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I did it the other way round (desktop Linux for many years and MacOS from 2004) : nothing that works better, really ? Built into the OS : Automator (aka Unix

by renaudg 10y ago

I did it the other way round (desktop Linux for many years and MacOS from 2004) : nothing that works better, really ? Built into the OS : Automator (aka Unix pipes for GUI apps) Preview (doubles as a comprehensive image + PDF editor. Scans your signature from a piece of paper held in front of the webcam) OS-wide data detectors : hover over a date in any text field, set up a calendar event instantly. Time Machine : dead simple backups Notes (now with native Evernote import) Photos (with easy to use bread & butter editing + ML-based search/cataloguing, not to mention integrated backup+iOS sync) iMovie Garageband (+ comprehensive audio/MIDI routing) Comprehensive cross-device integration with Messages / Facetime / Photos / Continuity Before anyone replies with a list of supposedly equivalent desktop Linux apps : Apple has never been about the What (ticking boxes in a checklist), more about the How (the overall experience) I'll admit that quality has suffered under the new 1 year OS release cycle, but in my experience it's still a notch or two above Windows or Linux's best desktop setups.

hollerith 10y ago
And the New Oxford American Dictionary. For years I used WordNet as my dictionary because it was the only electronic dictionary I knew of that was less than 90 years old and didn't put the definition on a web page cluttered with distractions (and because paper dictionaries are too slow and tedious compared to electronic ones). But over the years it slowly dawned on me that it is not a good dictionary. Then I realized my Mac came with a good electronic dictionary. (Another former Linux user.)
willtim 10y ago
You cannot make sweeping statements like that. Yes the Mac stuff can be convenient, but in no way is it better than all free alternatives. For example, despite the shallow learning curve, in our house, time machine was both unreliable and patronising (the time travel UI). For me, I'm using ZFS snapshots for my backup, technically it's more than a notch better than time machine. Another example would be Notes, Apple have demonstrated over many years that they cannot write reliable bidirectional sync. Unison just works.
beagle3 10y ago
> Apple has never been about the What (ticking boxes in a checklist), more about the How (the overall experience) That's the key issue. If you're starting out, do not like to customize, or have not yet reached your (locally optimal) setup, then I guess Mac is superior. However, having perfected my setup over the last 12 years, I find the default Mac tools quite limited; e.g. Time Machine is inferior (except in UI) to Borg, to which I've switched recently from Bup, to which I've switched before from a set of rsync scripts (which are time-machine equivalent, and I had them running long before time machine existed). I don't make music (so don't care about GarageBand), and I also care about privacy so all the cross-device integration that apple offers goes out the door. Thunderbird is, for my use case, superior to Apple Mail; Firefox is superior to Safari. Finder puts junk all over my file system, and the old hacks to stop it (aseptic, and a couple of others) are no longer supported under Sierra. I like Unity (the v on 14.4 - I think v7) with a few tweaks much better than the Mac doc, though that's a matter of taste. And I like the transparency of the system. My main laptop ubuntu never breaks, but when I do weird experiments on other hardware, I can actually tell what's going on - if my Mac had trouble booting, it's likely the recovery partition will come useful - but there's basically nothing else I can do.

by renaudg 10y ago

hollerith 10y ago

And the New Oxford American Dictionary. For years I used WordNet as my dictionary because it was the only electronic dictionary I knew of that was less than 90 years old and didn't put the definition on a web page cluttered with distractions (and because paper dictionaries are too slow and tedious compared to electronic ones). But over the years it slowly dawned on me that it is not a good dictionary. Then I realized my Mac came with a good electronic dictionary. (Another former Linux user.)

willtim 10y ago

You cannot make sweeping statements like that. Yes the Mac stuff can be convenient, but in no way is it better than all free alternatives. For example, despite the shallow learning curve, in our house, time machine was both unreliable and patronising (the time travel UI). For me, I'm using ZFS snapshots for my backup, technically it's more than a notch better than time machine. Another example would be Notes, Apple have demonstrated over many years that they cannot write reliable bidirectional sync. Unison just works.

beagle3 10y ago

> Apple has never been about the What (ticking boxes in a checklist), more about the How (the overall experience) That's the key issue. If you're starting out, do not like to customize, or have not yet reached your (locally optimal) setup, then I guess Mac is superior. However, having perfected my setup over the last 12 years, I find the default Mac tools quite limited; e.g. Time Machine is inferior (except in UI) to Borg, to which I've switched recently from Bup, to which I've switched before from a set of rsync scripts (which are time-machine equivalent, and I had them running long before time machine existed). I don't make music (so don't care about GarageBand), and I also care about privacy so all the cross-device integration that apple offers goes out the door. Thunderbird is, for my use case, superior to Apple Mail; Firefox is superior to Safari. Finder puts junk all over my file system, and the old hacks to stop it (aseptic, and a couple of others) are no longer supported under Sierra. I like Unity (the v on 14.4 - I think v7) with a few tweaks much better than the Mac doc, though that's a matter of taste. And I like the transparency of the system. My main laptop ubuntu never breaks, but when I do weird experiments on other hardware, I can actually tell what's going on - if my Mac had trouble booting, it's likely the recovery partition will come useful - but there's basically nothing else I can do.