I have family members who have used Apple products since at least System 7 (probably earlier, that's the first one I can remember). But they're still more comfortable with an iPad than a Mac.
There are a ton of things that we assume are second nature, but are really learned skills. I think the notion that applications that aren't in the dock still exist (in the Applications folder) is starting to sink in, but installing software from disk images? You have to mount it, copy the program to the Applications folder, understand where it went so you can launch it, and then eject the disk image.
I knew people when I was in high school (granted that was a while ago, but it wasn't their first time using a computer) who would download software and just run it off of the disk image every time they wanted it. Unless the developer has put in an alias and a background image to explain things, there's no indication that there's a better solution.
Yeah, these people exist, but I think they are a dying breed. Children who grew up using computers are not going to have these problems. I think our obsession with this dying breed of computer users is very convenient, since it paints a narrative of "regular users (read: most users) are so much dumber than we are."
It strokes our ego to believe that dumbing down interfaces is necessary.
There are a ton of things that we assume are second nature, but are really learned skills. I think the notion that applications that aren't in the dock still exist (in the Applications folder) is starting to sink in, but installing software from disk images? You have to mount it, copy the program to the Applications folder, understand where it went so you can launch it, and then eject the disk image.
I knew people when I was in high school (granted that was a while ago, but it wasn't their first time using a computer) who would download software and just run it off of the disk image every time they wanted it. Unless the developer has put in an alias and a background image to explain things, there's no indication that there's a better solution.