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But that leaves out something very fundamental about Macs: They've always been very accessible and user-friendly. Even on Catalina, people tend to find their wa

But that leaves out something very fundamental about Macs: They've always been very accessible and user-friendly. Even on Catalina, people tend to find their way around the OS really quickly, in part because lots of things they know from their phones are there as well (LaunchPad has all the apps, like on a phone, there's Spotlight, like the search on the iPhone, there's Preferences app, ...) – and you don't have to do anything to keep it running and working, everything auto-updates at night, it's hard to break things, just ... open that Macbook and use it. If you have other Apple devices and peripherals, they might even auto-pair on demand and things like that. Usually a very smooth experience. Of course, there are lots of people who never had a problem with Linux at all ... except that when they share their screen in MS Teams, it's two 4k screens plus laptop display stitched together with a fairly complex fix that involves scripting virtual webcams, or there's no way to use the projector at something less than 100%-scaled 4K that can be done on-the-fly, or wifi stops working until the next reboot when plugging in the USB-C hub at the wrong moment, or the fingerprint sensor either never works, or nondeterministically sometimes works, or company e-mail works fine in Outlook and Apple Mail but not at all in Thunderbird, or the fans run all the time ... I've never had a smooth ride myself trying Linux on a desktop or laptop, nor have I ever talked to anyone who didn't eventually admit to having issues like that – and while that may be tolerable for someone who values being able to use Linux a lot, it's unacceptable and broken for everyone else. Maybe there are people who actually do have a ride so smooth they never even have to touch a command line at all – but I have strong doubts. Yet that's one of the bars to clear. With Macbooks, I never have to touch a command line (I can, if I want to, but I know no one outside of my dev/ops/research/nerd bubble who's ever actively used a Terminal). The vast majority (for a very large value of vast) of people out there have never touched a command line before and have zero inclination to change that. They don't have anyone to sysadmin for them, either. Ubuntu on a Macbook-Air-ish affordable and somewhat stylish laptop, that'd be it, can't use those Airpods. Or any other headphones. Or play any sound at all, because for that particular sound chip, alsa needs this particular config to be set in such and such a way. To be the "new Mac", it'll have to "(very mostly) just work" like MacOS, Android, iOS, ChromeOS, or even Windows – bonus points if it has a walled garden with lots high-quality apps and no really easy way to break out or actually break things, because that's a big feature for people who just want to _use_ a computer, not build, admin, secure and maintain a complex OS. And all of this is deeply frustrating, because I _like_ Linux. But I hate having to put in all the work and still lose so much comfort, efficiency, dependability and ability to do things I can do easily on MacOS, on inferior hardware, without a Touchbar, without a proper touchpad – it's just not there yet, not by a long way. And if it's too much hassle for me – someone who's built a Linux router on a 200Mhz Pentium 2 when Pentium 2s were still decent machines and 10mbit LAN was fast – then I guess it's not going to work for the vast majority of people, either.

dingaling 6y ago
> Even on Catalina, people tend to find their way around the OS really quickly Last week I had to use OS X for the first time ever, on a friend's iMac. It was irritatingly animated and it required unintuitive steps to open a terminal. Something called Finder ( but I'm not searching ), then clicking down into some folders and finally Terminal.app All whilst trying to ignore the distraction of various icons bouncing on the dock bar. And occasionally I'd press something my mistake and Finder would minimise itself. Thankfully I had my phone to hand to look up how to use this intuitive system...
- torstenvl 6y ago
  There's literally a launcher that lists every installed application, and the launcher even has "Launch" in its name. There's also a built-in search in the menu bar that has a magnifying glass icon, which seems fairly self-explanatory.
- dividedbyzero 6y ago
  I don't think you're the kind of user I had in mind; I was thinking more of non-technical people who know their way around their phone and enough Windows to use Excel and Word on Windows on their work PC that IT admins and locks down completely. Like, people who take those training sessions for switching the new Microsoft Office version and profit from them, or maybe they don't need those, but have zero experience at admin tasks. I guess those would make up a very large part of Apple customers. On a new Catalina install, you'd have a hard time to not find crucial apps easily, like Safari, Mail, Calendar, something to write a letter in ... because they are in the Dock already, or prominently in LaunchPad, which works just like the home screen on a phone, and is in the Dock in the leftmost position – and the OS has an onboarding flow that pops up right away and that'll take care of explaining those things. So, if you, as someone with little expertise in IT, open that new Macbook Air, chances are you'll find your way around quite well with the tools you have. The weird @ placement will keep being an annoyance though. Chances are you know how to use the Preferences app on your phone, and you'll probably be able to figure out the System Preferences app in LaunchPad with that knowledge, and it can do everything important. Pretty big deal! If you need a terminal, you're way way way ahead those people in terms of computer literacy and certainly wouldn't have any serious problems navigating any sensible operating system there is, just some annoyance if it doesn't work like (I assume) the Linux setup you've spent a lot of time dialing in perfectly. Most people wouldn't know that their animations aren't ideal for them the same way I couldn't tell if a certain dentist's drill had somewhat less than ideal ergonomics for a cavity in a specific place. And besides (n=1) I've been using Macs all day for way over a decade and I never found any issues with the animations; maybe I'm part of the majority and that's why people aren't very vocal about the OS animations. If I extrapolate from my experiences (which are numerous pieces of anecdata, but of course still anecdata), there is a significant number of people who use Macs because they want something stylish and pretty that is easy to use for "casual" computing needs and is fairly frustration-free. If something is wrong, you dig through preferences some and there'll be a radio button to change that. If that projector is at native 4K, you open System Preferences, Displays, click on the icon that has the largest font – that'll do it. And it's built with the knowledge that most users will not be able to do much more than that – so having to resort to a shell and fixing up config files based on a forum post from 2012 isn't going to happen – they'll turn up at the Genius Bar and will be disgruntled customers if the people there can't help. So, if Linux is to be the new Mac, it'll need to offer that kind of experience as well. Currently, in my experience, it doesn't offer this at all.

