35 ms·

macOS has become more reliable

179 points by spideymans 5y ago

ogazitt 5y ago
Why is it that MacOS feels more and more like Windows did 10 years ago? Slower, bloatier, buggier. In 2015, I used to go months between reboots on my MacBook Pro. In 2021, I seem to have to reboot my M1 mini at least once a week.
- npunt 5y ago
  Likely ongoing teething issues with M1? It's a big lift to move an OS to an entirely new architecture, and haven't seen or heard of the same on Intel.
- nikolay 5y ago
  I agree. I also see real improvements in Windows nowadays; macOS offers only cosmetics.
  - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
    > I also see real improvements in Windows nowadays How is Windows 11's horribly dumbed-down taskbar and start menu a "real improvement"? They got rid of the old Windows 7 screen-clipping tool but the "new" version from Windows 10 still lacks ultra-basic things like text-annotations and arrow shapes... (but it's got a full-suite of pen-inking tools, which I'm sure everyone uses all the time).
    - CIADidHarryHolt 5y ago
      Windows 11's start bar makes accessing settings and files easy, and gets out of the damn way of my work rather than pushing information poor animated tiles, shovelware and ads at my face while hogging my entire screen. Finally, it's just like Windows 7. I don't use a Surface tablet, but I'm told pen input is a major use case. Maybe pen tools should be made modal rather than uniform even across devices without pen input?
      - rewgs 5y ago
        Nah, the 11 Start Menu is super lacking. I miss being able to make and name app groups in Windows 10. Plus, it's just lacking in basic and obvious "features." I wish I could default to seeing all apps. I wish that the current default view's bottom third wasn't blocked by a suggestion that can't be hidden. Ditto with the Taskbar changes. I'd prefer to have only the Windows button left, but app icons centered. Seems obvious, why isn't it there? Additionally, why remote the ability to have small icons or place the taskbar elsewhere but the button? IMO they regressed and simplified too far and need to walk it back a bit. The new Windows 11 coat of paint is okay.
        DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
        The reason why is kinda silly: so a couple of years ago the Windows org made yet another locked-down, "mobile-first" SKU of desktop Windows designed for larger phablets and ARM devices (which never materialized - though imagine if the Microsoft Surface Duo[1] was expanded to a much wider range of Microsoft and partner-branded devices) - and this included a somewhat simplified shell user-experience - and it ended up as "Windows 10X" and was promoed at the start of this year (look familiar? https://www.windowscentral.com/windows-10x https://www.windowscentral.com/windows-10x ). Then something happened in the late-spring 2021 when the shell team all suddenly disappeared - around the same time as Bill Gates' divorce announcement (coincidence? I think not!) and the Windows org's leadership decided to make the bold move of copying-and-pasting Windows 10X#'s cut-down shell, intended for mobile devices, into the full-fat enterprise and desktop SKUs of Windows 11 and call it a day. My sources and former work-colleague friends at MS tell me that the current shell team (they should call it a fossil team at this point considering it seems there's nothing left of it) is very, very aware of the huge backlash over the removal of essential features like repositioning the taskbar and having individual taskbar buttons, but don't expect a quick-fix - I get the feeling some hotshot PMs will try to use this occasion to pitch their own unique new (and unproven...) concepts on how the shell should work, instead of doing the big fat `git reset HEAD` back to a late-2019 commit that they should be doing... le sigh... [1] (which runs Android... which is further evidence something went really wrong with the wave-function collapse around 2016)
  - mafalda 5y ago
    MacOS major updates are far from only cosmetics. Apple does a bad job in sharing it with the broad public but every year they bring new features. Sometimes they are slower, an API addition one year, a deprecation in the next one and so on.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    Spend some time watching WWDC sessions regarding network stack, security, userspace drivers, Metal tooling.
    - joe_guy 5y ago
      One of my beefs with apple is a random WWDC video (that can only be viewed in Safari?) is the only "documentation" of something. With their policies about only being able to develop for apple on Apple hardware, their walled gardens, extremely locked down APIs, horrible/missing documentation, Apple is very developer hostile.
