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Broken

• deleted 7y ago
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• jacquesc 7y ago
  Great post detailing everything wrong with Catalina so far. I installed it on my personal Mac, and that scared me off of ever installing it on my work laptop. Hopefully I can jump to whatever the next thing is. Or maybe it's time to get off Macs for good.
  • Animats 7y ago
    Or maybe it's time to get off Macs for good. At least don't try to use the version of Linux under MacOS as a Linux system. The OP is running cron jobs and Python in the background, and changes in the Apple security environment broke them. If you need to run Linux stuff, put it on a real Linux system.
    • recursive 7y ago
      How about running it as a BSD system?
      • Porthos9K 7y ago
        If you want a BSD system, run {Free,Net,Open,Dragonfly}BSD. You can do it on cheaper and better hardware than Apple offers. It just might not look as stylish, but who cares? T-series Thinkpads have better keyboards than Macbooks, and you can still get a used T60 for less than a hundred bucks. (More recent models will cost more, but you'd be shocked at what you can do with a T60 once you get a new battery, max out the RAM, and replace the HDD with a SSD.)
        • cfallin 7y ago
          I'd just like to second the used-Thinkpad route. I picked up an X250 (Skylake i5) on eBay last spring for $160, and after maxing out RAM (8GB), a decent SSD and a new battery I'm out ~$350 for something that is both indestructible and quite zippy. Yes, it's not shiny, but IMHO it's a far more practical Unix-y workstation. (I mainly run Linux but I've tested OpenBSD too and everything Just Works.)
    • bsg75 7y ago
      Python and cron are not unique to nor did they originate in Linux. They should be expected to work on all Unix derivatives including BSD and macOS.
    • schappim 7y ago
      >> don't try to use the version of Linux under MacOS MacOS is based on Unix not Linux. However, I mostly agree with your sentiment and would extend it to “use the right tool for the job”. Use launchd (although I hear it is on the way out) instead of Cron etc.
      • fortran77 7y ago
        It's based on Mach via NeXTStep. Not Unix.
        • justinator 7y ago
          Way back in the day, Mac OS X was, "Unix Certified(tm)", so it's correct to say it's unix, technically. Has that certification changed?
          • 4ad 7y ago
            macOS catalina is UNIX certified: https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register
        • schappim 7y ago
          Ummm not in the dimension I live in. Ever since the launch of Mac OS X, Apple has considered and marketed macOS / the Mach micro kernel as a Unix. See: https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/801429696172374556/ https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/801429696172374556/
        • jki275 7y ago
          macOS is Unix. It's the only successful desktop Unix that's ever been published.
          • deleted 7y ago
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      • wila 7y ago
        The exact same problem happens when you use launchd.
    • mrzool 7y ago
      macOS runs on Darwin, which is a BSD derivative. There’s no Linux involved at any level as far as I know. Also, cron is a standard Unix tool that predates Linux by at least a couple of decades I think.
    • filmgirlcw 7y ago
      How dare a user run a Unix utility on his Unix computer...
    • magicbuzz 7y ago
      lol
    • tathougies 7y ago
      But OS X is a unix, and linux is not. If you want to run unix utilities, you should probably do that on a real unix.
• commandlinefan 7y ago
  Looks like the page itself is broken, too... from the comments I presume that there's something wrong with the latest version of OS/X?
  • saagarjha 7y ago
    It’s an article talking about bugs in the OS and the new privacy features being too onerous.
• api 7y ago
  I have had no issues so far, and I like the permissions requirements as they are allowing at least some privacy improvement. Funny that everyone complains about privacy invasion but then also complains when the needed permissions to protect privacy are introduced.
  • mikelyons 7y ago
    Worth explaining how you use the device so that we can tell if you're the type of user who would run into problems anyway.
  • clucas 7y ago
    Reading the post, I didn't get the impression that he was complaining about permission dialog boxes in general, but rather about the specific implementation (including lack of documentation and lack of power-user features) in Catalina.
    • tylerhall 7y ago
      OP here. Thank you. I have no issues with the tightening of security and permissions on Catalina. In fact, I welcome it both for myself and my aging parents who I want to remain safe online. My issue, as you said, is the implementation and lack of documentation for those of us who do know what we're doing.
• justinator 7y ago
  Running a 2015 Macbook w/High Sierra. I feel pretty alright about things. I'll check back in a year if there's any compelling reason to upgrade.
  • ProZsolt 7y ago
    Same here. Really miss USB-C for charging but that's my only complaint.
  • h1d 7y ago
    Back then, upgrading meant something for the users, like QuickLook, TimeMachine or for the first time in life I saw a new OS actually take less disk space and was released primarily as optimization of the previous release as in Snow Leopard. Now I don't bother to watch their keynotes as they're too boring and I'm productive on High Sierra and I don't see any reason I should upgrade and cause unnecessary annoyance. How boring Apple software have become. Is there a reason to upgrade these days? I don't need SideCar as I connect my laptop to a bigger display.
• deleted 7y ago
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• DeadBabyOrgasm 7y ago
  Looks like it's the HN hug of death for this one: https://web.archive.org/web/20191010183502/https://tyler.io/broken/ https://web.archive.org/web/20191010183502/https://tyler.io/...
  • tylerhall 7y ago
    sigh I switched back to WordPress literally five days ago and haven't yet gotten around to installing a caching plugin. My bad. I've turned Cloudflare caching on in the meantime.
    • twodave 7y ago
      Mind sharing what thing you are fleeing _to_ Wordpress from and why? Genuinely curious.
      • tylerhall 7y ago
        Been running WP for god knows how long for my personal site, while my company website is built with Jekyll. In June I migrated to Ghost simply to try it and learn more about Node. It was _fine_, but never really fit my mental model of how a blog should operate or a web app should be structured. For better or worse, I'm an ex-Yahoo and a PHP guy through and through.
• rtempaccount1 7y ago
  It's interesting to see this from a MacOS release and the security complaints are similar to what's been seen about recent versions of Windows. To me, both are a manifestation of the idea that these two Operating Systems are moving in the direction of being safer for "ordinary users" at the expense of annoying more technical users who want to do less common things which can be dangerous if you're not careful (like running software as root) Given that "ordinary users" outnumber technical ones, I guess that makes commercial sense... As a result of that, I prefer working with Linux where possible as (generally) it lets you do what you want, even if that's really dumb/dangerous. If I say `kill -9 x` or I sudo to root and do `rm -rf .` by accident it's on me.
  • Kenji 7y ago
    Frankly, I find it much more dangerous if e.g. OneDrive deletes my desktop randomly or if MacOS doesn't let me log in. Stuff like `rm -rf folder` I still have to type myself, at least.
  • _bxg1 7y ago
    I take solace in that fact that by definition there will always be developers - increasingly, even. And therefore there will alway be a market for making computers for developers. Apple seems to be dropping the ball on that lately, which is a shame because they had such a lead. But Microsoft is racing to fill the gap with things like WSL and the skyrocketing build quality of high-end Windows laptops.
