4 ms·

Consumers. (i.e. casual computer users who aren't terribly demanding in any particular dimension) Unfortunately they've been flocking in for the 'just works' A

by blihp 8y ago

Consumers. (i.e. casual computer users who aren't terribly demanding in any particular dimension) Unfortunately they've been flocking in for the 'just works' Apple reputation as it is being un-earned by Apple. But for many in this group, it's probably good enough vs. what they were using before.

stefanfisk 8y ago
They are so far ahead of Microsoft when it comes to not annoying of frustrating regular users that they can probably fall for a decade before people start abandoning the platform in any significant numbers. I just tried switching from my MBP to a Surface Laptop, and the bullshit that win 10 makes you deal with is just insane O_O
- StreamBright 8y ago
  Same here, I have Windows VMs for work but even Skype is a piece of crap that forces me to reboot the VMs regularly while having serious bugs that interrupt my meetings. 9/10 meetings are starting with fixing Skype issues. If people were serious about not wasting their time Skype would be not used in businesses at all.
- setquk 8y ago
  I disagree with this actually. I've had a MacBook for a number of years and bought a new one (a 2018 MacBook Air). The keyboard on it was awful and stopped working properly resulting in duplicate key hits. I was also fighting half of the OSX software at this point. Mail was getting buggy, iPhoto is just horrid and I'm not even going to start writing the massive rant about Pages / Numbers. Alas I took the MBA back and got a refund and grabbed my spare Thinkpad T440 out of the cupboard and put windows 10 on it. The OS is a shell to run Chrome, Excel, Word, Putty, iTunes, kicad, LTspice, WSJTX and I use Fastmail for mail. Literally nothing gets in my way. It just works. And everything like photos and videos are in FILES not weird opaque containers and buggy as crap apps. The CPU is about the same speed, I've got more RAM in this, it's got a FHD display which is good enough and the keyboard is amazing compared to anything Apple had to offer. Plus it cost me literally 1/5th of the cost. Also comparing OSX to windows, you can actually mostly drive windows from the keyboard without resorting to hand warping shortcut combinations reminiscent of Megadrive Streetfighter cheat codes. I think after switching back I just had stockholm syndrome.
  - jakub_g 8y ago
    > Also comparing OSX to windows, you can actually mostly drive windows from the keyboard without resorting to hand warping shortcut combinations reminiscent of Megadrive Streetfighter cheat codes. As a long-time Win user, having wrist pain, this is the killer thing for me. Everything about a Mac feels extremely unergonomic to me. Many things are not doable from keyboard at all. AFAIU most of the Mac developers do all stuff with touchpad so they don't care though.
    - NateEag 8y ago
      You may find Control-F2 helpful. It focuses the menubar, at which point you can navigate the menus by typing/arrow key, Spacebar to focus, and Enter to select. It helps me avoid a lot of mouse usage. ...come to think of it, I should probably give that a binding on my ErgoDox somewhere.
      - ninkendo 8y ago
        Cmd-Shift-/ triggers menubar search too, which lets you just type the name of the menu entry you want and hit enter.
        NateEag 8y ago
        Thanks. I did not know that one and it sounds nifty.
    - JoelTheSuperior 8y ago
      By default this is the case but once you learn how macOS is pretty keyboard friendly. I love the ability to set up a keyboard shortcut for literally anything, including third party software, through system preferences. Only complaint is you have to actually enable Full Keyboard Access from system preferences before you can use the keyboard to do things like select buttons in dialog boxes.
    - jakub_g 8y ago
      Edit: thanks for the tips, I created a living gist where I will document all the tricks: https://gist.github.com/jakub-g/e893ffa9e91d08c60989660809780a8a https://gist.github.com/jakub-g/e893ffa9e91d08c6098966080978...
- screye 8y ago
  Could you give me example of windows specific headaches ? Afaik, Windows is perfectly fine for casual users. Apart from updates needing restarts and windows being inconvenient for programming, I don't see any clear disadvantages of using windows.
jamesb93 8y ago
You sound like someone who has never had to deal with the horrific experience that is ASIO drivers. People use Mac because CoreAudio is great and obviously windows can't be trusted in a live setting due to the many already documented issues that it has with updating/crashing etc.
- blihp 8y ago
  I don't doubt that there are numerous problems these days with the Mac/OS X and Apple overall.[1] My only point was that the group Apple is focused on today are general-purpose consumer users, not the traditional verticals (creatives, education, developers, etc.) that they built their reputation with. I suspect that's the reason we keep seeing articles like this: it's becoming painfully obvious to members of groups Apple used to serve that they are no longer Apple's focus. [1] I left about a decade ago when I saw where things were headed with iOS-ification of the platform in general. I'm a developer so I feel/felt your pain as a member of one of the groups Apple used to care about. I moved to Linux which I know is no help to you... power user/pro audio features and software on Linux are still lacking.
  - jamesb93 8y ago
    The issue is there is great software such as [0] Supercollider and [1] Pd. As interfaces are class compliant the drivers actually work suprisingly well on Linux, its just stability and edge case bugs that will catch you out. [0] - https://supercollider.github.io/ https://supercollider.github.io/ [1] - https://puredata.info/ https://puredata.info/
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

by blihp 8y ago

stefanfisk 8y ago

They are so far ahead of Microsoft when it comes to not annoying of frustrating regular users that they can probably fall for a decade before people start abandoning the platform in any significant numbers. I just tried switching from my MBP to a Surface Laptop, and the bullshit that win 10 makes you deal with is just insane O_O

