3 ms·

MacOS generally is the best laptop OS and the worst desktop OS. Half baked mouse support, awful windows management with incongruent fullscreen functionality, h

MacOS generally is the best laptop OS and the worst desktop OS. Half baked mouse support, awful windows management with incongruent fullscreen functionality, half baked multi monitor integration, terrible thermals/performance, and the removal of anti-aliased text made MacOS a generally poor desktop experience for me. Some of these problems can be ameliorated by third party apps, but I get the impression the desktop experience (and maybe more generally MacOS) has not been a concern at Cupertino for some time.

CharlesW 6y ago
> MacOS generally is the best laptop OS and the worst desktop OS. I'm afraid I don't understand the premise, given that the experience is the same.
- data_ders 6y ago
  i.e. that trackpad UX is great, but standard mouse UX is terrible?
- cheeze 6y ago
  I was always a 'laptop only' guy at work, but since COVID I've used my (multi thousand dollar) MBP as a desktop primarily. The number of random apps that I have to install because of odd quirks that don't work like I'd want/expect. The most egregious IMO is no support for mouse4/5 as back/forward (seriously, it's 2020.... every mouse has some form of theses unless explicitly designed not to), but it goes past that. The first two months of using my mac as a desktop, about weekly I would run into the case that something wouldn't work as expected, I'd google it, and find a stackexchange post where someone is like "yeah that behavior is intentional, no way to change it, by the way I wrote this little open source tool to fix this." My mac sits on my desk, but faces opposite of me because I want to be able to charge it in the right port, not the left. Left port seems to make my kernel_task go crazy. Two monitors (using an HP workstation thunderbolt dock) seem to make the fans go nuts as well. Maybe I need a desktop form of Apple hardware, but lol $5999. Luckily the OS is somewhat extensible, but I fully agree that the desktop experience feels half baked at best. Easily the worst out of Windows, OSX, and Ubuntu (defaults).
  - GekkePrutser 6y ago
    Another big annoyance: you can't turn on natural scrolling for trackpads but have it off for the mouse. The two separate settings are inexplicably linked.
    - raihansaputra 6y ago
      Sadly, another open-source-tool-bandaid is the solution. Karabiner-Elements can define per-device settings for scroll direction. Overkill (considering all of its feature set), but works.
- Hammershaft 6y ago
  > Half baked mouse support, awful windows management with incongruent fullscreen functionality, half baked multi monitor integration, terrible thermals/performance, and the removal of anti-aliased text made MacOS a generally poor desktop experience for me. All of these features pose significant issues on a desktop that utilizes multiple monitors, large screen real estate per monitor, a mouse, and sub 1440p displays. They all are considerably less important factors on a laptop that commonly utilizes a trackpad and a single retina resolution screen with limited real estate.

CharlesW 6y ago

> MacOS generally is the best laptop OS and the worst desktop OS. I'm afraid I don't understand the premise, given that the experience is the same.

data_ders 6y ago
i.e. that trackpad UX is great, but standard mouse UX is terrible?
cheeze 6y ago
I was always a 'laptop only' guy at work, but since COVID I've used my (multi thousand dollar) MBP as a desktop primarily. The number of random apps that I have to install because of odd quirks that don't work like I'd want/expect. The most egregious IMO is no support for mouse4/5 as back/forward (seriously, it's 2020.... every mouse has some form of theses unless explicitly designed not to), but it goes past that. The first two months of using my mac as a desktop, about weekly I would run into the case that something wouldn't work as expected, I'd google it, and find a stackexchange post where someone is like "yeah that behavior is intentional, no way to change it, by the way I wrote this little open source tool to fix this." My mac sits on my desk, but faces opposite of me because I want to be able to charge it in the right port, not the left. Left port seems to make my kernel_task go crazy. Two monitors (using an HP workstation thunderbolt dock) seem to make the fans go nuts as well. Maybe I need a desktop form of Apple hardware, but lol $5999. Luckily the OS is somewhat extensible, but I fully agree that the desktop experience feels half baked at best. Easily the worst out of Windows, OSX, and Ubuntu (defaults).
- GekkePrutser 6y ago
  Another big annoyance: you can't turn on natural scrolling for trackpads but have it off for the mouse. The two separate settings are inexplicably linked.
  - raihansaputra 6y ago
    Sadly, another open-source-tool-bandaid is the solution. Karabiner-Elements can define per-device settings for scroll direction. Overkill (considering all of its feature set), but works.
Hammershaft 6y ago
> Half baked mouse support, awful windows management with incongruent fullscreen functionality, half baked multi monitor integration, terrible thermals/performance, and the removal of anti-aliased text made MacOS a generally poor desktop experience for me. All of these features pose significant issues on a desktop that utilizes multiple monitors, large screen real estate per monitor, a mouse, and sub 1440p displays. They all are considerably less important factors on a laptop that commonly utilizes a trackpad and a single retina resolution screen with limited real estate.