  • Seirdy 7y ago
    Safety on Linux is arguably better; with sandboxing utilities like SELinux, AppArmor, bubblewrap and Flatpak, as well as being the platform receiving the most containerization efforts (Docker, Podman, LXC), Linux is arguably more secure. This is especially true if you use an immutable OS like Fedora Silverblue, where everything is sandboxed or containerized by default.
• GordonS 7y ago
  I just upgraded to Catalina today on my MBP, and that screenshot of Allow/Deny notifcations hits the nail on the head! Likewise the popups about allowing apps to control other apps - what a wonderful way to introduce me to Catalina! I mean, come on, there has to be a better way than this, especially from a company supposedly famed for it's user-orientated designs and thinking?
  • grzm 7y ago
    How would you choose to handle it?
    • derefr 7y ago
      Maybe Apple could have gone through all the apps on their own App Store, built a whitelist out of the privileges that each of those apps effectively needs to do its job at all (not optional features, just the “makes the app more than a paperweight” feature-set), and shipped Catalina with said whitelist. For example, if, when you upgraded to Catalina, the App Store version of Alfred was already installed on disk, then macOS should assume that you’re an Alfred user, who wants to continue to be able to do “the thing Alfred does” (launch apps) without asking. And before you say “but what if this whitelist authorizes malware to continue being malware”—if there’s malware on the App Store, then they should probably solve that by removing the app from the App Store and deauthorizing the developer’s code-signing cert, so that Gatekeeper won’t run it any more. Just kill the vampires; don’t ask the user if they want to let them in.
      • deleted 7y ago
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      • saagarjha 7y ago
        > if there’s malware on the App Store, then they should probably solve that by removing the app from the App Store and deauthorizing the developer’s code-signing cert Apple has been spectacularly poor at spotting bad apps on the Mac App Store.
• mc32 7y ago
  Oh boy. I’d like to know Jony Ive’s reaction to Catalina...
  • na85 7y ago
    Based on Apple's recent history I'm sure Jony Ive would lament how Catalina didn't make the computer 0.1mm thinner.
• jedberg 7y ago
  I had the same response when they dropped the live version. I've been using the beta for weeks, and when I heard it went GM I was shocked. My biggest issue is that the whole computer freezes for about 10 seconds when I activate a dropdown in Safari, Chrome, or Firefox sometimes. It will also freeze everything but audio playback for 10 to 30 seconds when watching videos full screen with VLC. I dunno, maybe it's just me. But this release is the buggiest .0 release I've ever seen from Apple.
• AlexandrB 7y ago
  At this point I stay at least one major release behind Apple’s bleeding edge. They’ve been shipping increasingly buggy software on the Mac for years.
  • wincent 7y ago
    I'm currently two major releases behind. My policy now is basically "upgrade when only when forced" (eg. by security updates).
    • abawany 7y ago
      Or unfortunately when trying to build an iOS app: the ability to target an iOS version (sometimes minor, such as from 12.3? to 12.4?) depends on Xcode version and the latter is often hard-locked to a MacOS version.
• outime 7y ago
  I can add something to the list which is Sidecar i.e. using an iPad as secondary screen. It was a real nightmare to set it up as it’d not detect the iPad despite meeting all the requirements. I found no fixes online so I had the idea of logout & login again (iCloud) so that it might detect it. Well, it detected I had an iPad but the connection would time out every single time. After rebooting both the Mac and the iPad (another wild guess) it kind of worked - very laggy and couldn’t use the Mac properly as clicking in e.g. System Preferences would open Finder to show me the app under Applications instead of the actual system preferences panel because of reasons. It’s truly broken and felt like an alpha version. But this has been the trend with macOS and guess it’ll stay like this unless someone high enough at Apple decides to wake up.
  • pram 7y ago
    Not helpful but I had the opposite experience. Sidecar Just Worked with my MBP and 2016 iPad Pro, and drawing on it was extremely smooth. A better experience than Astropad so far, personally. Did you try connecting to it with a cable?
  • scotchio 7y ago
    Wish your experience was better than this. For me, sidecar is total game changer and the best!
    • CrazyStat 7y ago
      Same, it worked perfectly first try for me.
  • multibit 7y ago
    SideCar was the reason I was excited for Catalina. But alas, the feature is not supported on 2015 Retina Macbook Pros, only the newer ones with the horrible keyboard, pointless touchbar, only one kind of port, etc.
    • kendallpark 7y ago
      I'm in the same boat. Installed the betas on both iPad and MBP about a month ago. Turns out my 2015 pre-horrible-keyboard MBP is too old. And none of the published hacks around the restriction work nowadays.
• jorge-d 7y ago
  I was just in the process of installing Catalina, guess I'll just click on that "Cancel" button now.
  • Diederich 7y ago
    Huh, does that work? I didn't realize that one could actually revert mid install. Let us know. (:
    • rubbingalcohol 7y ago
      you can't. once it finishes downloading and reboots into the update screen you can't go back. Catalina seems to at least have broken the ability to create symlinks in the root folder. So no more `cd /htdocs` on my laptop.
      • jorge-d 7y ago
        Not really. I did download the update and got the "Install MacOS Catalina" app. Launching it will run the installer, and you can cancel (see [1]). But yeah once this installer finishes it's probably too late. [1] https://imgur.com/a/EdlitSq https://imgur.com/a/EdlitSq
      • prutschman 7y ago
        I believe you "merely" need to disable SIP, then remount the root partition as read/write.
      • elondaits 7y ago
        Use the CDPATH environment variable and you'll be able to CD to your regularly used directories from anywhere: https://jcode.me/cdpath-with-zsh/ https://jcode.me/cdpath-with-zsh/ much much saner than having your user files in the root directory, and works the same in any OS.
      • kbd 7y ago
        > So no more `cd /htdocs` on my laptop. If you use zsh I recommend using hashed directories. So this in your .zshrc: hash -d htdocs=~/path/to/htdocs Lets you `cd ~htdocs`. Alternatively, use 'fasd' or 'z' and you can just `z htd` without preconfiguring anything or caring where htdocs is. Or, of course, you could just create the symlinks in your $HOME instead of in root.
• mherrmann 7y ago
  Can I just say how happy I am with Xfce. It's a Linux desktop environment that looks like in the early 2000s. It's fast. There are no unnecessary frills. It just gets the job done. Its release cycles are measured in several years, and keep it minimal. I used to be on Windows, then macOS, then Ubuntu and now this. As a developer with soon to be 20 years of experience, it's the best environment I've had.
  • devmunchies 7y ago
    I like and use XFCE as well, but how is that relevant to this post? haha
  • MuffinFlavored 7y ago
    What Linux distro do you run Xfce on?
    • mherrmann 7y ago
      Just Debian.
