9 ms·

I was really hoping they'd take some time to address Catalina's glaring issues — its slowness, bugginess, just general sloppiness — and instead they did the opp

by cytzol 6y ago

I was really hoping they'd take some time to address Catalina's glaring issues — its slowness, bugginess, just general sloppiness — and instead they did the opposite. Honestly, every time Apple has done anything with the Mac the past couple of years, they've screwed it up. The infamous keyboards that they doubled-down and then tripled-down upon (I have personally had five keyboard replacements). The way Catalina sends the hash of every binary you run to Apple. The built-in Catalyst apps that look ugly and feel out-of-place. The Touch Bar which I still, years later, inadvertently activate several times a day (I've had to remove all the buttons on the right), which they addressed by making mandatory. The recurring bugs and kernel panics that have been lying around for years, unfixed. I have the least confidence in Apple I've ever had. I'm afraid to run Big Sur, not because it changes things, but because it's Apple who are behind it.

gkoberger 6y ago
It’s possible they will do both. Fixing bugs isn’t really keynote worthy, so hopefully there’s a ton of stability fixes behind the scenes.
- jmchuster 6y ago
  It was keynote-worthy for Snow Leopard, with the infamous "0 new features" slide.
  - snowwrestler 6y ago
    Sure but Snow Leopard had serious bugs when it launched too. It was only in later dot releases that it got its reputation for stability.
    - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
      I didn't switch to Mac until about halfway through Snow Leopard's lifespan. I'm aware of the big data loss bug—and that's serious for sure—but if you weren't one of the very unlucky few (relatively) to run into it, was 10.6.0 buggy in other ways?
  - ianai 6y ago
    That’s why I have hopes for them to come back and square up the Mac platform to where it should be for stability and usability. They could have been treating the whole platform as a beta for what they want to make of it after the move to their own silicon for many years now - perhaps even a decade. They’ve been well financed for as long. They also seem to have something like institutional anti-ADHD in so far as they can really only “nail” one product down well at a time.
  - pfranz 6y ago
    "0 new features" was marketing that seems to have worked quite well. I can't remember where, but I swear I remember hearing that later from people at Apple. The major thing is they didn't do a big UI refresh. In Snow Leopard they: finally rewrote Finder in Cocoa, released Quicktime X, shipped a 64bit kernel, released Grand Central Dispatch, released OpenCL. Plus a bunch of smaller updates and tweaks. They dropped included things like printer drivers (which now download on demand) which make the install size smaller.
- cytzol 6y ago
  It's possible they will do both, and I hope they do! I should add the disclaimer that I didn't actually expect them to talk about stability or Catalina's woes, for general corporate "avoid talking about things that make us look bad" reasons. Mentioning bug fixes inadvertently draws attention to the fact you added bugs; claiming increased stability highlights that the OS was once unstable. This is why Snow Leopard's "no new features" tagline was so memorable — it's so rare for a company to outright claim something like that. But I have to ask myself: why this release? Why fix bugs in Big Sur, but not Catalina or Mojave? For example, the annoying bug where Mail randomly becomes the active application[1] has been floating around for years and still isn't fixed, and there are only two reasons for this: Apple is stretched too thin and can't spare the developers to work on bug fixes, or Apple doesn't care, and is simply willing to let the Mac languish, taking the reputation hit in favour of increased iPhone sales. The fact that they've overhauled the entire interface means it's not the first one — they do have enough resources to make large, sweeping changes to the OS. So I will be absolutely unsurprised if, ten months from now, I decide to upgrade to Big Sur on a whim, and a couple of minutes in, Mail pops up once more. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23359820 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23359820
- cuddlybacon 6y ago
  I've also seen it reacted to very negatively when announced.
  - ianai 6y ago
    I don’t remember this but it’s credible. Can you dredge your any links from back then?
    - cuddlybacon 6y ago
      I wasn't specifically thinking about Apple, but a game I play. When I dug up the history on Reddit, it was a single troll commenting on every dev diary post.
- minikites 6y ago
  >It’s possible they will do both. Unlikely, given their recent track record. They'll just ignore the bugs in this release until the next big release like they've been doing for the past few versions.
swagonomixxx 6y ago
> The way Catalina sends the hash of every binary you run to Apple. Wait, what?! What are you referring to here? I just updated to Catalina and I wasn't aware of this.
- lou1306 6y ago
  App notarization works by hashing binaries and sending said hashes to Apple. Here you go: https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/catalina-executables.html https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/catalina-executables.htm...
  - swagonomixxx 6y ago
    What the actual f*ck. Thanks for the link. Looks like I'll need Little Snitch...
    - Spivak 6y ago
      If you don’t trust your kernel I don’t think some dinky application-layer firewall is going to save you.
    - 72deluxe 6y ago
