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As someone that uses both Mac and Windows regularly, I find the quality of the software I use on Mac to be generally higher. Cyberduck (FTP), Transmission (bitt

by m12k 5y ago

As someone that uses both Mac and Windows regularly, I find the quality of the software I use on Mac to be generally higher. Cyberduck (FTP), Transmission (bittorrent), Charles Proxy (packet sniffing), Sourcetree (git gui), Pixelmator (image editing), Sketch (vector graphics), Things (todo), 1Password (password management) are all solid applications with polished user interfaces, where I struggle to find anything quite as nice on Windows (several of these have been or are being ported to Windows, with varying levels of polish carrying over).

mkl95 5y ago
What are your issues with Transmission on Windows? I have been using it for years and it works like a charm.
zabzonk 5y ago
As you say, several of these are also available on Windows - I can't think why anyone developing such software would not make them available on multiple platforms.
- zepto 5y ago
  > I can't think why anyone developing such software would not make them available on multiple platforms. Because it’s a lot more work, and because it’s next to impossible to create a great cross platform app with a native feeling UI.
  - ficklepoet 5y ago
    > it’s next to impossible to create a great cross platform app with a native feeling UI And who do we have to thank for that? Perhaps there's some business out there that made a chocolate-themed UI toolkit that was notoriously proprietary and unworkable, so much so that it drove the industry into a software drought that only let up when x86 was fully standardized? Maybe I'm just spitballing here.
    - zepto 5y ago
      This comment makes no sense at all. You’ll need to explain it. What ‘software drought’ are you talking about?
- herbst 5y ago
  Sometimes because APIs? Back when I had a Mac forced on me I was surprised how fast you can discover files and software, something windows back then simply has not managed to offer via their API. The 'finder' or whatever that tool was called simply felt wrong on windows, nothing like the original. One different example may is the gnome shell desktop. Many of us who use it have basically overcome the win95 approach of desktop design. There is as far as I know no equivalent on windows or Mac. And a port would not be possible as you can't replace their window managers. Then there is the whole Linux standard toolset, that yes works on windows these days, but obviously feels very foreign and doesn't integrate well to the system. It's not only a matter of porting software when some things are so fundamentally different
kitsunesoba 5y ago
This is a problem on Linux too. The lack of a Sketch equivalent for Linux bit me just the other day. Akira is the closest thing, but it’s so early in its dev cycle that it won’t be useable for several more years. A lot of people will point to Inkscape, but it’s much more of an Illustrator alternative and as such feels more geared for print. I might’ve been able to fudge Figma to do what I needed, but even that wouldn’t have been ideal, with how it’s designed for collaborative prototyping more than a generic digital vector graphics editor. Aside from that, I don’t like using Figma simply because they don’t publish specs for their file format and try to lock you in (as opposed to Sketch, which uses a publicly documented file format that has plenty of converters).
GnarfGnarf 5y ago
CyberDuck (macOS) is inferior to Ipswitch WS_FTP (Windows). The CyberDuck interface is awkward, it's confusing to tell where your uploads and downloads will wind up. Cornerstone (macOS Subversion client) is atrocious, God help you if you created a sandbox in the wrong place, deleting it could wipe out your repository. Tortoise (Windows) is so much better. As a Windows developer recently porting my code to macOS, I am underwhelmed. I expected to be blown away.
- pilsetnieks 5y ago
  Cyberduck is an odd choice for a file transmission app showcase, Panic's Transmit (https://panic.com/transmit/ https://panic.com/transmit/) is much better.
vincentmarle 5y ago
These are all apps that did not exist in 2005. In 2005, XP was king.
- m12k 5y ago
  Right, that was my point. The comment I was replying to said that all those hackers that supposedly switched to Mac in 2005 didn't seem to have produced any notable software, so I listed a whole bunch of nice software that they had produced.
  - aidos 5y ago
    Nitpick: I might be misremembering but I feel like I had CyberDuck in 2004 (OSX Panther?)

by m12k 5y ago

mkl95 5y ago

What are your issues with Transmission on Windows? I have been using it for years and it works like a charm.

zabzonk 5y ago

As you say, several of these are also available on Windows - I can't think why anyone developing such software would not make them available on multiple platforms.

zepto 5y ago
> I can't think why anyone developing such software would not make them available on multiple platforms. Because it’s a lot more work, and because it’s next to impossible to create a great cross platform app with a native feeling UI.
- ficklepoet 5y ago
  > it’s next to impossible to create a great cross platform app with a native feeling UI And who do we have to thank for that? Perhaps there's some business out there that made a chocolate-themed UI toolkit that was notoriously proprietary and unworkable, so much so that it drove the industry into a software drought that only let up when x86 was fully standardized? Maybe I'm just spitballing here.
  - zepto 5y ago
    This comment makes no sense at all. You’ll need to explain it. What ‘software drought’ are you talking about?
herbst 5y ago
Sometimes because APIs? Back when I had a Mac forced on me I was surprised how fast you can discover files and software, something windows back then simply has not managed to offer via their API. The 'finder' or whatever that tool was called simply felt wrong on windows, nothing like the original. One different example may is the gnome shell desktop. Many of us who use it have basically overcome the win95 approach of desktop design. There is as far as I know no equivalent on windows or Mac. And a port would not be possible as you can't replace their window managers. Then there is the whole Linux standard toolset, that yes works on windows these days, but obviously feels very foreign and doesn't integrate well to the system. It's not only a matter of porting software when some things are so fundamentally different

kitsunesoba 5y ago

This is a problem on Linux too. The lack of a Sketch equivalent for Linux bit me just the other day. Akira is the closest thing, but it’s so early in its dev cycle that it won’t be useable for several more years. A lot of people will point to Inkscape, but it’s much more of an Illustrator alternative and as such feels more geared for print. I might’ve been able to fudge Figma to do what I needed, but even that wouldn’t have been ideal, with how it’s designed for collaborative prototyping more than a generic digital vector graphics editor. Aside from that, I don’t like using Figma simply because they don’t publish specs for their file format and try to lock you in (as opposed to Sketch, which uses a publicly documented file format that has plenty of converters).

GnarfGnarf 5y ago

CyberDuck (macOS) is inferior to Ipswitch WS_FTP (Windows). The CyberDuck interface is awkward, it's confusing to tell where your uploads and downloads will wind up. Cornerstone (macOS Subversion client) is atrocious, God help you if you created a sandbox in the wrong place, deleting it could wipe out your repository. Tortoise (Windows) is so much better. As a Windows developer recently porting my code to macOS, I am underwhelmed. I expected to be blown away.

pilsetnieks 5y ago
Cyberduck is an odd choice for a file transmission app showcase, Panic's Transmit (https://panic.com/transmit/ https://panic.com/transmit/) is much better.

vincentmarle 5y ago

These are all apps that did not exist in 2005. In 2005, XP was king.

m12k 5y ago
Right, that was my point. The comment I was replying to said that all those hackers that supposedly switched to Mac in 2005 didn't seem to have produced any notable software, so I listed a whole bunch of nice software that they had produced.
- aidos 5y ago
  Nitpick: I might be misremembering but I feel like I had CyberDuck in 2004 (OSX Panther?)