      • magicbuzz 7y ago
        I'm posting in the Linux thread because it's probably annoying to some to see 'but I moved to Linux' threads throughout this comment. But the original post is very sobering. I left OS X a few years back when the new laptop came out. Partly the whole USB-C thing I suppose, but I felt that there was pretty good hardware around and the new MBP didn't really shine (and was fiercely expensive). So I made the move to Ubuntu on some new Lenovo hardware (Carbon X1). I really look forward to the twice-yearly Ubuntu releases. More of the same, rarely any huge new surprises and just generally more polish. I upgraded to Ubuntu 19.10 immediately once the 19.10beta came out and it seems speedier. I'm sorry to see Mac users get so badly burnt but I'm very glad I made the decision to leave when I did.
        • jjgreen 7y ago
          An X1 with Ubuntu is butter-smooth
• jodrellblank 7y ago
  See also the discussions on “Everything’s broken And nobody’s upset” from 7 years ago, about Microsoft, by Scott Hanselman focusing quite heavily on sync problems https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4531549 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4531549 It does seem to me that everything I use IT wise is more “always a bit broken” now, than it ever used to be.
• navidkhn1 7y ago
  I'm not sure if anyone has seen this yet, but Catalina is letting me login without entering my password! I have two users on my machine. 1. I "lock screen" from the Apple menu and close the lid. 2. I reopen the lid and it does not ask for password. 3. I start using laptop and lock screen suddenly pops up, but asks password for the wrong user. 4. I hit random key and the screen goes away, and i can continue working. Also, it looks like a lot of settings don't work on the lock screen / choose user screen. For instance, the pointer speed doesn't match what I have set, font sizes don't match either, and the resolution looks wrong. In all... It feels like windows?
  • temac 7y ago
    Despite having a lower quality than before since a few years, Windows has login and locking features that actually work (and I don't even really remember of bugs in there, like ever), so no, from what you describe it does not feel like Windows at all, it feels like some completely broken crap.
    • extrapickles 7y ago
      There were some good bugs in the login part of windows 2000/XP. Most of the ones I know of involve opening a browser while still on the login screen (my favorite was in the help for the screen reader), which is running as the System user that has complete control over the system.
      • Lutzb 7y ago
        IRC this was only possible on windows 95 and maybe 98.
        • jl6 7y ago
          You could do this on XP too.
        • extrapickles 7y ago
          They fixed most of them somewhere around XP SP2 or SP3, where they pretty much disabled help functionality on everything on the lock screen. When Cortana was introduced, they had some issues of being able to launch the browser while the machine was still locked (though as the user that the computer was locked by). You couldn't do much as the previous bugs as the lock screen still covered everything.
• capableweb 7y ago
  [deleted]
  • outime 7y ago
    How is this related to a post talking about a(nother) buggy macOS release?
    • capableweb 7y ago
      You are right, I commented in the wrong thread
• tpmx 7y ago
  This is a sure sign that the key people who used to run OS X development have moved on. Probably years ago, and we're just witnessing the gradual atrophy. The maintainers they left in their places probably kept it mostly working for 2-3 years. That is all.
  • layoutIfNeeded 7y ago
    They were the original NeXTSTEP people. Most of them have probably retired, rightfully, but to detrimental effect to macOS...
    • deleted 7y ago
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  • tpmx 7y ago
    Edit: This is sadly also probably a sign that we should move on to more fertile, albeit significantly less sophisticated platforms. :/
• PragmaticPulp 7y ago
  > The final (well, first) Catalina release along with the outright awful public beta makes me think one thing. And that is Apple’s insistence on their annual, big-splash release cycle is fundamentally breaking engineering. I know I’m not privy to their internal decision making and that software features that depend on hardware releases and vice-versa are planned and timed years (if not half-decades) in advance, but I can think of no other explanation than that Marketing alone is purely in charge of when things ship. I don't work at Apple, but this part hit home for me. In the past few years my jobs have revolved around shipping features at all costs with zero regard for engineering feasibility. We all like to criticize CEOs for prioritize short-term stock prices over long-term company goals, but I'm beginning to think the average employee or middle manager has even more perverse incentives to make poor short-term decisions. I've seen a lot of engineers and managers swing for the fences to deliver headline features that can't possibly be completed on time with any standard of quality, testing, or long-term support. It doesn't matter, though, if your goal is to add that accomplishment to your resume so you can pivot into the next higher-paying job elsewhere. After that, your mess becomes someone else's problem and you're off the hook. Up or out.
  • president 7y ago
    I work for a big software corp in SV with a yearly conference where we announce all of our products. Managers give zero shits about product quality as long as we deliver on time for the "big show". Bugs, future maintenance burden, and other shortcomings be damned because they'll probably be long gone after they get their promotion (and probably at another company rinsing and repeating) and by then, these issues become someone else's. This has caused engineers to become incentivized to place priority on delivering over quality. Funny how this short-term growth mindset comes top-down from where it all starts in Wall Street. If we want to fix the system, we need to first fix Wall Street and bring back accountability.
    • ironic_ali 7y ago
      Wall Street "incentivises" the people that are there to supposedly make them accountable. Personally, that's where I believe the problem begins.
• deleted 7y ago
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• rusk 7y ago
  Too many Majors, not enough soldiers.
• dreamling 7y ago
  Have you found the solution to keep things from asking for permission on things? I haven't upgraded yet, but experience this for a good 20+ items on reboot, and I haven't been able to find a solution to stop it. (including going into my keychain and trying to allow more permission to some items) Sometimes this mean 5-10min of allowing things access and typing my password over and over for each prompt. Things usually work after that, but I don't even have a clue, often times different apps seem to be asking if they can access system programs.
  • saagarjha 7y ago
    > including going into my keychain and trying to allow more permission to some items This almost certainly is not going to help, because it’s granting access to other things. > Sometimes this mean 5-10min of allowing things access and typing my password over and over for each prompt. Things usually work after that, but I don't even have a clue, often times different apps seem to be asking if they can access system programs. It’s interesting to see how we’ve already degrade to the Windows Vista-esque experience when you just approve everything. None of the security benefits, all of the usability downsides…
    • dreamling 7y ago
      I mean, I've taken the time to try to search for each of those subsystem things are asking for, but the information out there about doesn't really add much more info to 'if you don't say yes this will not work' or, 'this will ask you again for permission in 10 min' Some of the more curious ones I've checked via the logs in the ActivityMonitor to try to figure out what is really being asked. But none of this yields an answer. ie, things need to use launchd, assistantd, and accountsd ect. I never personally revoked those permissions. Historical web answers point users to use Keychain First Aid, which hasn't been around for years now, but obviously this has been a long ongoing issue which seems to possibly be exacerbated by other OS upgrade issues. A fix would absolutely quell the rage this gives me when I have to deal with it early in the morning before a deployment.
      • dreamling 7y ago
• yk 7y ago
  > quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra? quam diu etiam furor iste tuus nos1 eludet? Jobs would have caught that one.