      - pjmlp 5y ago
        Apple is quite good for developers targeting their platforms, do not be confused with developer === UNIX/FOSS. I don't expect developers targeting Windows, mainframes, consoles, to do it from other platforms either.
        joe_guy 5y ago
        You're legally permitted to run a Windows VM on Apple hardware, but not vice versa. The idea of a CI/server for Apple software is a Mac mini... Not exactly production grade. Apples hardware/software lock in is disgusting. Apple has no concerns for backward compatiblility. Apple is developer hostile.
        weikju 5y ago
        > The idea of a CI/server for Apple software is a Mac mini... Not exactly production grade. Apples hardware/software lock in is disgusting. while obviously not applicable to all circumstances, and no idea what state it's in, but they are addressing this with Xcode Cloud...
        pjmlp 5y ago
        All of then irrelevant for developers targeting Apple ecosystem, and if one really does CI/CD there is Xcode cloud.
  - GeekyBear 5y ago
    Hasn't Windows Update had issues that deleted user files for the last three years running? >Early during installation, the Data volume is unmounted, ensuring that its contents are protected from any ill-effects of failed installation. The System volume is mounted for writing and SIP disabled This sounds like a needed mitigation that Windows could stand to copy.
- mulderc 5y ago
  Curious, the only time I reboot my M1 Mac mini is for updates. Otherwise it had been rock solid for me.
  - joemi 5y ago
    Same here. MacOS on my M1 Macbook Pro has been really great so far.
    - TacticalCoder 5y ago
      hmmm not like that here. MacBook Air M1: it's the "living room computer", the one to surf from the couch and I do really dig it but once in a while everything locks up. I don't know why. Sometimes it does unstucks itself while at other times I force it off (and when it's all blocked and I hold the button to turn it off, even that is kinda not very responsive). I doesn't happen often, once every few days. But it's not anywhere near "Debian Linux" stable (where six months of uptime for a desktop are a regular thing).
      - tedd4u 5y ago
        Had my M1 MBA since last Nov, use every day for hours. Only rebooted when system updates came out. I would get Apple on it. Might be hardware.
        kataklasm 5y ago
        That's the same as saying 'buy a new one :)'. The bets of Apple fixing anything and not just telling you to replace your 13 month old laptop are slim at best.
        mulderc 5y ago
        Apple has always been great to me with fixing things as long as I took it in to an apple store. The few times they didn’t do it for free they did the repairs at what I would consider a reasonable price. If someone it having issues with their apple hardware that is the first place to start, assuming you have an apple store that you can get to.
- coldtea 5y ago
  >Why is it that MacOS feels more and more like Windows did 10 years ago? Slower, bloatier, buggier. In 2015, I used to go months between reboots on my MacBook Pro. In 2021, I seem to have to reboot my M1 mini at least once a week. Some bizarro software, perhaps some that had you bypass SIP? Otherwise, I never had to reboot my M1 since I bought it last year (except for minor updates and Monterey).
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- eyelidlessness 5y ago
  I don’t feel this way at all, and haven’t since 10.11 (El Capitan). Not that I never need a reboot, just… it hasn’t varied at all for me between major versions since. My observation is that macOS since then has been considered mature by Apple and generally updated to suit other initiatives. Which is fine and should be welcomed here!
zevv 5y ago
I have been running Debian on all of my laptop computers since 1999, just copying the whole file system to new hardware when upgrading. I only re-installed it once when switching from 32 to 64 bit.
- skohan 5y ago
  One of the nicer things about Linux is that it's just software. It's not trying to implement any corporate ownership over your hardware.
  - vmception 5y ago
    Well they try. Almost all distros have tried/had someone try, over time.
  - felixgallo 5y ago
    How’s your init process looking?
- copperx 5y ago
  Are you saying that you have been upgrading the same install since 1999 without having to ever reinstall from scratch? I find that to be impressive. Does it take a massive amount of effort?
  - Moto7451 5y ago
    My current Intel Mac still has some remnants from running Mac OS X 10.2-10.4 on a G4 equipped Powermac 7300 using XPostFacto. Every so often I run into very odd plists and remnants of long obsolete programs. I’ve used the migration assistant each time I moved from Mac to Mac. All the PPC only apps went away when Rosetta was removed and the 32bit Carbon apps were similarly discarded. Support files sometimes stick around but the transfer agent is generally pretty tidy.
    - ridiculous_fish 5y ago
      Time Machine quietly bridges these architectural transition. It's no mean feat to migrate PPC->Intel and then Intel->M1. It silently works and this is the Mac at its best.
rurban 5y ago
This should carry a (2009) in it's headline. After Snow Leopard it went downhill with reliability and stability, but got new exciting features: iOS compatibility, yeah. No more x32 support, yeah! No more OpenGL support, yeah! New filesystem without identifier normalization, yeah! No more /use/local/bin/. No more kernel drivers. Mail and mDNSResponder constantly crashing, and every new release the list keeps growing. The new Windows.
