6 ms·
I've never been so excited and so turned off at the same time. The ARM Mac hardware is looking fantastic, but OTOH macOS is getting worse every year...
by pier25 6y ago
I've never been so excited and so turned off at the same time.
The ARM Mac hardware is looking fantastic, but OTOH macOS is getting worse every year...
- ktpsns 6y agoAbsolutely! For me it feels as if Mac OS repeats the errors of MS Windows Vista and 10. For instance, the horrible telemetry as well as the suboptimal "one interface for touch and mouse pointer" paradigm.
- LeoPanthera 6y agoCan you expand on "horrible telemetry" please? And since no Macs have a touch screen, I'm not sure what you mean by the "one interface" thing. Big Sur may resemble iOS but it is not the same interface at all.
- tannedNerd 6y agoI think the thought is since the tap targets all got so much bigger for Big Sur it no longer feels like an OS designed for a pointer, more one designed for a finger.
- kllrnohj 6y ago> Can you expand on "horrible telemetry" please? Phoning home on every executable launch. Both because it's bad for privacy, and because the implementation of it is absolutely horrific such that when Apple's servers went down it basically locked up everyones computers at the same time. It's on the front page still, even: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25074959 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25074959
- my123 6y agoIs it even really telemetry as we'd consider it? It's OCSP digital signature verification... to check if an app signature wasn't revoked. (or a website cert, or anything really)
- kllrnohj 6y agoIt sends a hash of every executable you launch to Apple, how would that not be considered telemetry?
- jjoonathan 6y agoWhen installing Windows, I had to unplug the ethernet during a particular setup screen to avoid having every login checked against my cloud account. It put Candy Crush and Farmville ads in my start menu without consent. I remember having to spend effort to get Cortana to go away and (maybe) not send my searches to the cloud. In MacOS, we've recently seen: pushy siri, sending search results to the cloud, and yesterday the OCSP failure made it obvious they were sending logs of every app launch to the cloud :/ . It's the same direction, even if they aren't yet quite as lost as Microsoft.
- threeseed 6y agoYou opted in to enabling Siri and they are simply validating the signatures on the apps.
- Rebelgecko 6y agoI don't think I ever opted in to Siri. How can I turn it off? I've disabled it from the menu bar but it's still on the touchbar, just waiting for me to slightly miss the delete key
- my123 6y agoSystem Preferences -> Siri and then disable the Ask Siri checkbox in the left.
- Rebelgecko 6y agoAlas, that didnt remove it from the touchbar
- my123 6y agoSystem Preferences -> Keyboard -> Personalize Control Strip
- 6y ago
- cosmotic 6y agoBig Sur incorporates apps from iOS using Catalyst. iOS devices all have touch screens.
- john_alan 6y agoThey (Craig F) stated that’s not what they are doing. They aren’t merging paradigms. They are bringing the best bits of iOS to macOS
- systemvoltage 6y agoUI changes in MacOS Big Sur are totally uncalled for. They’re designed for touch displays.
- threeseed 6y agoIt’s designed to unify the Mac and iOS experiences. Why ? Because once everyone starts using iOS apps on their Mac eg. Netflix, Outlook Mac-only apps will slowly disappear. Hence you will need a look and feel that works on touch.
- nkozyra 6y agoDo people really see this happening? It's been one of those big promises for nearly a decade and we're really nowhere near closer to it. You can run android apps on chrome(/chromium) and other than for novelty I don't know anyone who does so.
- threeseed 6y agoHow are we nowhere close when you can run iOS apps today on M1 ?
- nkozyra 6y agoThe promise that people use mobile apps in lieu of desktop apps, not that it's technically possible. As I mentioned, chrome and chromium have enabled this for android for awhile now.
- canofbars 6y agoThe Android tablet scene is almost non existent. With the ipad pro and magic keyboard you could realistically use an ipad as a laptop if the software you needed was on it. I imagine that eventually devs will target pro software for the ipad and have it come to macos for free.
- threeseed 6y agoNot sure what you mean by telemetry. Apple asks you every time you upgrade OSX whether you want to send anonymous data to Apple and third parties. You just need to click no.
- gumby 6y agoThey also check app signatures for revocation at first launch (and maybe other times). By the standards of modern disk and network, couldn't they download revocation caches the way they do with malware?
- spullara 6y agoThey are checking the certificate. Not app signatures.
- cosmotic 6y agoThe certificate can be (and is) hashed.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- acoard 6y ago>By the standards of modern disk and network, couldn't they download revocation caches the way they do with malware? The whole point is to check if a cert has been revoked. If you have an out of date cache, you'll falsely approve a cert that should be revoked. I'm not defending the system as a whole, but if you care about revoking authentication – which they clearly do – then a cache directly undermines that goal. A malware hash doesn't get revoked, new ones just get added.
- Dylan16807 6y agoSo update it every hour. Or every time it feels the need to check a program, instead of asking about that program, it could ask for all revocations from the last day.
- k2enemy 6y agoDon't forget the incessant nagging and notifications. That was what drove me to MacOS back in the days of 10.3.
