should stop half-supporting and instead expose through cleaner APIs for third parties.
A feature can be important and still be niche. The real failure may be pretending to serve power users while never committing to them.
03 A grid is not automatically superior if you already switch by hotkey.
The skeptical view was that direct bindings beat spatial browsing, and swiping only matters when you are lost. The rebuttal was that human spatial memory is itself a productivity feature, which explains why the layout still matters to many people.
There are two valid models here. Some users want coordinates, others want direct addresses.