• someonehere 7y ago
  1) After upgrading I had the avalanche of permission requests. I clicked through all of them on day 1. Needless to say it’s running fine if you ignore running any of the new features. 2) For the first time in my 10+ years supporting Macs at an enterprise level, I’m holding off on upgrading my company to 10.15. I’m genuinely pissed that there’s an over abundance of annoyances when upgrading that it’s not the Steve Jobs experience. Yes he’s gone, but his spirit and ideals for what brought Apple back from bankruptcy 20+ years ago. I’ll veer off of Catalina into a Steve Jobs decision that made sense in 1997. Apple had too many products and it was too confusing. Steve said two types of users. Consumer/Pro. Two types of computers for them, portable/desktop. Now we have five different iPad lines. Multiple iPhone lines. What made things simple to focus on at Apple have gone away to colleg grads with no experience.
  • deleted 7y ago
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  • jeron 7y ago
    >What made things simple to focus on at Apple have gone away to colleg grads with no experience. rather the decisions have went to the business people, and that's why Apple went bankrupt the first time around
• pram 7y ago
  I've thought about the UX issue, and I believe a big problem is they've overloaded the existing Privacy tab. It worked before only because it didn't do a whole lot. Now that it's essentially an integral part of the OS experience, it really needed to be broken out into its own dedicated preferences pane like Notifications. Look at the Notifications pane and how it's grouped by application, with many options to the right. It offers far more information and control, and has visual indicators. That is what the privacy UI should have been like. Current solution is half baked and no one can argue otherwise.
• gtirloni 7y ago
  I'm not a macOS user but from what I'm reading, it seems Apple turned something akin to SELinux on by default but let users define the policies on the fly. I remember a lot of headaches with SELinux on Fedora desktops years ago. It was not fun but I could always disable that if I didn't feel like fixing the policies myself. Lately, things barely pop up.
  • cerberusss 7y ago
    In my opinion, it's way less troublesome than the SELinux introduction back then. If you start an app, you get a one time popup when it tries to access something important. Like the Documents, Downloads or Pictures folder, or the folder where Contacts are kept. That's all. The author happens to be running a number of utilities in the background. For instance "Alfred", which is a replacement for the built-in Spotlight search tool. Of course, being a search tool, Alfred wants to know everything and generates a number of popups. He runs a terminal and perhaps does a "find ~ -name blah" which also generates a number of popups. It's not fair for the author to stick the "broken" label on there. It's just that the author encountered a number of other things, and they add up in annoyance for him. Not for me, by the way. Catalina runs fine.
• dmix 7y ago
  Off-topic: I'm having trouble reading this site on mobile, the font color is far too light, my eyes kept losing focus. Desktop it seems much more readable. Font-weight: 300 with Open Sans + light color is the problem. Font-weight 500 solves it.
• _bxg1 7y ago
  To throw my own (admittedly niche) Catalina anecdote into the mix: In El Capitan, Apple introduced something called System Integrity Protection (SIP). This is a security layer that prevents you from doing certain things, like modifying system directories, even as root. The idea is that malicious software could gain root permissions and still be unable to do the most egregious stuff. Okay, fine. You can turn it off by booting into recovery mode and running a command. I'd done this in the past because most of my company runs Linux desktops and some of our core software and scripts explicitly refer to network directories normally mounted in the root dir (yes, really). So since macOS mounts remote volumes under /Volumes, I had symlinks pointing from /foo to /Volumes/Foo. Updating to Catalina removed all of these symlinks. Okay, sure, it's a system directory and they probably just overwrote it in the process. So I went back and turned off SIP, but afterward I still couldn't "sudo ln". What gives? An extensive Google search turned up the fact that in Catalina, system directories are now mounted as a separate, read-only volume, at startup. So even with both admin permissions and SIP turned off, there is zero way whatsoever to write to them. An even more extensive Google search revealed someone who'd figured out you can re-mount the root dir after boot (and after turning off SIP, of course) as a writable drive, at which point I was able to finally re-create my symlinks. This took me about an hour to sort out. If there hadn't been a workaround on that random forum (which by the way feels like a loophole, as it only required root permissions), I would've been forced to stop using a Mac altogether.
  • matwood 7y ago
    I can appreciate your problem, but SIP on whole is a good thing along with mounting system directories as read only. It's the only thing that prevented many machines from having to be reinstalled recently. https://mrmacintosh.com/google-chrome-keystone-is-modifying-var-symlink-on-non-sip-macs-causing-boot-issues/ https://mrmacintosh.com/google-chrome-keystone-is-modifying-...
    • _bxg1 7y ago
      Right, but it's something that technical users should have a clear path for overriding. SIP at least has a semi-clear path for disabling it (though I couldn't find any official documentation of it, only forum posts) but the read-only directory thing was definitely really hard to find.
• dangus 7y ago
  All the nightmares are nightmares until they're not nightmares. Weird launch day bugs like the I bug on iOS 11 are distant memories. Yeah, these bugs are bad, but to me articles like this really feel a lot like a broken record. Every September and October, when the major releases come out, there are bugs. And then by the time you're on 10.xx.2 or iOS xx.1.3 a month later they're just a bad memory. If you don't want bugs, don't upgrade right away. That's not an Apple-only phenomenon - remember the Windows 10 October 2018 update that had to be entirely retracted? 10.14 is still supported. 10.13 is still supported. 10.12 is still supported. Keep using those if you want.
  • als0 7y ago
    Couldn't agree more. These updates just aren't compelling. It's been a long time since a newer version had speed improvements. I stayed on Mavericks and El Capitan until support ran out. And I'll be waiting again until all the necessary 32-bit software has been ported.
  • munificent 7y ago
    > And then by the time you're on 10.xx.2 or iOS xx.1.3 a month later they're just a bad memory. As are your files. The author states that some of these bugs are causing file corruption.
    • dangus 7y ago
      The author stated that the beta software did that over the summer. The author also stated that using their own personal account instead of a test account.
  • matwood 7y ago
    Yeah. I don't use any 32 bit software so I'm good there. Catalina has actually been the smoothest macOS upgrade I've had in awhile when it comes to all my 3rd party apps working. One annoyance was with some of my CLI programs (like Terraform) where I had to open them from the Finder right click -> open to get them marked as safe to run. That was expected though.
  • 7y ago
• chaostheory 7y ago
  “ Apple has never been good at anything involving the internet. I feel like they could have all the money and engineers in the world (which they basically already do) and still never completely get their services right because it’s just not in their DNA. Applications are. Hardware is. But put a network layer in there and they crap themselves. (Ok, not in every case. I’m obviously exaggerating to make a point. But the overall track record is iffy at best.)” Haven’t tested it in Catalina yet, but I doubt my Contacts in MacOS is still able to sync with iCloud
• macinjosh 7y ago
  I've been using Catalina as a daily driver since the first beta. I did notice some bugs here and there but I have to say my take away was different. I did get the barrage of permission prompts but it was just like that the one time and while it was a bit overwhelming it made me feel good that my OS was keeping tabs on these things. With Apple's emphasis on privacy they had to build these sort of controls into macOS to play catch up with iOS's features in this regard. Also, I have hard time feeling sorry for someone who is upset that beta system software upset his working environment. Apple specifically says not to put their betas on critical hardware. The author said he did this because it was "simpler". Not sure if breaking your work environment is "simpler" than booting off an external SSD or having a second machine for testing.