- black_puppydog 5y ago
  I thought the whole point of using windows is an insanely long backwards compatibility and future support window? Hence the name windowS? :)
- acdha 5y ago
  > Snow Leopard it went downhill with reliability and stability … Mail and mDNSResponder constantly crashing If this isn’t just hyperbole, try a clean reinstall after a hardware diagnostic. This isn’t normal. (/usr/local/bin is fine, are you perhaps referring to Homebrew changing its preferred location?) You can argue about 32-bit support but given that the platform first went 64-bit in 2003 it’s kind of hard to say you didn’t have advanced warning. Similarly, the writing has been the wall for OpenGL since Microsoft stopped favoring it on the most popular platforms in the 1990s. The model doesn’t fit how modern hardware works and it’s not surprising that they don’t want to keep supporting a standard which the industry increasingly doesn’t use.
- dev_tty01 5y ago
  I'm guessing you are not an actual user of the system you are criticizing since you are wrong on so many points. Not my experience at all. Many of your criticisms are simply false. usr/local/bin is fine. OpenGL is an antiquated system that is a poor match to modern GPUs and it too was deprecated for a long time. mDNSResponder did have some issues but we have been past that for many, many years. Never had issues with Mail that a reindex command wouldn't clean up. APFS has been nothing but an improvement in my experience. 32 bit support was deprecated for over a decade. Sometimes it is time to move on. As far as kernel drivers, yes there are still some 3rd party kernel drivers, but the (ongoing) transition to system extensions running in user space is absolutely an improvement.
SamuelAdams 5y ago
I wonder if this “more sealed boot loader” will make it more difficult to dual boot Linux and MacOS? Curious if the Ashai Linux devs have a plan for this.
- kayodelycaon 5y ago
  Nope. You can disable secure boot. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208198 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208198
- easton 5y ago
  Their plan has always required disabling the secure boot stuff.
ericbarrett 5y ago
How often are the SHA-256 hashes on the System volume snapshot checked? Could something that can write to the drive root, and understood APFS, silently change the file without updating its recorded metadata (including hash)? Or is the hash checked every time a file is opened?
- my123 5y ago
  Checked all the time, it's a Merkle tree structure. You can modify the seal when the Sealed System Volume feature is off. (which requires Secure Boot to be set to Permissive Security, and FileVault to be off at the time of disabling)
  - qPM9l3XJrF 5y ago
    Why is it possible to turn Sealed System Volume off? Is there a way that malware might be able to turn it off?
    - Someone 5y ago
      Reading https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208198 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208198, the official way to do it requires booting from Mac OS recovery and entering an administrator password. ⇒ there may of course be bugs, but Apple’s intent is there isn’t any way for malware to do that
c7DJTLrn 5y ago
Anyone know why macOS updates take so long? It's nuts, I just upgraded to one of the new MacBooks and even on that it took about 20 minutes to upgrade from 12.0.0 to 12.0.1, so not even a major release upgrade. The CPU is wicked fast, the SSD is wicked fast, so why does it feel like I'm suddenly using a Pentium when upgrading?
- Tagbert 5y ago
  In the last couple of version, updates are no longer differentials but full OS updates. They are shipped as a single signed package that is loaded into one of the protected volumes of the disk. This is supposed to be a security measure to prevent compromises of components of the OS. The downside is big slow updates. Hopefully they work on that and do more like the differential updates that they use for iOS.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
    They could still apply a tiny patch and then checksum the whole thing, surely?
    - kaba0 5y ago
      Just divide the whole thing into read-only units and reuse the unchanged ones, a la nixos.
    - dymk 5y ago
      And if the checksum fails, what then?
      - howinteresting 5y ago
        Use a Merkle tree.
      - wazzaps 5y ago
        Maybe checksum before updating? Or revert the patch if it fails?
ricardonunez 5y ago
My MBP2017 came with a few issues and a every update was a flip the coin, it could have go either way good or bad. Bluetooth didn’t work well with my mouse, keyboard has some issues, speaker blowed off, etc. When Apple did the butterfly keyboard recall, they replaced the chasis and that pretty much everything aside from the bottom cover and the monitor. Since then, my computer has been amazing, no issues, better battery, better keyboard, connectivity, Bluetooth and more importantly every update has gone flawless. I’m wondering if it was a board problem, but whatever it was it definitely made MacOS way more reliable too.
thesquib 5y ago
The latest update bricked many laptops at work. Like no boot, no sad Mac, get a new laptop situation. We are at the point where people joke they are flipping a coin on whether the next update from Apple will brick their laptop or not. For me, the macOS ecosystem is no longer reliable enough as a daily driver.
