6 ms·

I don't know how anyone could reasonably conclude Apple's software is vastly superior. Apple has always been and continues to be a hardware-first company; their

by sreque 8y ago

I don't know how anyone could reasonably conclude Apple's software is vastly superior. Apple has always been and continues to be a hardware-first company; their software always lags behind. In the past two days I've had to reboot my mac twice because the headhone jack stopped working. At my previous job, the terminal program segfaulted at least once a week. Bluetooth is notoriously flaky and requires frequent reboots to fix. My entire OS locks up about twice a month and requires a full reboot. At one point, my OSX got in a state where whenever I would play a video full-screen it would lock within minutes and require a reboot. When it comes to pure software quality, windows is hands-down the best platform. I worked in a .NET shop for 3 years and had zero problems with the actual OS. Linux is unfortunately the least stable of the three, but I prefer it and currently use it at work over OSX.

starbugs 8y ago
Well, I said it's vastly superior from my perspective and my perspective seems to be a bit different than yours. I didn't intend to start a platform flame war here. I just wanted to say, it's sad that people lose access to that quality software (in my opinion) platform because of being priced out. If it were for today's prices, I doubt I would have been able to buy a Mac as a student in 2006. If you enjoy Windows, then I am absolutely happy with that. For me personally, I have trouble getting past the forced Windows Update screen each time I boot it.
suprfnk 8y ago
I'm currently working in a Microsoft shop, and Windows is driving me up the wall. - Visual Studio (2017) crashes at least once a week without any kind of error reporting. It just closes. Gone. - PowerShell is absolutely terrible and all terminal emulators are terrible. They are slow, clunky, and never feel 'native' to the OS. - About a month ago I was in the middle of a problem, walked over to a colleague to discuss, and come back to a forced updating PC. This took upwards of an hour before I could work again. - I regularly have files or folders that are apparently 'locked' in another process (which one?!), and to do anything with them I have to sign out and sign back in. - Allowing any application to steal focus is just... The worst UI design decision that was ever made. I could go on. There's so many annoyances, big to small. This is on a ~2 month old machine with equally fresh install of Windows 10 Pro and Visual Studio Professional. I really like C# and .NET, but Windows is driving me away. I haven't used Mac OS seriously for about a year or two, so I won't comment on that. My Linux machine is the complete opposite, however. It never does anything that I didn't expect or put there. I always know exactly what is running, what it is doing, and what is isn't doing. I haven't had emacs crash on me yet. I update whenever I feel I have the time, but it's never as intrusive -- even big updates are done in a few minutes. Updates don't require restarts. Again, I could go on. It's interesting how our experiences can be polar opposite, yet both be valid.
- merb 8y ago
  > I could go on. There's so many annoyances, big to small. This is on a ~2 month old machine with equally fresh install of Windows 10 Pro and Visual Studio Professional. I really like C# and .NET, but Windows is driving me away. what about introducing .net core to your team? so you can actually write more code in mac/linux
  - suprfnk 8y ago
    I actually did a small project in .NET core here a few months ago. Pretty cool. Sadly, older and bigger projects aren't as easily ported over, and do still require new features etc.
lawnchair_larry 8y ago
Nah, Mac users hate Windows. Personally, I don’t know how any power user can be productive on Windows, and I don’t know how people put up with the bugginess, forced reboots, and invasive telemetry. I use both heavily and hate Windows more with each passing day. It wasn’t so bad around Windows 7, but still not a productive environment for someone who relies on basic unix tools and a working terminal (I know about WSL...). But these are just my preferences, and clearly many disagree. Your reboot problem on the Mac was hardware, not software, by the way. Macs have had hardware reliability problems, and they usually mean the whole thing is junk, minus the case or screen. I wish Apple software on third party hardware was a viable option, personally.
- x2f10 8y ago
  What an obnoxious statement. No, not all Mac users 'hate Windows'. Yes, power users can be productive on Windows. Yes, macOS has bugs that require resets for some users.
randomsearch 8y ago
Apple software is flawed and imperfect, but you still easily earn the outlay back in productivity within a year. So much time wasted fighting Windows or Linux to do basic tasks like reading email or running an IDE...
m_mueller 8y ago
> When it comes to pure software quality, windows is hands-down the best platform. I've switched from mac to windows since this summer and I disagree. From the way windows defender interfers with usage to WiFi reception issues (Thinkpad 480s) to poor taskbar functionality to crappy setting screens to harder-to-read fonts, it's just not nowhere near macOS in terms of useability. But the keyboard and ports are that much better that I'm still putting up with it (while thinking about Linux).
jazzyjackson 8y ago
I was a Windows user all my life (Started with Win98 as an 8 year old) but switched to MacOS once hitting "Windows Key" and typing 'Downloads' to jump to my Downloads folder became non-deterministic. Like Windows 10 actually suggests some web / app store results first, and after about a second, it will remember that I have a local folder called 'Downloads', so instead of using 'Win+D.o.w.+Enter' as a shortcut, I have to wait for the computer to suggest Downloads as a suggestion. This is on a top of the line Surface Book. Besides that I spent hours trying to get colors working in a terminal emulator so I could use vim and tmux with syntax highlighting. I gave up and bought what I figured would be the last Macbook Air with USB-A and a decent keyboard.
kalleboo 8y ago
I've never had any of those issues, they sound like hardware problems to me honestly. Not that I don't have a litany of complaints about macOS software quality, but it's mostly UI bugs (why the hell does it take a minute to drag a photo out of Photos.app?!), not stability issues.
hazz99 8y ago
For another anecdotal datapoint, I've /never/ had any of these issues with my 2015 Macbook Pro. I vastly prefer OSX software to Windows, both for usability and because the commandline is incredibly similar to other Linux distros.

