Alt+Tab, and why macOS sucks.
If you’re an experienced computer user, you probably know about this time-saving way of switching between apps on your computer.
The Mac also has a similar functionality, Command+Tab, but it’s a poor copy of the Windows functionality. The Mac version is flawed. It's still useful, but it sucks big-time compared to Windows and breaks some of the most important usability guidelines.
A recent change from Microsoft makes a huge leap forward in the usefulness of this feature — making the Mac seem even more backward.
Upfront: I’m an everyday user of macOS and an iPad with a keyboard, and also Windows. I have no particular loyalty to Apple or Microsoft. But I care about my productivity. And I’ve spent a great deal of my career focussing on the usability of software.
How to use Alt+Tab
If you already use the feature you might be surprised about the subtleties and different ways you can use the feature. For those that don’t use this feature, the basics are this:
While holding the Alt key down, (Command key on the Mac) press and release the Tab key — but keep holding Alt. You will get a menu of the recent apps you were using, with the last app you were using first in the list. Press Tab again (whilst still holding the Alt key) and it cycles around the menu of apps. Release the Alt or Command key to switch into that app.
App Toggle
Perhaps the most common use is as a super quick way of toggling between two applications. Once you get used to the feature, you just naturally toggle back and forth between the last two applications. You don’t even need to see or look at the menu of apps. A super-quick tap of Alt+Tab becomes the natural and fastest way to switch between the current and last app you are using.
If you work with full-screen windows, the amount of time you can save with this technique is huge. It takes perhaps a 1/10th of a second to toggle between apps. Using a mouse, or trackpad, can easily take 10x longer.
Power-user tips:
With the task switching menu on screen (holding down the Alt key still) you can use the arrow keys to navigate around the menu of windows. Or you can hold Shift down to cycle backwards around the windows (so that Alt+ Shift+Tab).
Tip 2: Almost no one knows about this one. Instead of pressing and having to keep holding the Tab key, you can get the task-switching menu to stay on screen. Press Ctrl+Alt+Tab — then release all keys.
So what’s the new Microsoft Enhancement?
The world is moving away from traditional desktop apps. As more services go online, more apps become web-based, and web browsers become ever more powerful, we spend more of our computer time in the web browser.
The web browser is becoming the Operating System of many of our apps.
The web browser isn’t a web page viewer any more. It’s the host of many full-featured applications. Almost all the apps I use are now in the browser. From email to spreadsheets and financial software to graphics and word processing. It’s all done in the browser. These ‘web apps’ are my desktop apps.
But Alt+Tab had a fundamental flaw. It switched between open applications and treated the web browser as a single application. So this meant if you have several web applications open, say Gmail, your Calendar, and maybe this Medium app I’m using to write this article. Alt+Tab did not switch between these web apps. You could switch in and out of the web browser and any other desktop app, but you then had to manually select the required browser tab when in the browser. Tedious. A high-friction user experience.
The change Microsoft has made in a recent version of their Edge browser (the one based on Chrome) is that they now treat the most used browser tabs as apps that appear in the Alt+Tab app switcher.
Microsoft understands that the browser is the operating system, and that the apps you run in your browser should be treated the same as apps on your desktop — first-class citizens of the task world.
A side effect of this is that switching between the last two browser tabs, also now works with Alt+Tab. Brilliant.
It doesn’t matter if my email is a desktop app such as Outlook, or a web-based one such as Gmail, now Alt+Tab will treat them both the same. So I can now switch out of this Medium writing app, to my email, with a simple, fraction-of-a-second tap of the Alt+Tab keys. And instantly toggle back to Medium repeating the same Alt+Tab action.
It’s a huge, huge time saver for anyone who uses web apps a lot. It’s also a great user interface improvement because now it doesn’t matter whether you’re using desktop or web apps, the same key shortcut works for both.
Microsoft has normalized, has simplified, the concept of app switching. Desktop and web apps are treated the same.
This is a great usability improvement and reduces the learning curve for new users.
Except this doesn’t work on the Mac.
Even if you’re using Microsoft Edge browser on the Mac, Command+Tab will not switch between web apps. Microsoft has shown the way and having used this for months, using the Mac is now more tedious and less productive than Windows because of this improvement.
Apple really needs to copy this. I suspect the likelihood that Apple will make this change, however, is slim. That’s partly, I believe, down to the arrogance by many in Apple that when it comes to usability, ‘they own the space’. (Steve Jobs did not think that and famously said he was up for stealing the best ideas wherever they came from). There are many examples where Apple designers are stubbornly backwards — the refusal to adopt touch screens on their laptops is a great example of this.
History
Alt+Tab was introduced in Windows first, decades ago, I believe even in Windows version 2 (1987), and later copied by Apple. And now also Linux, Chrome OS, Android and even iOS and iPad OS. It’s everywhere. Yes, Cmd+Tab also works on iPads (if you have a keyboard).
The fact that all the main operating systems implement the feature illustrates how important it is — how much of a time saver it can be.
Why the Mac OS app switcher sucks even more
It’s not just that it doesn’t treat web apps as first-class apps. But there’s a much, much older and more serious drawback with the Mac task switcher.
It has to do with the way the Mac handles minimized windows.
All operating systems have a similar way of minimizing windows, so they get tucked away in the dock or the task bar. But suppose you want to switch back one of your minimised windows. Surely this is a job for the app switcher shortcut?