- Tagbert 5y ago
  I remember helping a friend a few years ago who thought he had truly bricked his MacBook. There is a restore process that reinstalls the OS when an update goes wrong. I don’t recall the process now as I’ve never needed it since but it is somewhere on Apples site. I seriously doubt these laptops are truly bricked. Obviously something cause the installer to fail but there are recovery options built in that are not part of the OS. this is probably a good place to start https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/macos-recovery-a-mac-apple-silicon-mchl82829c17/12.0/mac/12.0 https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/macos-recovery-a-ma...
  - thesquib 5y ago
    Unfortunately they won't even turn on so this won't work.
    - my123 5y ago
      The recovery process is bootROM (non-erasable) based, it works even if they cannot be turned on. For T2: https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-configurator-2/revive-or-restore-an-intel-based-mac-apdebea5be51/mac https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-configurator-2/revive-... For M1: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/apple-configurator-2/apdd5f3c75ad/mac https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/apple-configurator-2/a...
  - my123 5y ago
    (this recovery process is also available for Apple T2 x86 Macs)
- hamstergene 5y ago
nickjj 5y ago
I think popular applications should be included with OS reliability because in your day to day these are the tools you use. I've been using a MBP (2020 Intel) for work (work issued laptop) for about a week full time and if I leave Chrome open for more than a day every tab will crash even if I only have a few tabs open. Opening a new tab results in the "Aw, Snap!" crashed tab page with the unhappy face until I fully close Chrome then it works like normal. The only extensions I use are uBlock Origin and LastPass. It happens frequently. The system isn't stressed in the slightest too in terms of CPU or memory usage. Does this happen for anyone else? It's running the latest Big Sur. This hasn't happened to me ever on Windows or Linux after years of hardcore usage.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- evilduck 5y ago
  Nope, I have the last 16" Intel MBP and Chrome chugs along just fine for days and weeks on end. I pretty much only close it for Chrome prompted app updates or macOS prompted system updates. edit: It might be worth purging your Chrome files out of the various ~/Library locations.
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
  > I think popular applications should be included with OS reliability because in your day to day these are the tools you use. I think you're understating it. The point of the OS is to run applications; if running applications doesn't work, the system is probably insufficient.
- sumedh 5y ago
  I have a 2016 mbp with lots chrome tabs and other extensions, it works fine for week or two and then everything hangs and the Mac restarts. I am still on Catalina
- maccard 5y ago
  > I think popular applications should be included with OS reliability because in your day to day these are the tools you use. Mac ships with Safari if you want that. Blaming Mac for the quality of third party software is a bit odd.
brasetvik 5y ago
Happy to be unvisionary on this one, but the change log I wish for the next major release is this one: - We changed nothing, but spent most our time on Bluetooth reliability, and remaining time on general reliability. That’d meaningfully impact most working days, whereas most of the last few majors really haven’t.
- quaesitor 5y ago
  OSX bluetooth is far more reliable than Windows. It's not even close, it's like comparing beer pong to shooting the moon with a rifle. If I only had my Windows machines, I would have thrown out all my bluetooth peripherals.
  - bittercynic 5y ago
    I'm not sure what that saying means. Both sound absurdly unreliable, but I like it!
  - blntechie 5y ago
    Linux is easily the worst (well, at least Ubuntu and Mint) with respect to Bluetooth pairing and remembering it for me. I use a multi-device Bluetooth keyboard to switch between a Windows laptop, Ubuntu laptop and a MacBook Pro almost daily. So when I tap the button in the keyboard to switch, it takes 5 seconds to connect (if it connects) on Ubuntu, almost instantly in Windows, and couple of seconds on Mac. And Ubuntu laptop cannot do wakeup from sleep with Bluetooth keyboard or mouse even with tons of tinkering with the /usb/devices/*/power/wakeup conf and in /etc/rc.local and /etc/init.d.
    - nix23 5y ago
      >And Ubuntu laptop cannot do wakeup from sleep with Bluetooth keyboard or mouse even with tons of tinkering with the /usb/devices/*/power/wakeup conf and in /etc/rc.local and /etc/init.d. Install powertop and disable the usb-sleep option.