      Little Snitch is good but what happens if the kernel can’t get a binary approved to run?? And people complained about Windows 10 telemetry. Last time I run macOS. Time to return to Linux (Pop OS I think)
    - m463 6y ago
      I tried installing little snitch on catalina and it needed a network connection exactly for that. I would like to know how to disable this and install little snitch. Maybe spctl or csrutil?
    - tomschlick 6y ago
      How is this bad? They are likely sending a SHA-256 hash of the binary, not anything the binary itself to compare it to a bloom filter of known exploits. I'd expect any decent OS malware protection to be doing that.
protonimitate 6y ago
The Touch Bar is honestly by least favorite aspect of anything Apple has done in recent memory. My touch bar had dead pixels (twice), effectively wiping out half the function keys. And when it did work, it was hard to use. I've been using my MBP as a desktop for the past 8+ months, and while it's slightly better experience, it still sucks that I'm stuck having to buy 3 USB adapters just to make it usable.
- throwaway894345 6y ago
  I will say I really like the lock button and the touch ID integration. I hate the lack of physical escape key (especially for vim); however, they are fixing that on many (most? all?) new models. Mostly I'm pretty meh about the touch bar. Not sure how much cost it's adding, but I'd probably rather they reduce the cost.
  - jey 6y ago
    Have you considered remapping Caps Lock to Escape? There's an option for that in the Keyboard pane of System Preferences.
    - pfranz 6y ago
      I've remapped Caps Lock to Control, which turned out to be very useful in various Remote Desktop and VirtualBox scenarios since it requires a left-Control key, which Mac laptop keyboards are missing.
  - dijit 6y ago
    FWIW, escape is actually slower (both in movement speed and in actual invokation) than ^[. lit: `CTRL+[` I know habits die hard, and "you're holding it wrong" is not a valid excuse- and I know that I also dislike massively not having an escape key. But for vim specifically; there is an escape sequence and the escape key is an alternative method for that. (similar to how the arrows "work" but hjkl is the "real" way of moving).
    - 6y ago
psychometry 6y ago
That's what point releases are for. If they're going to fix the things you're talking about, it'll be done as a point release to 10.15.
- apple4ever 6y ago
  Which they really haven't done. Mail still has a message loss bug. 5 point releases later...
thesquib 6y ago
I'm still afraid to run Catalina. I have to use it on one laptop (me hardware) an it is slow and problematic. I've had actual system crashes. I can't remember the last time that happened pre Catalina
- jakebellacera 6y ago
  I can't remember the last time I've had a crash on Catalina. That being said, I did do a clean install when I upgraded out of fear of issues. Not sure if that had something to do with it.
  - thesquib 6y ago
    I had a new computer pre installed with Catalina
    - pfranz 6y ago
      You may want to run a hardware check, look around online for people with similar issues and hardware as you...or just take it to the Genius Bar. In my experience kernel panics in macOS in the past 10+ years has come from bad hardware, badly written kernel extension, or corrupt preferences (which a clean install addresses). A few years ago I remember reading an article where Apple looked at crash metrics and worked very hard to address those. The criticism at the time was that this wouldn't catch slowdowns, hangs, or issues like "why aren't my Messages showing up?" which has been issues more recently.
GeekyBear 6y ago
>Honestly, every time Apple has done anything with the Mac the past couple of years, they've screwed it up. Compared to what OS? The latest Windows 10 update buggers up Storage Spaces and printing, hard on the heels of another Windows 10 Update that deleted the user's files.
- fareesh 6y ago
  Is it uncommon for folks to use a Linux desktop as their primary OS? I've been doing so for about 10 years and I've had no complaints. Whenever I need some specific software I boot to Windows or use Virtualbox. I also have a Macbook Pro 2015
  - geophile 6y ago
    Same. I’ve been on Pop OS on a System76 Darter for over a year. Very happy with the combination, and the price.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - ultrarunner 6y ago
    Unified keyboard shortcuts and I'd be all there. I've come kinda close-ish in Elementary, but it's still clunky enough that I can't commit full-time.
    - 72deluxe 6y ago
      I used to use Linux as a daily driver until switching to macOS because I wanted to get stuff done instead of faffing around and learning edge cases for every app. I used to use KDE 3.5 which was near perfect and didn’t require learning new methods of using a computer for each app, but then KDE4 and GNOME3 got released which was like stepping backwards 20 years. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head that unified interactions (and with the keyboard, not some dumb new hamburger menu for mouse users like the new gedit) are what’s required and missing for speedy daily use. I couldn’t articulate it until reading your comment, thanks.
pulse7 6y ago
"The way Catalina sends the hash of every binary you run to Apple." <irony> They truly care about privacy... </irony>
morpheuskafka 6y ago
I would imagine that a lot of bugs will be squashed (albeit with new ones surely created) in the process of tweaking literally the entire codebase to run well on a new platform.
SkyMarshal 6y ago
I’m still holding out on Mavericks b/c of Catalina problems. I’ve learned over the years to not be an early adopter of some critical things, like OS updates.