dingaling 6y ago

> Even on Catalina, people tend to find their way around the OS really quickly Last week I had to use OS X for the first time ever, on a friend's iMac. It was irritatingly animated and it required unintuitive steps to open a terminal. Something called Finder ( but I'm not searching ), then clicking down into some folders and finally Terminal.app All whilst trying to ignore the distraction of various icons bouncing on the dock bar. And occasionally I'd press something my mistake and Finder would minimise itself. Thankfully I had my phone to hand to look up how to use this intuitive system...

torstenvl 6y ago
There's literally a launcher that lists every installed application, and the launcher even has "Launch" in its name. There's also a built-in search in the menu bar that has a magnifying glass icon, which seems fairly self-explanatory.
dividedbyzero 6y ago
I don't think you're the kind of user I had in mind; I was thinking more of non-technical people who know their way around their phone and enough Windows to use Excel and Word on Windows on their work PC that IT admins and locks down completely. Like, people who take those training sessions for switching the new Microsoft Office version and profit from them, or maybe they don't need those, but have zero experience at admin tasks. I guess those would make up a very large part of Apple customers. On a new Catalina install, you'd have a hard time to not find crucial apps easily, like Safari, Mail, Calendar, something to write a letter in ... because they are in the Dock already, or prominently in LaunchPad, which works just like the home screen on a phone, and is in the Dock in the leftmost position – and the OS has an onboarding flow that pops up right away and that'll take care of explaining those things. So, if you, as someone with little expertise in IT, open that new Macbook Air, chances are you'll find your way around quite well with the tools you have. The weird @ placement will keep being an annoyance though. Chances are you know how to use the Preferences app on your phone, and you'll probably be able to figure out the System Preferences app in LaunchPad with that knowledge, and it can do everything important. Pretty big deal! If you need a terminal, you're way way way ahead those people in terms of computer literacy and certainly wouldn't have any serious problems navigating any sensible operating system there is, just some annoyance if it doesn't work like (I assume) the Linux setup you've spent a lot of time dialing in perfectly. Most people wouldn't know that their animations aren't ideal for them the same way I couldn't tell if a certain dentist's drill had somewhat less than ideal ergonomics for a cavity in a specific place. And besides (n=1) I've been using Macs all day for way over a decade and I never found any issues with the animations; maybe I'm part of the majority and that's why people aren't very vocal about the OS animations. If I extrapolate from my experiences (which are numerous pieces of anecdata, but of course still anecdata), there is a significant number of people who use Macs because they want something stylish and pretty that is easy to use for "casual" computing needs and is fairly frustration-free. If something is wrong, you dig through preferences some and there'll be a radio button to change that. If that projector is at native 4K, you open System Preferences, Displays, click on the icon that has the largest font – that'll do it. And it's built with the knowledge that most users will not be able to do much more than that – so having to resort to a shell and fixing up config files based on a forum post from 2012 isn't going to happen – they'll turn up at the Genius Bar and will be disgruntled customers if the people there can't help. So, if Linux is to be the new Mac, it'll need to offer that kind of experience as well. Currently, in my experience, it doesn't offer this at all.