  - ubertaco 5y ago
    I've had the opposite experience; I've used the same Bluetooth headphones, mouse, and keyboard with two work machines (a MacBook and a Linux tower) and my personal Windows machine. Windows is rock-solid, just works with no problems. Linux works mostly fine, with occasional audio stuttering issues that go away after a few seconds. The MacBook is an unusable nightmare. If I ever try to use a mic or webcam of any sort while the headphones are connected, the whole Bluetooth stack immediately crashes and doesn't recover for at least an entire minute, usually more like 2-3 minutes. Also, sometimes this happens just randomly anyways with no discernable pattern or cause. Also, sometimes the Bluetooth stack forgets my keyboard exists, and I have to walk back through the pairing process again (this happens 1-3 times per month). Then there are times when it randomly shuffles scroll speed on my mouse. If it weren't so frustrating how unusable the macOS Bluetooth stack is, it would be almost funny in a "hidden-camera-prank-show" sort of way. I've switched to working full-time on my Linux tower (also provided by my employer) and it's been a tremendous quality of life improvement. On the rare occasions that I have issues, I can usually get to the bottom of the problem and fix it. With the MacBook, I'm lucky if I get "Something went wrong :(", and all the voodoo remedies I've seen online haven't helped.
post_break 5y ago
I used to update Mac OS versions day one. Now I put at least a month buffer before updating. Mac OS never used to nag so much about updates.
aasasd 5y ago
There's a fun podcast episode from 2012 where Siracusa flogs HFS+ and praises ZFS, for two hours: https://5by5.tv/hypercritical/56 https://5by5.tv/hypercritical/56 With a thorough explanation that filesystems shouldn't ever lose track of intact and corrupted data, in the 2010s—i.e. should have checksums of the data. Plus some discussion of WinFS/ReFS on top, and a story of how ZFS almost landed in OSX. I listened to it a few years later, but before APFS properly arrived on my Macbook. Was just the right mix of indignation with fascination that someone can go on about it for two hours straight. Which reminds me: perhaps I should look into receiving further rants about computing in audio format. Sitting on my ass before the screen does me no good.
- Tagbert 5y ago
  "rants about computing in audio format" sounds like a lot of the podcasts I listen to :)
qPM9l3XJrF 5y ago
What's the best way to get this sort of secure book on linux/bsd?
kaladin_1 5y ago
The update to Monterey broke all my ntfs tools. While I know that Apple officially doesn't support ntfs, it doesn't make it less painful that I can't write to my external mass storage.
- mistersquid 5y ago
  > The update to Monterey broke all my ntfs tools. If your tools are scripts that run in the background, check to make sure the binary running those (e.g. /usr/bin/perl) has the proper permissions. Each time I've upgraded to Catalina, Big Sur, and now Monterey, I keep forgetting to add the binary to System Preferences… > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Full Disk Access. Good luck.
jamesfisher 5y ago
Adding this website to the user-scalable=0 sin bin. No way I can read that tiny text in those images
- aasasd 5y ago
  Firefox on Android has a nice feature among the accessibility options: every site is user-scalable, in the zoom-in direction. (I do sometimes wish, however, that zooming out was also always possible: some site authors seem to love children-book-grade font sizes, which fit about three words on a line and ten lines on the screen.)
andresp 5y ago
I see the opposite... For example, since a couple of months/updates ago Finder doesn't show me new files in a directory unless I force the search with spotlight. It is remarkable that a bug like this can happen in such a basic feature like the file browser.

179 points by spideymans 5y ago

Why is it that MacOS feels more and more like Windows did 10 years ago? Slower, bloatier, buggier. In 2015, I used to go months between reboots on my MacBook Pro. In 2021, I seem to have to reboot my M1 mini at least once a week.

npunt 5y ago
Likely ongoing teething issues with M1? It's a big lift to move an OS to an entirely new architecture, and haven't seen or heard of the same on Intel.
nikolay 5y ago
I agree. I also see real improvements in Windows nowadays; macOS offers only cosmetics.
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
  > I also see real improvements in Windows nowadays How is Windows 11's horribly dumbed-down taskbar and start menu a "real improvement"? They got rid of the old Windows 7 screen-clipping tool but the "new" version from Windows 10 still lacks ultra-basic things like text-annotations and arrow shapes... (but it's got a full-suite of pen-inking tools, which I'm sure everyone uses all the time).
