Yeh that worked out really well for the last two platforms who tried it…
Microsoft produced apps that no one used because they were horrible on all devices. Apple conceded defeat and we have different interfaces on each device class.
The recent "scaling down" of Linux Gtk+ apps also encompasses "diferent interfaces". Look at some of the convergence examples, and you'll see all sorts of widgets merge, move around and disappear behind "alternate" views as window sizes shrink, then come back as the windows enlarge again. It's a fully responsive interface that merges both styles of interaction seamlessly.
A certain $2tn+ company can't manage to pull that off and actually has different interfaces for each platform. We're making some big assumption that responsive interfaces actually work and don't push poor compromises on all users at the end of the day.
This is another UX death march like flat interfaces without cues and mystery meat.
Apple conceded defeat and we have different interfaces on each device class.
Apple hasn't conceded defeat. Every release of MacOS becomes more and more like iOS. Apple keeps releasing tools, such as Catalyst, to make it easier for iOS developers to get their apps to run on MacOS. Apple is very much pursuing convergence between iOS and MacOS, to the latter's detriment.
That's exactly the problem! There's this idea that, if we automate the 80%, developers will do the last 20%, and we'll end up in a land of milk and honey, where mobile apps scale up their information density and rearrange their UIs to suit the high precision pointing devices and large screens that come with desktops and laptops.
In practice that never happens. Developers make their mobile app, use the automated tool to make it into 80% of a desktop app, hit the publish button and proudly advertise, "Hey, look, we have a desktop app now!"
Maybe it's fine for Apple and Google to ruin their desktop UIs like that. Maybe they don't care, or, more likely, they think that catering to the vast majority of users who are on mobile is an acceptable tradeoff for alienating the few of us who still prefer desktops as their primary computing device.
Linux doesn't have to tread the same path but there's no one behind it all waving a big stick when they go off track. Which is why we end up in a fragmented half baked mess every damn time and why I'm sitting here on a mac after 20 years of being promised linux on the desktop
I just run them with unit scaling. The digitizer is accurate enough, especially if you live an OSK window open and stick to keyboard shortcuts. I prefer the extra screen realestate.
