Native Instant Space Switching on macOS

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Reaction to the instant space-switching approach

  • Many welcome the “fake high‑velocity swipe” trick as a clever, lightweight way to eliminate the slow Spaces animation without disabling SIP or replacing the whole window manager.
  • Several report it “just works” and is a major quality‑of‑life improvement, especially on newer 120 Hz Macs where the animation feels even slower.
  • Some worry about possible edge‑case bugs from simulating gestures at high velocity, but no concrete failures are reported in the thread.

Frustration with macOS Spaces & animations

  • The core complaint: space switching feels sluggish, focus stays on the old space until animation ends, and this causes keystrokes to go to the wrong window.
  • The issue is worse on ProMotion/120 Hz screens; switching is measurably slower than on 60 Hz.
  • “Reduce Motion” replaces slide with a fade but doesn’t make it faster and also propagates a “prefers reduced motion” flag into browsers, breaking some sites unless overridden.
  • Some people genuinely like the animation and find it gives spatial context, especially with trackpad swipes.

Window & workspace management workflows

  • Heavy users of multiple desktops use Spaces like virtual desktops: one per project/app cluster, with hotkeys mapped to specific spaces for O(1) access.
  • Others abandon Spaces entirely and rely on:
    • app/window hotkeys,
    • cmd+tab / cmd+` variations,
    • or third‑party switchers for per‑window alt‑tab semantics.
  • People miss older macOS features: grid layouts of spaces, persistent space names, and more discoverable controls.

Third‑party tools & alternatives

  • Frequent mentions:
    • Tiling/space tools: Aerospace, yabai, OmniWM, FlashSpace.
    • Window tilers: Rectangle, Moom, Raycast, BetterSnapTool.
    • Switchers: AltTab, Contexts, Raycast hotkeys.
    • Misc: BetterTouchTool (includes “move space without animation” and trackpad gestures), WinPin, WhichSpace.
  • Some rely on SIP‑requiring tools (yabai, older hacks), others reject anything that needs SIP disabled, especially on work machines.

Accessibility and UX quality concerns

  • At least one person with a vestibular disorder finds the space animation disorienting and views Apple’s inaction as an accessibility failure.
  • Several argue that even small UI delays (space switching, terminal startup, fullscreen transitions) harm “flow” and make the OS feel heavy.
  • There is broader criticism that Apple ignores “annoying but not blocking” bugs, regresses window management over time, and offers few tunable settings for power users, pushing many toward Linux/i3‑style environments.