StreamBright 8y ago
Same here, I have Windows VMs for work but even Skype is a piece of crap that forces me to reboot the VMs regularly while having serious bugs that interrupt my meetings. 9/10 meetings are starting with fixing Skype issues. If people were serious about not wasting their time Skype would be not used in businesses at all.
setquk 8y ago
I disagree with this actually. I've had a MacBook for a number of years and bought a new one (a 2018 MacBook Air). The keyboard on it was awful and stopped working properly resulting in duplicate key hits. I was also fighting half of the OSX software at this point. Mail was getting buggy, iPhoto is just horrid and I'm not even going to start writing the massive rant about Pages / Numbers. Alas I took the MBA back and got a refund and grabbed my spare Thinkpad T440 out of the cupboard and put windows 10 on it. The OS is a shell to run Chrome, Excel, Word, Putty, iTunes, kicad, LTspice, WSJTX and I use Fastmail for mail. Literally nothing gets in my way. It just works. And everything like photos and videos are in FILES not weird opaque containers and buggy as crap apps. The CPU is about the same speed, I've got more RAM in this, it's got a FHD display which is good enough and the keyboard is amazing compared to anything Apple had to offer. Plus it cost me literally 1/5th of the cost. Also comparing OSX to windows, you can actually mostly drive windows from the keyboard without resorting to hand warping shortcut combinations reminiscent of Megadrive Streetfighter cheat codes. I think after switching back I just had stockholm syndrome.
- jakub_g 8y ago
  > Also comparing OSX to windows, you can actually mostly drive windows from the keyboard without resorting to hand warping shortcut combinations reminiscent of Megadrive Streetfighter cheat codes. As a long-time Win user, having wrist pain, this is the killer thing for me. Everything about a Mac feels extremely unergonomic to me. Many things are not doable from keyboard at all. AFAIU most of the Mac developers do all stuff with touchpad so they don't care though.
  - NateEag 8y ago
    You may find Control-F2 helpful. It focuses the menubar, at which point you can navigate the menus by typing/arrow key, Spacebar to focus, and Enter to select. It helps me avoid a lot of mouse usage. ...come to think of it, I should probably give that a binding on my ErgoDox somewhere.
    - ninkendo 8y ago
      Cmd-Shift-/ triggers menubar search too, which lets you just type the name of the menu entry you want and hit enter.
      - NateEag 8y ago
        Thanks. I did not know that one and it sounds nifty.
  - JoelTheSuperior 8y ago
    By default this is the case but once you learn how macOS is pretty keyboard friendly. I love the ability to set up a keyboard shortcut for literally anything, including third party software, through system preferences. Only complaint is you have to actually enable Full Keyboard Access from system preferences before you can use the keyboard to do things like select buttons in dialog boxes.
  - jakub_g 8y ago
    Edit: thanks for the tips, I created a living gist where I will document all the tricks: https://gist.github.com/jakub-g/e893ffa9e91d08c60989660809780a8a https://gist.github.com/jakub-g/e893ffa9e91d08c6098966080978...
screye 8y ago
Could you give me example of windows specific headaches ? Afaik, Windows is perfectly fine for casual users. Apart from updates needing restarts and windows being inconvenient for programming, I don't see any clear disadvantages of using windows.

jamesb93 8y ago

You sound like someone who has never had to deal with the horrific experience that is ASIO drivers. People use Mac because CoreAudio is great and obviously windows can't be trusted in a live setting due to the many already documented issues that it has with updating/crashing etc.

blihp 8y ago
I don't doubt that there are numerous problems these days with the Mac/OS X and Apple overall.[1] My only point was that the group Apple is focused on today are general-purpose consumer users, not the traditional verticals (creatives, education, developers, etc.) that they built their reputation with. I suspect that's the reason we keep seeing articles like this: it's becoming painfully obvious to members of groups Apple used to serve that they are no longer Apple's focus. [1] I left about a decade ago when I saw where things were headed with iOS-ification of the platform in general. I'm a developer so I feel/felt your pain as a member of one of the groups Apple used to care about. I moved to Linux which I know is no help to you... power user/pro audio features and software on Linux are still lacking.
- jamesb93 8y ago
  The issue is there is great software such as [0] Supercollider and [1] Pd. As interfaces are class compliant the drivers actually work suprisingly well on Linux, its just stability and edge case bugs that will catch you out. [0] - https://supercollider.github.io/ https://supercollider.github.io/ [1] - https://puredata.info/ https://puredata.info/
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]