On the latest episode of Dithering, John Gruber and Ben Thompson were talking about the iPad and the Mac. I’m paraphrasing here but Ben recounted his story about needing to screenshare into his Mac Mini after his Terminal threw up a permission dialogue about attached storage. John was understanding, and made the point that he’s been told by Apple that there were reasons for why these permission models were introduced, that some customers had some bad things happen to them. The topic ended with John saying that he thought on balance that the permissions on the Mac were in a good place.

I’m sorry but I cannot disagree with John enough regarding Apple’s chosen balance point on their permission prompting. I’m sure that Apple devs have seen a lot of terrible things that have happened to customers of their devices. That’s what happens when your customer base is in the hundreds of millions. Should the rest of us be constantly inconvenienced with these models because of what could happen? Should I be forbidden to cross the road at anything other than a pedestrian crossing?

I am happy to settle for one permission prompt asking if I allow Terminals to access external files (a key responsibly of a Terminal I’d argue). Maybe once a month at absolute most. But I’ve been getting this effing prompt weekly at the moment. And always when I’m in the middle of trying to get something done. How many times do I have to tell MacOS that yes, I want — nay, need — the Terminal to access external files? Is five times over two months not enough already? Take an effin hint, Apple!

Also, on that same episode, John and Ben expressed their concern about Apple taking their eye off the Mac should the iPad become used more frequently for “real work”. I doubt that will happen. I’ve been trying to use the iPad for development work over the last week and a half, and I can safely say that it’s definitely not fit for purpose. Aside from the one-full-screen-app-at-a-time model (which they are working on) it’s just really buggy. It always takes a couple of seconds after changing apps when I can start using the keyboard. I could attribute this to the app developers. Well, I would if the apps I am using aren’t just glorified web-apps pinned to the home screen because Apple cannot allow anyone to make any money on these platforms without getting their cut, thus throwing away the incentives of anyone to make any productivity apps on their platform.

Then again, maybe Apple assumes that “real work” is anything involving a spreadsheet or mail app. I don’t see any permission models thrown at my face when I’m using those.

Anyway, that’s my rant on this topic for the week.