  • tylerhall 7y ago
    OP here. I never installed Catalina (or any recent beta software in years) on my primary machine that I get work done on. My Catalina testing this Summer was explicitly kept to an old laptop and virtual machines. My "simpler" comment was about my mistake in signing into iCloud on those test devices. I learned my lesson and either stayed logged out or used a test iCloud account for the rest of the Summer. And, overall, my post and comments in general are about running Catalina now that it's publicly released. Not about issues I experienced as a beta user.
  • jdance 7y ago
    Seems you didn't read the post very carefully, author did everything he could except using a separate apple id.
  • kevingadd 7y ago
    OP didn't put betas on primary hardware, it was on testing hardware. The beta infected their other machines via iCloud.
  • cerberusss 7y ago
    Same here. I got the permission prompts on the first day of installation, that's it. Since I don't use Photos nor iCloud Drive, I actually can't remember a single problem with Catalina, it's quite solid.
• snapples 7y ago
  Things are so broken here at Apple. I joined about 4 years ago. I am awed by the fact that we manage to release any software at all, let alone functional software. The biggest problem is communication. No one fucking communicates. - No communication between orgs. Tons of bureaucratic tape to cut through just to get a hand on someone working on a different product - Barely any communication between teams. Literally every group of 4 people is in a little silo with no incentive to go outside it - Broken management structure. I have had many managers (a red flag in itself) but even worse none of the managers take suggestions from engineers. Everything is purely top down. If an engineer realizes there is a problem on a macro scale they cannot fix it. It is literally impossible to unite more than 1.5 teams to get anything done. - So what happens is that you’re working on a product that’s part of another product but you never talked to any other teams or orgs on how to make your product fit in - 10 different teams working on the same products and services. Zero unification means you are literally wasting developers and internally fragmenting every tool. Even worse, these teams compete for internal market domination - Culture of secrecy means nothing gets fucking done. You file a bug report and you can’t even see it any more for some orgs This is only the tip of the iceberg. There are fundamental and serious problems at Apple that no one in management gives a shit about solving. Any time engineers try to congregate or work on anything constructive with another team, they are shot down. The only time I have seen cross-team developers working together has been to deal with critical bugs. Because of the lack of communication, none of management’s goals align. They are all out of sync and poorly thought out. So year after year your manager has something they want you to implement but the feature for the year is bullshit because it makes no sense and is just there to pad the manager’s resume. And you can’t speak out about this. Apple doesn’t take well to employees complaining. Even then, because of the lack of organization there is no one you could raise these issues with.
  • snapples 7y ago
    I should note that most developers here really do care, and that’s probably why products can be released in the first place. You have to have really dedicated people willing to cut through the organizational bullshit to get things done. All of the engineers I’ve met here are smart and innovative. Only if we could organize, things would be much better.
• fauigerzigerk 7y ago
  Catalina is definitely the most badly broken release in the last 10 years. I can't get Chrome desktop notifications to work anymore, but the worst thing is that all my Apple Music playlists have disappeared from my iPhone. They do exist in the Catalina Music app, but not on the phone where I need them. I suspect it's because my iPhone 6 isn't supported by the latest iOS release and there appears to be some iCloud version incompatibility that was triggered by Catalina. The iPhone Music app has crashed a few times as well. They do warn me of just such an incompatibility when I open the Reminders app (which now has a far more convoluted user interface for no apparent benefit). I get the feeling that my decision to just keep using my iPhone 6 until it's not longer good enough will be difficult to sustain. Catalina also randomly stalls for a second or two and some mouse clicks just don't register for a long time until they eventually do. This seems to have gotten a bit better now so I'm hopeful that it was related to uncached data.
• Gorbzel 7y ago
  Why does what seems likes every commenter / blogger on this site feel the need to write a think piece about how they no longer trust Apple and all those other times they weren't the one complaining? (Hint: they were.) It's always the same – this time out: • Guy installed beta software and it was buggy. STOP THE PRESSES!!!! • "I'm a pro user, I've functionally given escalated privs to apps that steal my data, every Electron container POS ever written, and 100 open standards only Chrome supports. How DARE Apple ask desktop users for permissions on upgrade!?!?!? Keep that security stuff for smartphone users – filthy casuals." • Forgot Password. #classic • Somehow my hostname changed during a system update. And the cycle continues. Comments section without fail: 4-5 commenters who maybe used a Mac once are somehow experts on MBP keyboards, no one likes the Touch Bar, software quality, here's a Linux laptop I like (obligatory distro discussion in reply), "Services Company", a WWSJD for good measure, blah blah blah, Apple is DOOOOMED! Sure, the public at large loves drama, but the ethos of Hacker News supposedly assumes some higher quality of posts + commentariat due to an audience of those involved in building software, startups, products, and hacks that require technical knowhow. Rather, the tendency of the vocal minority who post these anti-Apple Medium articles and comments is quite perverse: - rail against the mythical "manager" strawperson who hates software quality and is just out to steal money, jobs, or some other vague emotional rallying cry from all us hard working devs. - "empathize" by infantilizing the industry and software engineers. Neither devs nor tech companies have any responsibility for speaking up on scope, making well-justified technical decisions, keeping in mind the end user or world around them, or voting with their feet, etc. You hate to see it. Since it's the exact same platform war crap that's been going on forever, it's always big, bad, Cupertino that's at fault... ...and yet, I've been using Catalina (on a separate machine until a late beta), treat my personal accounts as production, assume every process and line of code might be a potential attack vector, and support reasonable software policies which respect I'm both an end user and a software professional. Isn't perfect, but stable enough for both development and production, just like software since time immortal. Not broken.
  • saagarjha 7y ago
    I’ve been using a Mac for years and I agree with most of the points in the article. (I’m still using Catalina, FWIW; I have a high tolerance for bugs and annoyances.)
• plg 7y ago
  Honest question: if apple software engineering has structural problems that sacrifice quality for splash, what is the reasonable alternative OS? Is it Windows 10? Is it Ubuntu? I suppose it depends on the user. I'm lucky, I'm an academic and presumably I can deal with any option.
  • iClaudiusX 7y ago
    I came to a similar crossroads when I realized I did not want to switch from windows7 to 10 once security patches end in 2020. I've been using Kubuntu 18.10 since January and have found it so much easier to get things done. I don't have to constantly reset privacy and telemetry settings to keep the OS's nose out of my life. It has a real shell, ssh, and terminal so I no longer have to muck about with cygwin, putty, and winscp. I can customize the UI to my liking, e.g. dark mode that's consistent across applications. About the only thing that doesn't work is about 1/3rd of my Steam game library but it's a tiny sacrifice for the efficiency gained with a proper OS that respects your time and privacy.
  • jl6 7y ago
    I’m fairly satisfied with running Ubuntu as the main OS, and Windows 10 in VirtualBox for the scanner software that Ubuntu won’t run.