by sreque 8y ago

starbugs 8y ago

Well, I said it's vastly superior from my perspective and my perspective seems to be a bit different than yours. I didn't intend to start a platform flame war here. I just wanted to say, it's sad that people lose access to that quality software (in my opinion) platform because of being priced out. If it were for today's prices, I doubt I would have been able to buy a Mac as a student in 2006. If you enjoy Windows, then I am absolutely happy with that. For me personally, I have trouble getting past the forced Windows Update screen each time I boot it.

suprfnk 8y ago

I'm currently working in a Microsoft shop, and Windows is driving me up the wall. - Visual Studio (2017) crashes at least once a week without any kind of error reporting. It just closes. Gone. - PowerShell is absolutely terrible and all terminal emulators are terrible. They are slow, clunky, and never feel 'native' to the OS. - About a month ago I was in the middle of a problem, walked over to a colleague to discuss, and come back to a forced updating PC. This took upwards of an hour before I could work again. - I regularly have files or folders that are apparently 'locked' in another process (which one?!), and to do anything with them I have to sign out and sign back in. - Allowing any application to steal focus is just... The worst UI design decision that was ever made. I could go on. There's so many annoyances, big to small. This is on a ~2 month old machine with equally fresh install of Windows 10 Pro and Visual Studio Professional. I really like C# and .NET, but Windows is driving me away. I haven't used Mac OS seriously for about a year or two, so I won't comment on that. My Linux machine is the complete opposite, however. It never does anything that I didn't expect or put there. I always know exactly what is running, what it is doing, and what is isn't doing. I haven't had emacs crash on me yet. I update whenever I feel I have the time, but it's never as intrusive -- even big updates are done in a few minutes. Updates don't require restarts. Again, I could go on. It's interesting how our experiences can be polar opposite, yet both be valid.

merb 8y ago
> I could go on. There's so many annoyances, big to small. This is on a ~2 month old machine with equally fresh install of Windows 10 Pro and Visual Studio Professional. I really like C# and .NET, but Windows is driving me away. what about introducing .net core to your team? so you can actually write more code in mac/linux
- suprfnk 8y ago
  I actually did a small project in .NET core here a few months ago. Pretty cool. Sadly, older and bigger projects aren't as easily ported over, and do still require new features etc.

lawnchair_larry 8y ago

Nah, Mac users hate Windows. Personally, I don’t know how any power user can be productive on Windows, and I don’t know how people put up with the bugginess, forced reboots, and invasive telemetry. I use both heavily and hate Windows more with each passing day. It wasn’t so bad around Windows 7, but still not a productive environment for someone who relies on basic unix tools and a working terminal (I know about WSL...). But these are just my preferences, and clearly many disagree. Your reboot problem on the Mac was hardware, not software, by the way. Macs have had hardware reliability problems, and they usually mean the whole thing is junk, minus the case or screen. I wish Apple software on third party hardware was a viable option, personally.

x2f10 8y ago
What an obnoxious statement. No, not all Mac users 'hate Windows'. Yes, power users can be productive on Windows. Yes, macOS has bugs that require resets for some users.

randomsearch 8y ago

Apple software is flawed and imperfect, but you still easily earn the outlay back in productivity within a year. So much time wasted fighting Windows or Linux to do basic tasks like reading email or running an IDE...

m_mueller 8y ago

> When it comes to pure software quality, windows is hands-down the best platform. I've switched from mac to windows since this summer and I disagree. From the way windows defender interfers with usage to WiFi reception issues (Thinkpad 480s) to poor taskbar functionality to crappy setting screens to harder-to-read fonts, it's just not nowhere near macOS in terms of useability. But the keyboard and ports are that much better that I'm still putting up with it (while thinking about Linux).

jazzyjackson 8y ago

I was a Windows user all my life (Started with Win98 as an 8 year old) but switched to MacOS once hitting "Windows Key" and typing 'Downloads' to jump to my Downloads folder became non-deterministic. Like Windows 10 actually suggests some web / app store results first, and after about a second, it will remember that I have a local folder called 'Downloads', so instead of using 'Win+D.o.w.+Enter' as a shortcut, I have to wait for the computer to suggest Downloads as a suggestion. This is on a top of the line Surface Book. Besides that I spent hours trying to get colors working in a terminal emulator so I could use vim and tmux with syntax highlighting. I gave up and bought what I figured would be the last Macbook Air with USB-A and a decent keyboard.

kalleboo 8y ago

I've never had any of those issues, they sound like hardware problems to me honestly. Not that I don't have a litany of complaints about macOS software quality, but it's mostly UI bugs (why the hell does it take a minute to drag a photo out of Photos.app?!), not stability issues.

hazz99 8y ago

For another anecdotal datapoint, I've /never/ had any of these issues with my 2015 Macbook Pro. I vastly prefer OSX software to Windows, both for usability and because the commandline is incredibly similar to other Linux distros.