by cytzol 6y ago

gkoberger 6y ago

It’s possible they will do both. Fixing bugs isn’t really keynote worthy, so hopefully there’s a ton of stability fixes behind the scenes.

jmchuster 6y ago
It was keynote-worthy for Snow Leopard, with the infamous "0 new features" slide.
- snowwrestler 6y ago
  Sure but Snow Leopard had serious bugs when it launched too. It was only in later dot releases that it got its reputation for stability.
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    I didn't switch to Mac until about halfway through Snow Leopard's lifespan. I'm aware of the big data loss bug—and that's serious for sure—but if you weren't one of the very unlucky few (relatively) to run into it, was 10.6.0 buggy in other ways?
- ianai 6y ago
  That’s why I have hopes for them to come back and square up the Mac platform to where it should be for stability and usability. They could have been treating the whole platform as a beta for what they want to make of it after the move to their own silicon for many years now - perhaps even a decade. They’ve been well financed for as long. They also seem to have something like institutional anti-ADHD in so far as they can really only “nail” one product down well at a time.
- pfranz 6y ago
  "0 new features" was marketing that seems to have worked quite well. I can't remember where, but I swear I remember hearing that later from people at Apple. The major thing is they didn't do a big UI refresh. In Snow Leopard they: finally rewrote Finder in Cocoa, released Quicktime X, shipped a 64bit kernel, released Grand Central Dispatch, released OpenCL. Plus a bunch of smaller updates and tweaks. They dropped included things like printer drivers (which now download on demand) which make the install size smaller.
cytzol 6y ago
It's possible they will do both, and I hope they do! I should add the disclaimer that I didn't actually expect them to talk about stability or Catalina's woes, for general corporate "avoid talking about things that make us look bad" reasons. Mentioning bug fixes inadvertently draws attention to the fact you added bugs; claiming increased stability highlights that the OS was once unstable. This is why Snow Leopard's "no new features" tagline was so memorable — it's so rare for a company to outright claim something like that. But I have to ask myself: why this release? Why fix bugs in Big Sur, but not Catalina or Mojave? For example, the annoying bug where Mail randomly becomes the active application[1] has been floating around for years and still isn't fixed, and there are only two reasons for this: Apple is stretched too thin and can't spare the developers to work on bug fixes, or Apple doesn't care, and is simply willing to let the Mac languish, taking the reputation hit in favour of increased iPhone sales. The fact that they've overhauled the entire interface means it's not the first one — they do have enough resources to make large, sweeping changes to the OS. So I will be absolutely unsurprised if, ten months from now, I decide to upgrade to Big Sur on a whim, and a couple of minutes in, Mail pops up once more. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23359820 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23359820
cuddlybacon 6y ago
I've also seen it reacted to very negatively when announced.
- ianai 6y ago
  I don’t remember this but it’s credible. Can you dredge your any links from back then?
  - cuddlybacon 6y ago
    I wasn't specifically thinking about Apple, but a game I play. When I dug up the history on Reddit, it was a single troll commenting on every dev diary post.
minikites 6y ago
>It’s possible they will do both. Unlikely, given their recent track record. They'll just ignore the bugs in this release until the next big release like they've been doing for the past few versions.

swagonomixxx 6y ago

> The way Catalina sends the hash of every binary you run to Apple. Wait, what?! What are you referring to here? I just updated to Catalina and I wasn't aware of this.

lou1306 6y ago
App notarization works by hashing binaries and sending said hashes to Apple. Here you go: https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/catalina-executables.html https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/catalina-executables.htm...
- swagonomixxx 6y ago
  What the actual f*ck. Thanks for the link. Looks like I'll need Little Snitch...
  - Spivak 6y ago
    If you don’t trust your kernel I don’t think some dinky application-layer firewall is going to save you.
  - 72deluxe 6y ago
    Little Snitch is good but what happens if the kernel can’t get a binary approved to run?? And people complained about Windows 10 telemetry. Last time I run macOS. Time to return to Linux (Pop OS I think)
  - m463 6y ago
    I tried installing little snitch on catalina and it needed a network connection exactly for that. I would like to know how to disable this and install little snitch. Maybe spctl or csrutil?
  - tomschlick 6y ago
    How is this bad? They are likely sending a SHA-256 hash of the binary, not anything the binary itself to compare it to a bloom filter of known exploits. I'd expect any decent OS malware protection to be doing that.