  • godinaa 7y ago
    Coming from someone who probably is your average HN reader (programmer, power user, technically oriented), I've been enjoying Windows 10 more and more. They have put a huge effort into creating a better experience for developers. WSL was a great start, and I'm excited to see what a full Linux kernel will bring. Windows Terminal is in preview and is the terminal emulator that I would want on Windows. I already use VSCode on mac as well.
    • jdance 7y ago
      I agree that's a good change, but I want to be able to control my computer. It started to feel like it was Microsofts computer, not mine.
  • 7y ago
• sehugg 7y ago
  I just restored from Time Machine after getting stuck on the “Estimating time remaining...” screen and then googling some other peoples' experiences. Three hours spent restoring from backup seemed like a better option.
• binarnosp 7y ago
  > Allow or Deny Have we forgotten this [0]? [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuqZ8AqmLPY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuqZ8AqmLPY
  • hinkley 7y ago
    You are coming to a sad realization. Cancel or Allow? ... sigh allow
• aasasd 7y ago
  > why is my iMac’s hostname now duplicated “(2)”? Oh boy, I've seen that! Don't quite remember where―I think it was Mavericks, if I'm not mixing it up with the Ubuntu NAS.
  • 0bit 7y ago
    I've seen it happen when the machine has both an ethernet and wi-fi connection.
  • saagarjha 7y ago
    Maybe Yosemite, after they introduced discoveryd?
• mighty_bander 7y ago
  From the article: > Because I’m an idiot with reasons, I have a python daemon that launches as root via launchd and remains running in the background. It is now silently failing because it isn’t allowed to access an external USB drive. This reminds me of the thematic line from one of Linus' infamous rants: > WE DO NOT BREAK USERSPACE! A lot of people asked why it was necessary to tolerate rude behavior from leadership. It seems the answer is "Catalina."
• blunte 7y ago
  It's all very depressing. Like most of us here, I have become increasingly frustrated with the state of Mac (touch bar, bad keyboards, odd choices that fit neither creators nor developers well, and so on). No point rehashing it all. But where does that leave us? I spent a year on Windows 10 not so long ago, on upper end laptop hardware with HiDPI screen, and it was less fun and more problem prone than macOS - especially when it came to fast day-to-day stuff we never think about, such as PDF printing, quickview, etc. Plus in Windows you get the mysterious stop-the-world issues (that I suspect are OS level misbehaviors when some remote network connection has become lagged). There may be some use cases where Windows is actually faster/nicer/better than macOS, but they're not non-MS development, Adobe CC work, regular file management work, etc. Maybe games are it. Desktop Linux (even on standard desktop computers, not just specialized laptops) is far from perfect. Getting everything to work is a lot of effort, and then mysteriously something will stop working. Every window manager has some rough edges or cases where it's unpleasant. Getting and keeping a Linux Desktop in good working order is harder than it should be at this age of Linux. ChromeOS?... I know some people who use that as their daily driver. Obviously there are desktop apps that they don't need/use (Adobe CC, for example). But what happens when some automated Google thing triggers an account ban? Bricked laptop and no data? Thing really do not seem to be improving on the whole. Old problems are replaced with new problems, but the layers and separated concerns mean more complexity and more difficulty solving problems.
  • MisterOctober 7y ago
    I switched from macOS to Linux [Fedora now] about a year and a half ago, out of the same frustrations that affect a lotta folks -- It took a little while to adjust, but since there are a lot of similarities between the Linux and Darwin command lines [and Linux package management being better than homebrew by my lights] , it wasn't very long before I was like "Damn, why didn't I switch 20 years ago!!!" Plus now my hardware works [edit : and is user-serviceable], is reasonably ergonomic, and OS updates don't break my existing programs...
    • fossuser 7y ago
      Does the hardware actually work? I've used Linux several times over the years and the hardware never totally works. I've always had trackpad issues, issues with suspend and hibernate, wifi issues, screen resolution issues, battery life issues, sound issues, driver issues etc. It 'works' in terms of you can technically do work on it, but you have to make a huge number of concessions and this is before considering it has less application support. [Edit]: The replies suggest this is mostly still the case, people say it works flawlessly - except for [insert issue here]
• joshstrange 7y ago
  I really feel for the people who HAVE to be on the latest OS. Thankfully I'm able to always operate at n-1 for ~6mo and once the dust has settled I can upgrade safely. I might speed that up a little now that I have a work and a personal MacBook but only on my personal and only to play with SwiftUI. Even then, it's probably better to just run a VM with a throwaway iCloud account. I love my mac and have no intention of switching but I really hope this is their Vista moment, or close to it, and they start doing better on the desktop.
  • h1d 7y ago
    I have already lost hope for Apple. I'm just hoping they don't make things worse and just keep the quality as is but this seems optimistic too. Maybe in 5 years, Linux gets bit better when Mac is finally crap as a whole.
• ttcbj 7y ago
  As another person whose livelihood is tied up in the use of OS X, I agree that apple continues to drop the ball. Hardware, software, 'security', cloud services. It's just painful. I don't understand why a company with so many resources cannot produce better results. I really love the mac, and so many Apple products, but I fear that the long term trend is downwards, and I see no sign of it abating.
• michaelmarion 7y ago
  I was thinking on this the other day, and I think what ultimately boils down to is this: there’s no “why” anymore at Apple. Go back and watch old keynotes with Steve. Almost always, whenever he’s talking about a new feature or piece of hardware, he starts with the “why.” Not everyone will agree with the “why,” of course, but it’s still given. Why do we want to get rid of the CD drive on MacBook Airs? (We see OTA software updates and media downloads as the way of the future and it wastes space.) Why do we want to migrate from PowerPC to Intel? (We need better performance-per-watt so we can build MacBooks that have better battery life and don’t overheat.) Why do we want to not have a physical keyboard on the iPhone? (Because the buttons and controls can’t self-specialize for each application.) There are obviously exceptions to this rule, but by and large it’s fairly accurate. Now, watch the most recent keynotes. Has there been even a single second dedicated to WHY we need Apple TV+? Apple News+? Apple Arcade? Thinner keyboard mechanisms? No, and it’s because we all know what the answer is.
  • josiahtullis 7y ago
    There's still a "why" to those product launches. It's just that the "why" is no longer design-driven and is instead driven by business needs– namely, "we need to diversify our revenue streams away from just hardware sales and into services." This started when Tim Cook (instead of Jony Ive) took over as CEO.
    • mch82 7y ago
      I think the actual turning point was when Scott Forestall was fired & Ive took over software design. Prior to that, Apple had been a software company first. Even Woz talks about making hardware so that he’d have to tools to make software. Ive created some amazing hardware, but I’m excited to see where the next few product cycles go.
      • PKop 7y ago
        > making hardware so that he’d have to tools to make software A very good point in the context of neglecting the Mac, the primary tool used to make software for all the other prioritized hardware devices. If they lose the developer community, who do they expect will build software for iOS, or the iPad that Cook loves so much? Seems very shortsighted.