On Windows — yes. When I switch to a minimized app it opens the window.
On the Mac — no. If I switch to a minimized app, it doesn’t open the window. It basically does nothing.
Is this useful? No it’s not. And it breaks one of the most important usability rules — do as the user intends.
What the Apple designers failed to ask themselves is the simple question: If a user Cmd+Tabs into a minimized app, is it more likely, more useful, that the operation does nothing? Or is it more likely they want to go back to the open app — the open window? Microsoft made the right decision. Apple made the wrong one.
It should be self-evident if I select a minimised hidden window, that I want to see the window!
But the MacOS App switcher is even worse:
The Apple app switcher shows program icons. Some years ago Microsoft moved from showing simple program icons, to showing a mini preview of the window. It doesn’t take much use to realize how much better this is.
And it gets worse still for the Mac:
MacOS doesn’t treat multiple windows of the same app as selectable. It only selects the app. You then have to use a different switching method to select the required window. More complexity — a steeper learning curve, less user-friendly. All the things you thought the Mac was meant to be good at — being easier to learn, easier to use… here, it’s the exact opposite.
Microsoft decided it shouldn’t make any difference if you want to switch between two windows of the same app, or windows of different apps. Their goal was this:
One simple way to switch between windows of all apps.
Say, I’m working on two different spreadsheets, both full-screen. I also have a Word doc open at the same time. I want to switch from Word to one of my spreadsheet windows. On Windows, I use the same Alt+Tab to switch to any of them. On the Mac I have to use Cmd+Tab to switch to the spreadsheet app, and then a different operation to switch between windows of that app. Why isn’t it obvious this is just bad UI?
The Mac approach to app switching is more complex, requires more clicks and taps, is less productive. That’s bad UI.
Now I know the typical uncritical Apple fan-boys will say — the same as always — ‘it just that you’re not used to it. It’s just a different way of working’. Or, as you often seen said when it comes to usability issues, ‘I’ve never had a problem with app switching.’
Of course you haven’t because you haven’t tried it — you haven’t seen the light. Once you have seen and used it for a while, then it becomes obvious which is the better solution. All UI designers should strive for simplicity. Less is more. Less complex, less learning, fewer quirks, and fewer inconsistencies make a better UI. That’s the point of UI and UX design.
Well, I am used to it. I use the Mac OS and iPad OS a lot. I also use Windows a lot, and can say unequivocally Windows is better than Mac OS in this respect. With the recent Edge browser enhancements, so web apps work the same way, it’s even better.
Apple should do what Steve Jobs suggested — steal the best ideas.
Summary: It suggests to me that most Mac users are not hardcore computer users. You can see this watching Mac users at work. They seem content, as most beginner users are, to do an awful lot of mousing around. An awful lot of wasted seconds soon amounts to lower productivity.
Apple makes some great hardware. IMO they have always made the best hardware. The ARM-based MacBooks (M1, M2 and now M3 processor) are, without doubt, the best laptops you can buy (if you can live without a touchscreen). The Mac Mini is in a class of its own as a great, tiny, desktop computer. But I pull my hair out with frustration using Mac OS.
Unfortunately, this Alt+Tab issue is just one of many terrible UI mistakes Apple designers have made. But that is another story. There is a reason, despite making the best computer hardware, the Mac OS market share is so tiny.
The answer for macOS?
I’m not the only one who has this frustration. This forward-thinking Mac developer did something about it — he created an app that brings Windows-like Alt+Tab features to the Mac. And it’s great — it’s free — it’s open source!
It’s called simply AltTab:
It solves almost all my gripes with app switching on the Mac:
- Switch focus to any window — not just the app
- Opens minimized apps or windows if you switch to a docked one.
- Shows thumbnails of the app window — not just icons
- It’s very configurable, and it’s free!
Having said that, it doesn’t support web app tab switching. It treats Safari (or Edge or Chrome) as a single app. So if you use a lot of web apps in different tabs, you still have to switch between those a different way. But there’s a workaround for that in many cases:
PWAs
A technology called ‘Progressive Web Apps’ or PWAs. A terrible name for a great idea — one that’s supported across browsers and operating systems. You can now make most web-apps (e.g. Gmail or Google Calendar, even really complex apps such as TradingView) act as if they are native apps.
What benefits do PWAs bring?
- You have a desktop icon that opens the app like native apps
- The browser address bar is removed making it a full window app like a native app. It works independently of the browser.
- It brings a ton of benefits to the developer. It’s the culmination of four decades of attempts of making cross-platform applications. One codebase, for different computers, different platforms.
- It even works on iOS and iPadOS.
- The key benefits for Alt+Tab fans. These are treated as first-class desktop apps, so Alt+Tab can be used to switch between them.
To make any web app to become a desktop app, go to the page in your browser, select the top right … menu, ‘Apps > Install this site as an app’ menu (this is using Edge). This is how to do it in Chrome.
You can even do this on your phone or iPad. Select the ‘Add to Home Screen’ menu option in the Export screen of the browser.
Summary:
Learn to use Alt+Tab if you don’t already. It will save you a ton of time.
If you’re a Mac user, download and install the Alt-Tab utility. It’s free. It enhances MacOS and improves one of the weakest areas of Mac OS behaviour.
I just wish the MacOS Alt-Tab utility could add the ability to treat web tabs the same way Windows and Edge does, so Alt-Tab could become the single simple, universal way to switch apps.