- mikechen233 6y agoI feel the Mac os ui is still a lot better than both win32 ui and the new "modern" ui in uwp apps. Mac os ui is functional, easy to use, enough information density. And the animation, styling and graphics that looks great on a high dpi screen. And there is cohesive design and animation on the system and the apps. Apple's design is both beautiful, fluid to use and functional. While microsoft's design? It's still non existent. Even app design is just... Like teams ui is clunky to use, has huge title and side bars, low information density. Win32 ui just looks 90s, and some looks broken on high dpi screens. While microsoft's new ui is just broken for the desktop use. Text size is different between uwp apps like mail, and win32 apps like word. They are even from the same company and same product team. I don't think ever mac will be touch based. They share design style with ios. But it's going to be optimized for mouse and keyboard. And I love how you can search for commands in a app on the Mac in the help menu. It allow you to access app features all by typing what you want. You can use gui like a cmd.
- ajharrison 6y agoYawn. So tired of the "macOS is going to shit" meme. It is by far the most advanced operating system which serves newbies and professionals alike. I know people who use it to browse Facebook and use Messages/Music/Safari etc and those who use it to manage servers, build apps, and more. The progression of software of this scale is often slow and at times annoying, but to write it off and say it's getting worse is absolutely insane. What a lot of people don't understand about the approach Apple has to software, especially their own, is that they inch towards the ultimate and ideal version, and yes, during some of those transitions things may feel more broken than usual, until they don't.
- hocuspocus 6y ago> It is by far the most advanced operating system which serves newbies and professionals alike. I know people who use it to browse Facebook and use Messages/Music/Safari etc and those who use it to manage servers, build apps, and more. Advanced according to what metric exactly? And your second sentence can be said about Windows or any modern OS really.
- pier25 6y agoIt's true many problems end up being solved, but you don't see a problem shipping broken software on which millions depend to work? I started using macOS back on Panther and I don't trust Apple to ship a reliable update anymore. I'm still on Mojave because even today Catalina is broken for a lot of people.
- rswail 6y agoI've been running Big Sur since it went into public beta. There were a few issues, VPNs were disabled for a bit, they didn't load the SMB drivers, a few of my apps had to release updates (Karabiner, Bartender), but otherwise everything works.
- po1nter 6y ago> most advanced operating system Sounds like someone is regurgitating Apple's marketing speech. How do you define "Most advanced"? because, for me, an OS that you can't use to run apps because Apple's servers were down is anything but advanced to me.
- thijsvandien 6y agoExactly this. The idea of seriously powerful machines with great battery life is awesome. An even more proprietary, locked down system with software that keeps getting worse? Not at all.
- Aperocky 6y agoI wonder if there's a standard of change somewhere that disable most/all of Apple's security/lockdown features. As late as today I believe you can still turn off most of it.
- pier25 6y agoI understand Apple making it super secure for non tech people, but it should provide a way to disable all that stuff for power users. And I mean some setting in the preferences, not hacking the hosts file.
- gkoberger 6y agoI agree with your premise (a way to disable), but isn’t it better they make it hard to do? Kinda like a competency test to make sure you know what you’re doing.
- kart23 6y agoExactly. This thing would be a killer dual-boot linux machine. But they won't release any drivers, and I think secure boot will probably only do MacOS.
- rswail 6y agoI'm an ancient IT guy (35+ years). I used Linux on desktop/laptop/server from 1995 onwards. I got a Mac Pro laptop 5 years ago (before the keyboard debacle) because I wanted quality hardware. I'm running Big Sur and have been since the public beta. I also run iTerm2 and Macports and Firefox and Thunderbird. My editor is Neovim. MacOS is still a BSD Unix underneath. I can't think of anything I want to run on Linux that I can't run on MacOS. I also get a nice UI, native first class apps for all my various WFH chat/video clients, MS Office for work etc. Why exactly would I want to dual boot into Linux? What runs on Linux that doesn't on MacOS?
- f6v 6y agoSome pieces of software are Linux only, like Singlularity(scientists aren’t allowed to run Docker). And getting some of scientific packages can be a hassle due to compilers, but I can get 99.99% of very niche packages working on Mac.
- kart23 6y agoPersonally, I like the UI on linux. I can customize it to my hearts content, and run whatever style I want. I can switch from my i3 setup, a tiling wm, to GNOME in an instant. MacOS is alright, its UI is just a tad bloated and some things I don't like. But I can change and choose my UI in linux. MacOS just doesn't run great on my 2015 MBP (dual-core) either. I have a 4k monitor, and launching 5 chrome/safari tabs, zoom, and VSCode creates noticeable lag. Window dragging being 24fps, choppy scrolling, etc. I'm sure linux would run better on the same hardware. Its not what doesn't run, its how it runs.
- f6v 6y agoMBP is a killer machine because it lets you install Unix software AND you don’t have to know what a driver is. That’s the selling point for me. Every time I’m seduced by XPS 13’s slick design, I read couple horror stories from users trying to troubleshoot driver issues on Ubuntu. It’s just not worth it.
- ksec 6y ago>I've never been so excited and so turned off at the same time. Oh yes. Apple Hardware are still in great shape from a high level overview. But Software and Services..... Despite both having its own sets of problems, they are still industry leading. Which always make me unsure what to make of it, are Apple really that good? Or Microsoft and Google just doesn't know how to compete? Or more likely a bit of both.
- xbar 6y agoI could not agree more strongly.
- f6v 6y agoEvery time I read comments like this I’m wondering what’s going on. I’ve used MS DOS, Windows 98, Ubuntu since 8.04...And never have I been so happy with an OS as on Mac.