• ThomPete 7y ago
  Having tried Figma (a Web based design tool) i am beginning to think that this will be over soon for OSs anyway. The battle will be between browsers as they will become the new OSs. My sons school uses chromebooks, which is going to be their base for how they think about digital space in the future. The desktop metaphor will not last forever.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• gowld 7y ago
  The reality is that now that computing is really mass market, and computers are incredibly complex (tens of gigabytes in an OS!), open-ended power-usage is no longer a profitable addressable market. Our needs are too niche to make it work the effort to support our needs. (Dis-)economy of (non-s)scale and the complexity of modern software implies that we'd have to pay a lot of $ to get our use cases handled. So we have to put up with the hassles, or invest in the extra machines for experimentation and testing, or pay people to clean up our dev environments for us.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• totaldude87 7y ago
  I am lucky to have a Mac book pro 2012 ( yeah that one with all ports and stuff). So am perfectly protected from all the hardware issues from then. What software issues ,oh boy. at this point I don't even see your point of releasing a new OS every year.look at the windows yes I'm taking that example. I honestly feel that if you let the developers to do their job, without the stringent yearly cycle they would do an incredible job and Mac will flourish. Keeping a year-on-year cycle with incremental updates just for the sake of it, is really hurting Apple's image..
• chapati23 7y ago
  Apple fanboy and software developer here. Also disappointed with the Catalina release. Had do an NV RAM reset, boot into safe mode, talk to Apple support to solve iCloud issues, and also click away dozens of privacy notifications. But I still really don’t consider windows or Linux as legitimate alternatives because of the ecosystem log in. Yes, macOS has its downsides. But what keeps me from even thinking about Linux are all these little niceties: - copy something on my iPhone, paste it on the Mac (still regularly leaves people speechless when they watch me do it: “what!? You can do that?”) - my watch unlocks my Mac - my desktop is always in my pocket, all files sync’ed per default, zero config - Start Reading something in safari, Hand it over to my iPhone in a second and walk out the door - All my browser tabs synced across my Mac, iPhone and iPad - I can curate my TV Watchlist on my Mac and it’s automatically available on my AppleTV when I get home that night I could go on with dozens more of these little things that I can’t imagine living without anymore. I know that it’s probably possible to achieve most or all of this with a Linux/Android/Chromecast Setup. But every time I watch some of my friends do it, it just looks like so much work to set up and maintain. The only argument I understand here is the joy of tinkering and that feeling of achievement when you get it to work in the end. Apple is a bit boring in that regard. A lot of the integration stuff just works (yeah, yeah, sure not all, but still more so than on any other platform I know). I’m not 20 anymore and I just prefer to spend my time with other things these days than tweaking my OS. So although I wish Apple would invest more into quality on macOS again, for me the walled garden just totally works, and I’ll stick with the lesser evil.
  • megaremote 7y ago
    I don't understand why people update straight away. Leave it a few weeks/months. Especially as a developer.
    • equasar 7y ago
      Early adopters are the reason bugs are reported :)
    • oarsinsync 7y ago
      iOS13 comes with a load of security fixes and new features - people are encouraged to update ASAP. iOS13 comes with a load of breaking changes in iCloud. iOS12 devices and macOS apps (e.g. reminders) no longer sync with iPhones until you upgrade.
• lifeisstillgood 7y ago
  I used to dream of setting up a company that sold solid hardware laptops with solid components and paying really good kernel hackers to write really good drivers just for those devices, and then running BSD and XFCE and selling it as the uber-menace choice for silicon valley types Just saying simple and bullet proof goes a long way
  • asdff 7y ago
    Retrofit 15 year old think pads with modern components and ship it running bash and no gui. There's probably a market there to be honest.
• treelovinhippie 7y ago
  My update experience for Catalina was like so: 1. Download 8GB on Australian internet. 2. Wait 7 hours. 2. "Sorry there was an error". 3. Download again. 4. "You need 1GB more free space". 5. Clears 1GB of space. 6. Ok installing, restarts. 7. "You ran out of disk space". Only one button: [restart]. 8. Restarts. 9. "You ran out of disk space". Only one button: [restart]. 10. Search for solution, find dozens of others with the same problem. I had to do a time machine backup restore. Cleared 16GB of space and it worked.
  • cryptozeus 7y ago
    I mean you clearly 8gb is needed, this is not apple problem.
    • treelovinhippie 7y ago
      You've misunderstood. I had cleared enough space for the update to give the go ahead. Then during the installation it ran out of space and got stuck in an infinite restart loop. So clearly the Catalina update requires much more free space than it says it does before allowing the installation to continue. Just poor software development and lack of testing. Here's a Reddit thread of people with the same problem: https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/deuwsa/help_stuck_in_catalina_update_boot_loop_because/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/comments/deuwsa/help_stuck_in...
    • h1d 7y ago
      Umm, no... The OS can detect the free space to decide whether it's a go or not and it still borked.
• tracker1 7y ago
  With the level of frustration I've had with mac for a while now, my latest desktop is now running Linux... though that had its' own series of headaches. First, the onboard audio and wifi only work with Kernel 5.1 and 5.2 respectively. I upgraded. When an rs 5700 xt finally got in stock with non-reference designs, I ordered one, that lead me to 5.3 kernel, and binary downloads (which were locked at 1080p on a 40" 4k display, too big). In the end after trying things, borking my install, trying manjaro architect (failed), trying arch (not sure how I failed, but no boot) and finally reverting to Ubuntu LTS and forgoing the onboard audio for an external soundblaster usb and using wired ethernet anyway, I have a working system. But at the very least, I'm not entirely beholden to Apples whims, which means eGPU and a lot of issues for Nvidia graphics. In the end, I'm not developing iOS apps or mac apps, and even if I do an electron app, have no intention of giving Apple any more of my money. I haven't bought a Sony hardware product in about 20+ years since their bad behavior (though they do get revenue from blueray and make components). I can live without Apple too.
• boardwaalk 7y ago
  Eesh, all this whinging about permissions dialogs is tiring. It's really not any different than what you would get on an iPhone, except that someone with an existing Mac probably has a saved session which a bunch of programs already running. I clicked "allow" a maybe a dozen times and I was done. It was real, real hardship. The only real weirdness I've had with Catalina is that I have some code where one thread wakes up another with an empty UDP packet, and that packet no longer arrives. Sending 1 arbitrary byte instead of 0 fixes it.
• geitir 7y ago
  I think windows has always hands down beat osx in everything but aesthetics in terms of functionality and control. Maybe you could say except for proprietary features / apps but I don't think that really counts because that's comparing ecosystems. Even for development on Linux, running a vagrant instance and writing code in Windows is just a better experience up front. I think Microsoft understands this when their Linux subsystem stuff and upcoming revamped terminal. Developing for Mac is only better if you're trying to develop for the apple ecosystem. For non code use I think it goes either way, with Mac being the choice for graphics stuff since it's generally bought as a complete package with guaranteed color accurate screens etc. Linux is really powerful and a better OS than windows for running code, but precisely for running it and nothing else imo.
