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I'm debating switching to Windows when my 2015 Macbook gives up unless Apple really have learned their lessons from the 2016 model. I have two remaining major

I'm debating switching to Windows when my 2015 Macbook gives up unless Apple really have learned their lessons from the 2016 model. I have two remaining major issues with Windows, which is down from the remarkably sizeable list that had me switch to Mac and OSX, which makes it easy to keep the Windows box as games only: + Extreme monochrome flatness. It's obtuse and hides information, like the edges of icons, encouraging misclicks, and is quite frankly pig ugly. I quite liked aero glass and the UI as Windows 7 had it. The first Windows that "looked right". If only they'd modernised and flattened that a little... + Abusive view of the users: Tracking and telemetry you can't easily disable. Knowing better than me when to reboot, to install, when to display ads. There's lots of minor issues, like 3 to 5 different incarnations of every feature from menus, to dialogues, to preferences. Or Explorer usability. Or how discoverable some things are. Or the whole mess of registry and installing. Or the 40GB of ever-growing Windows sub folders. All I can live with, but ugly and tracking? Much harder to tolerate. So as ever I'll end up with a mix, rebalanced a little. One day I'll have a lovely seamless all-something world, but it hasn't happened since the 80s when it was Amigas everywhere. :)

wtallis 7y ago
I'm in a similar situation, but I'm pretty sure that when my 2015 MacBook Pro dies, I will still be unable to find a Windows notebook with a comparable touchpad. Running Windows on my gaming desktop is tolerable, subject to the caveats you've outlined. But even with great software, Windows notebooks are still handicapped by poor hardware interfaces. I realized recently when I got a new Windows notebook for work that touchscreens exist and are popular on Windows notebooks because they partially compensate for the horrible touchpads. On my MacBook Pro, I still feel no need to augment the touchpad with a touchscreen.
com2kid 7y ago
In regards to the flatness, MS is moving over to Fluent Design (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluent_Design_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluent_Design_System) which has more depth and colors, and is a return to Aero in some ways. FWIW Metro was originally super bright and cheerful, even if it was flat.
notafraudster 7y ago
I wouldn't care about the frequent and annoying rebooting if Windows had implemented a feature that MacOS has had for literally 5 years: automatically restoring the logged-in user's session after a reboot. I lose so many Notepad notes to self because they're unsaved and Microsoft decides to reboot. Screw that.
username444 7y ago
This telemetry thing is surprisingly overlooked in these discussions. I've disabled tracking and reporting on at least 4 separate occasions since windows auto updated my laptop from Windows 7 to windows 10 without user permission. They just keep adding auto-enabled features that override the previously disabled features doing the same thing. "We heard you when you said you didn't want cameras automatically monitoring you. So we added this new feature where you can disable cameras based on DAY OF THE WEEK and turned every day on for your convenience" Microsoft knows it lost the online tracking game, so it's playing dumb and putting in privacy-invading features and overriding user selections yearly. Why rely on a browser when you control the OS? The paranoid part of me thinks windows is giving away windows 10 for free because it's making money selling the user data and access to intelligence agencies. I know apple has received some flak for updates slowing their computers, but windows is no better. My 4 year old laptop is basically unusable at this point because every action takes 10-15s.

wtallis 7y ago

I'm in a similar situation, but I'm pretty sure that when my 2015 MacBook Pro dies, I will still be unable to find a Windows notebook with a comparable touchpad. Running Windows on my gaming desktop is tolerable, subject to the caveats you've outlined. But even with great software, Windows notebooks are still handicapped by poor hardware interfaces. I realized recently when I got a new Windows notebook for work that touchscreens exist and are popular on Windows notebooks because they partially compensate for the horrible touchpads. On my MacBook Pro, I still feel no need to augment the touchpad with a touchscreen.

com2kid 7y ago

In regards to the flatness, MS is moving over to Fluent Design (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluent_Design_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluent_Design_System) which has more depth and colors, and is a return to Aero in some ways. FWIW Metro was originally super bright and cheerful, even if it was flat.

notafraudster 7y ago

I wouldn't care about the frequent and annoying rebooting if Windows had implemented a feature that MacOS has had for literally 5 years: automatically restoring the logged-in user's session after a reboot. I lose so many Notepad notes to self because they're unsaved and Microsoft decides to reboot. Screw that.

username444 7y ago

This telemetry thing is surprisingly overlooked in these discussions. I've disabled tracking and reporting on at least 4 separate occasions since windows auto updated my laptop from Windows 7 to windows 10 without user permission. They just keep adding auto-enabled features that override the previously disabled features doing the same thing. "We heard you when you said you didn't want cameras automatically monitoring you. So we added this new feature where you can disable cameras based on DAY OF THE WEEK and turned every day on for your convenience" Microsoft knows it lost the online tracking game, so it's playing dumb and putting in privacy-invading features and overriding user selections yearly. Why rely on a browser when you control the OS? The paranoid part of me thinks windows is giving away windows 10 for free because it's making money selling the user data and access to intelligence agencies. I know apple has received some flak for updates slowing their computers, but windows is no better. My 4 year old laptop is basically unusable at this point because every action takes 10-15s.