protonimitate 6y ago

The Touch Bar is honestly by least favorite aspect of anything Apple has done in recent memory. My touch bar had dead pixels (twice), effectively wiping out half the function keys. And when it did work, it was hard to use. I've been using my MBP as a desktop for the past 8+ months, and while it's slightly better experience, it still sucks that I'm stuck having to buy 3 USB adapters just to make it usable.

throwaway894345 6y ago
I will say I really like the lock button and the touch ID integration. I hate the lack of physical escape key (especially for vim); however, they are fixing that on many (most? all?) new models. Mostly I'm pretty meh about the touch bar. Not sure how much cost it's adding, but I'd probably rather they reduce the cost.
- jey 6y ago
  Have you considered remapping Caps Lock to Escape? There's an option for that in the Keyboard pane of System Preferences.
  - pfranz 6y ago
    I've remapped Caps Lock to Control, which turned out to be very useful in various Remote Desktop and VirtualBox scenarios since it requires a left-Control key, which Mac laptop keyboards are missing.
- dijit 6y ago
  FWIW, escape is actually slower (both in movement speed and in actual invokation) than ^[. lit: `CTRL+[` I know habits die hard, and "you're holding it wrong" is not a valid excuse- and I know that I also dislike massively not having an escape key. But for vim specifically; there is an escape sequence and the escape key is an alternative method for that. (similar to how the arrows "work" but hjkl is the "real" way of moving).
  - 6y ago

psychometry 6y ago

That's what point releases are for. If they're going to fix the things you're talking about, it'll be done as a point release to 10.15.

apple4ever 6y ago
Which they really haven't done. Mail still has a message loss bug. 5 point releases later...

thesquib 6y ago

I'm still afraid to run Catalina. I have to use it on one laptop (me hardware) an it is slow and problematic. I've had actual system crashes. I can't remember the last time that happened pre Catalina

jakebellacera 6y ago
I can't remember the last time I've had a crash on Catalina. That being said, I did do a clean install when I upgraded out of fear of issues. Not sure if that had something to do with it.
- thesquib 6y ago
  I had a new computer pre installed with Catalina
  - pfranz 6y ago
    You may want to run a hardware check, look around online for people with similar issues and hardware as you...or just take it to the Genius Bar. In my experience kernel panics in macOS in the past 10+ years has come from bad hardware, badly written kernel extension, or corrupt preferences (which a clean install addresses). A few years ago I remember reading an article where Apple looked at crash metrics and worked very hard to address those. The criticism at the time was that this wouldn't catch slowdowns, hangs, or issues like "why aren't my Messages showing up?" which has been issues more recently.

GeekyBear 6y ago

>Honestly, every time Apple has done anything with the Mac the past couple of years, they've screwed it up. Compared to what OS? The latest Windows 10 update buggers up Storage Spaces and printing, hard on the heels of another Windows 10 Update that deleted the user's files.

fareesh 6y ago
Is it uncommon for folks to use a Linux desktop as their primary OS? I've been doing so for about 10 years and I've had no complaints. Whenever I need some specific software I boot to Windows or use Virtualbox. I also have a Macbook Pro 2015
- geophile 6y ago
  Same. I’ve been on Pop OS on a System76 Darter for over a year. Very happy with the combination, and the price.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ultrarunner 6y ago
  Unified keyboard shortcuts and I'd be all there. I've come kinda close-ish in Elementary, but it's still clunky enough that I can't commit full-time.
  - 72deluxe 6y ago
    I used to use Linux as a daily driver until switching to macOS because I wanted to get stuff done instead of faffing around and learning edge cases for every app. I used to use KDE 3.5 which was near perfect and didn’t require learning new methods of using a computer for each app, but then KDE4 and GNOME3 got released which was like stepping backwards 20 years. I think you’ve hit the nail on the head that unified interactions (and with the keyboard, not some dumb new hamburger menu for mouse users like the new gedit) are what’s required and missing for speedy daily use. I couldn’t articulate it until reading your comment, thanks.

pulse7 6y ago

"The way Catalina sends the hash of every binary you run to Apple." <irony> They truly care about privacy... </irony>

morpheuskafka 6y ago

I would imagine that a lot of bugs will be squashed (albeit with new ones surely created) in the process of tweaking literally the entire codebase to run well on a new platform.

SkyMarshal 6y ago

I’m still holding out on Mavericks b/c of Catalina problems. I’ve learned over the years to not be an early adopter of some critical things, like OS updates.