• pje 7y ago
  _________________________________________ / it sounds like you need to unionize your \ \ workplace! / ----------------------------------------- \ \ __ / \ | | @ @ | | || |/ || || |\_/| \___/
• ljm 7y ago
  This article is pure bullshit and it makes no effort to hide it > Let’s start with my now infamous tweet from the other day. (I’m an influencer!) This screenshot has absolutely been manipulated to make a point, but everything in it is real. It’s all of the security warnings and permission What the author doesn’t understand in this instance, is that it stops being real when he does the manipulation. There is no reality in that picture and by his own admission the author has no credibility to make a point.
• Twirrim 7y ago
  > Apple is becoming (already is?) a services company. And, let’s face it. Apple has never been good at anything involving the internet. I feel like they could have all the money and engineers in the world (which they basically already do) and still never completely get their services right because it’s just not in their DNA. Applications are. Hardware is. But put a network layer in there and they crap themselves. (Ok, not in every case. I’m obviously exaggerating to make a point. But the overall track record is iffy at best.) For what it's worth, Apple is on a massive hiring spree in the Seattle area, attempting to lure developers and systems engineers from all of the Cloud companies in the area, with the goal of using all their combined experiences to start doing internet services properly. No idea if it'll work. I hear horror stories from my ex-Apple co-workers about the way things used to be.
• oblib 7y ago
  Wow... between the linked blog post and the responses here I have to say I'm still pretty happy running Mac OS 10.11 on an late `09 Mac Mini with maxed out ram and a SSD drive so upgrading really doesn't seem necessary. Sure, I'd love more power and a 3 monitor setup but since I only code web apps and mostly use BBEdit, Fetch, Terminal, and a few web browsers neither speed or power are really lacking. I've figured I'd move to linux when I finally do buy a new box and this sure reinforces going that direction, especially the comments here from folks in the trenches at Apple. That said, sounds to me like Apple needs to implement a structure of team liaisons that are assigned solely to manage product continuity between teams of coders.
• PKop 7y ago
  > It is absolutely clear that the Mac is far outside of what the upper-ranks of Apple is focusing on. This is so inexplicable, given that the Mac is necessary to continue producing the apps for the iPad and iOS ecosystems, yet I've never really heard anyone outside of developer community comment on this, nor does it seem Cook or anyone in Apple has contemplated the consequences to their entire company of squandering the buy-in from the developer community by neglecting the company's primary development tool. Mind-boggling.
• m45t3r 7y ago
  I mean, even the supposed top software product from Apple nowadays, iPadOS, is suffering from annoying bugs. This will be the third time I have to reboot my iPad 6th gen today, the first two were because the keyboard would randomly close and not come back (if someone has a workaround for this issue, I would be grateful, it is a really annoying bug specially since it happened while I was writing a big text) [1]. Now, the app that I use for Hacker News (Octal) is broken on the dock, so the only way to switch to it is using the Expose-like screen. I already tried to force remove it from dock, however opening it again triggered the same bug. Also, force touching the icon shows a “Share (null)” (probably the cause of the bug). I know, not a big deal (making the user reboot three times in one day, however, should be a big deal). But this is for their top product for gods sake. I don’t want to even imagine how Catalina is. [1]: If this was Android I could at least force close the keyboard app. I didn’t find a way to force closing iPadOS keyboard, BTW, I tried to add and remove keyboard languages without success. Also annoying that I had to use another device to search about this issue since, you know, I had no keyboard at all.
• tylerjwilk00 7y ago
  I have been using Linux on my home workstations for over 10 years. I use a MacBook Pro 1 day a week for work for 5 years. I occasionally use a Windows 10 machine if a friend or family member needs help. Linux desktop is easily my most productive and least worse environment. It's so smooth to develop on. All other OS behave like an annoying authoritarian dictator. And Windows specifically is a kafkaesque dumpster fire of menus and windows all with seemingly different design concepts. MacOS is pretty consistent in design and performance but using the machine it's obvious that developer productivity is not their top goal and you can't develop using a mobile phone as your workhorse so desktops are all we got.
  • jdance 7y ago
    Thats a very good formulation of current windows, I always struggle to find the words to describe it. As someone quite new to Linux, I wonder what setup are you running?
• setheron 7y ago
  I switched to a T480 Lenovo running Fedora. Prior to this I've never really ran a Linux machine for my personal laptop and only ever in the capacity of a desktop for work (usually running some old RHEL). I don't think I ever want to go back to OSX. Fedora has been such a pleasure to work on Sure thunderbird is meh -- but overall my output and joy from running the system has been returned 10x
• begriffs 7y ago
  Although I use a mac for work, I have a spare thinkpad with openbsd, which I think of as my "forever system." I put stable software on it and generally go with the OS defaults. Over time I patiently refine the configuration files, adding a little polish here and there. The experience keeps improving, and perhaps some day it will be my main system, and work completely smoothly. IMHO investing time to get too comfortable with the changing mac ecosystem is ultimately wasted work since it will eventually change/break.
• ghego1 7y ago
  > The point I was hoping (but probably failed) to make In the the author reads this: you can definitely rest assured you very well made your point, at least for me! :-)
• sidcool 7y ago
  I wonder if things are so broken, how do they manage to create world class hardware and software. Genuinely curious.
  • h1d 7y ago
    Burn money brute forcing. How else would "non intelligent" organization accomplish?
• goatinaboat 7y ago
  Jobs was obsessed with design, but it had to actually work. “Real artists ship” was his famous quote and he was making tools for people who also had to ship. Cook and Ive aren’t making tools for working professionals, they are making exhibits for a design museum. This permeates the culture: no one in Apple management gives a flying fuck about the OS (or the keyboard) because you aren’t meant to use it or even switch it on. Just look at it and admire it, on your desk if you’re a pleb but preferably in a glass case in a white painted room.
  • jdance 7y ago
    Someone like Cook is probably very very busy with the logistics of running one of the worlds biggest companies. I dont think he cares that much about products, hes a businessman not a user
    • goatinaboat 7y ago
      You might be right but that is the job of a COO not a CEO.
• aloknnikhil 7y ago
  To add to the list of bugs, what the actual fuck is going on with SideCar? It barely works and every time I turn it on, it destroys the colors on the laptop screen. Whites become yellow and colors are partially inverted. It's worse than the betas (which also had its fair share of bugs while connecting)
• Razengan 7y ago
  I still love Apple. For me macOS is still much better than Windows and Linux, and iPhone + iPad + Watch + TV + App Store + AirPods etc. is still a more pleasant overall experience than any other ecosystem out there. but when you see betas for x.1 before there is even a GM for x.0, you know it's going to be a rushed, buggy release. and it's disheartening to see all the little quality-of-life bugs and suggestions you submitted eons ago remaining unfixed year after year.
• YeGoblynQueenne 7y ago
  What is broken is the pale grey font on white background. I can't read that without hurting my eyes. What is the point of this? Is it supposed to be pretty? I can hardly see it.
• hwj 7y ago
  This is about macOS Catalina being broken.
• craftinator 7y ago
  To the author: Have you tried Linux? It's not a rental OS like those other ones, you actually own it! It's great, give it a shot and be amazed!