I'm surprised they're getting rid of long held keyboard shortcut conventions though. Previously, modal popup options (i.e. for saving docs) could be selected via Option-letter, i.e. "Save _a_ll" could be selected with Option-a. Their new popups which may or may not be prettier force you to either use the mouse or turn on "Use keyboard navigation to move focus between controls" globally and tab around. Neither of these options is as elegant as being able to select what you want with a single command.
I agree: this kind of thing is infuriating because it's such a slowdown to have to go touch the mouse and find the pointer on the screen. Really interrupts the workflow.
The stopwatch consistently proves it takes less time than using the keyboard. Apple's HCI research showed that people "lose" the time it takes to hunt and acquire the keyboard shortcuts.
assuming you're referring to https://www.asktog.com/TOI/toi06KeyboardVMouse1.html, I find this dubious for a number of reasons and would like to see Tog's methods and data. for example if I want to cycle through undo, I can hold down command and hit Z and shift-Z as many times as I want, as quickly as my fingers can press the keys. acquiring the menu item for this over and over would get tiresome quickly. similarly with opening new tabs and switching between them. I suspect his data only holds for inexperienced users using typical shortcuts in typical applications, not for expert typists who spend all day with their hands on the keyboard. the amount of complicated text manipulation I can do at speed with keys in emacs and vim would be absolutely infeasible if I were clicking through some massive menu.
I always found that study unconvincing. I am sure there are people who need to look at the keyboard but surely anyone who leaves their hands on the keyboard all the time and never looks down finds the keys instinctively.
In Apple's defence, I've been exclusively a mac user (work and personal) for going-on eight years now and I had no idea about the Option-letter shortcut. I've always found keyboard nav within modal popups confusing. I consider myself lucky if hitting Space selects the primary button. Doesn't sound like the change is necessarily an improvement, though.
Even Windows 3.11, NT 3.51 did this... and my Atari ST... probably windows 1.0 even because a mouse was not always guaranteed to be attached and/or working on early PC's. In my case in the mid 90's I remember I sacrificed the serial port the mouse was attached to run another modem for dial-in access to our officer on NT 3.51 server... THAT tought me fast how to get around a windows desktop with the keyboard - and it impressed me you could access everything - switching windows, menus, etc without getting "stuck" . With a mac, your computer would be useless, or at best infuriating (ie using some plug in to slowly nudge the pointer around the screen with arrow keys....)
Apple never did a good job with this. Probably because their GUI machines always came with a mouse. Microsoft Windows was always mouse optional; the 'settings' panels are a lot harder to use with a keyboard than the 'control panel' settings were though.
