> It's that this is the correct way to do it.

Except when you have multiple monitors. How is it the correct way to do it to force me to mouse 4000 pixels to the left or right to get to the menu for an application that isn't on the same screen as the menu?

There's never just one correct way to do things. Your arrogance towards other implementations is overwhelming.

It is absolutely opinion.

For a start, it precludes a sane implementation of focus-follows-mouse.

Secondly, for frequently used commands, keyboard shortcuts will be faster anyway (I'm aware of the study you're probably going to mention, but plenty of other studies have had different conclusions).

Lastly, and this is pure conjecture on my part, wouldn't having the menu bar at the top of the screen result in a much narrower arc from the current mouse position to the desired entry? The theory also seems to ignore the fact that in most cases you'd want to move the mouse back to the original window, or hit some specific (and often quite small) target in that window. Which is now made more difficult by the mouse being farther away. Just some idle wonderings, they were quite possibly addressed in that study.

I know that you started your post with "Whether people like it or not isn't really relevant. It's that this is the correct way to do it.", and thus are unlikely to be swayed from your opinions; it's worth considering though that every choice has pros and cons, and sometimes the total value of each side very much depends on the person.

(although I share your "Screw the people, this is /correct/!" view when it comes to tau: no-one's perfect)

Science says that it's faster to hit a distant infinite target given sufficient mouse speed vs a small but local target.

given sufficient speed.

However it says nothing about whether an application's menu bar is important enough to warrant that extra acquisition speed.

Also the mac menu bar does not present an infinite target, particularly if you have any significant horizontal velocity, which is extremely common with wide screen monitors or multiple monitors.

Also with the advent of large/multiple monitors there is the need to change where you're looking causing extra delay for refocus.

It is not the correct way to do it. It has some very simple problems.

First, if I have a bunch of little windows on a big screen--something very common on Apple computers--I have to drag my mouse all the way to the top of the screen and then drag it back. For me, this was an serious problem. Partly this was because I was also using one of the horrible Apple mice (the "mighty mouse" or something of that nature). This was particularly annoying because I would often lose focus by clicking on something else by accident and have to go all the way back to my original window and then all the way back to the top... Incredibly annoying.

Second, not all programs have--or need--options on top. I essentially live out of Emacs and Chrome these days; neither uses a menu. That would make the Apple bar just a waste of screen space--completely absurd. Moreover, I've found that bar to be superfluous on other software I use as well. Having more minimalistic interfaces is a breath of fresh air--and completely impossible on OS X.

It also fails to generalize well to multiple screens.

Oh, and there are going to be problems if you want to make the available options context-dependent. This is a reasonable design decision if you have a complex program with a bunch of small, discrete windows for different tasks--something else that isn't uncommon on OS X. This sort of behavior is far clearer if there is a menu per window than if there is a single menu for whatever is currently active.

Measured scientifically just means it's better for the majority of users; it doesn't necessarily mean it's better for me as a single individual.

Not that I'm arguing against the bar on top; in fact, I'll use the keyboard shortcuts anyway, so I don't particularly care.

The OS X menu bar is modal. It depends on what application is current. There's also research indicating that the usability of modal UIs is poor; it's also measurable scientifically.

I personally don't mind the OS X menu bar's location, but its modality is a big pain point. Combined with the fact that apps often don't exit when all their windows are closed, it's a bit of a magic box of functionality where I'm never certain of what's going to be there, and how to get it back if it disappears. At least Windows' menu bars have a sense of location.

Don't mode me out, bro!

Some people don't use menus often. From my experience, I use menus 2-5 times a day at most. However, if you rely heavily on clicking menus, learning keyboard shortcuts can be a really good time-saver.

And the second argument against this "smart" (or maybe legacy?) menu placement: In some applications menus have sub-menus, and sub-sub-menus, etc. And it is impossible to put all sub-sub-...-menu items on the top menu bar, so you have to click many times in different parts of the screen anyway. (Oh, yes, this is not an issue for a program with simple menu, but then the keyboard shortcuts can be the way to go).

So, there are many shades of "correct", I think. Alternatives must be at least considered, I think that it's better to let the user decide what they prefer.