  - CIADidHarryHolt 5y ago
    Windows 11's start bar makes accessing settings and files easy, and gets out of the damn way of my work rather than pushing information poor animated tiles, shovelware and ads at my face while hogging my entire screen. Finally, it's just like Windows 7. I don't use a Surface tablet, but I'm told pen input is a major use case. Maybe pen tools should be made modal rather than uniform even across devices without pen input?
    - rewgs 5y ago
      Nah, the 11 Start Menu is super lacking. I miss being able to make and name app groups in Windows 10. Plus, it's just lacking in basic and obvious "features." I wish I could default to seeing all apps. I wish that the current default view's bottom third wasn't blocked by a suggestion that can't be hidden. Ditto with the Taskbar changes. I'd prefer to have only the Windows button left, but app icons centered. Seems obvious, why isn't it there? Additionally, why remote the ability to have small icons or place the taskbar elsewhere but the button? IMO they regressed and simplified too far and need to walk it back a bit. The new Windows 11 coat of paint is okay.
      - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
        The reason why is kinda silly: so a couple of years ago the Windows org made yet another locked-down, "mobile-first" SKU of desktop Windows designed for larger phablets and ARM devices (which never materialized - though imagine if the Microsoft Surface Duo[1] was expanded to a much wider range of Microsoft and partner-branded devices) - and this included a somewhat simplified shell user-experience - and it ended up as "Windows 10X" and was promoed at the start of this year (look familiar? https://www.windowscentral.com/windows-10x https://www.windowscentral.com/windows-10x ). Then something happened in the late-spring 2021 when the shell team all suddenly disappeared - around the same time as Bill Gates' divorce announcement (coincidence? I think not!) and the Windows org's leadership decided to make the bold move of copying-and-pasting Windows 10X#'s cut-down shell, intended for mobile devices, into the full-fat enterprise and desktop SKUs of Windows 11 and call it a day. My sources and former work-colleague friends at MS tell me that the current shell team (they should call it a fossil team at this point considering it seems there's nothing left of it) is very, very aware of the huge backlash over the removal of essential features like repositioning the taskbar and having individual taskbar buttons, but don't expect a quick-fix - I get the feeling some hotshot PMs will try to use this occasion to pitch their own unique new (and unproven...) concepts on how the shell should work, instead of doing the big fat `git reset HEAD` back to a late-2019 commit that they should be doing... le sigh... [1] (which runs Android... which is further evidence something went really wrong with the wave-function collapse around 2016)
- mafalda 5y ago
  MacOS major updates are far from only cosmetics. Apple does a bad job in sharing it with the broad public but every year they bring new features. Sometimes they are slower, an API addition one year, a deprecation in the next one and so on.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  Spend some time watching WWDC sessions regarding network stack, security, userspace drivers, Metal tooling.
  - joe_guy 5y ago
    One of my beefs with apple is a random WWDC video (that can only be viewed in Safari?) is the only "documentation" of something. With their policies about only being able to develop for apple on Apple hardware, their walled gardens, extremely locked down APIs, horrible/missing documentation, Apple is very developer hostile.
    - pjmlp 5y ago
      Apple is quite good for developers targeting their platforms, do not be confused with developer === UNIX/FOSS. I don't expect developers targeting Windows, mainframes, consoles, to do it from other platforms either.
      - joe_guy 5y ago
        You're legally permitted to run a Windows VM on Apple hardware, but not vice versa. The idea of a CI/server for Apple software is a Mac mini... Not exactly production grade. Apples hardware/software lock in is disgusting. Apple has no concerns for backward compatiblility. Apple is developer hostile.
        weikju 5y ago
        > The idea of a CI/server for Apple software is a Mac mini... Not exactly production grade. Apples hardware/software lock in is disgusting. while obviously not applicable to all circumstances, and no idea what state it's in, but they are addressing this with Xcode Cloud...
        pjmlp 5y ago
        All of then irrelevant for developers targeting Apple ecosystem, and if one really does CI/CD there is Xcode cloud.
- GeekyBear 5y ago
  Hasn't Windows Update had issues that deleted user files for the last three years running? >Early during installation, the Data volume is unmounted, ensuring that its contents are protected from any ill-effects of failed installation. The System volume is mounted for writing and SIP disabled This sounds like a needed mitigation that Windows could stand to copy.
mulderc 5y ago
Curious, the only time I reboot my M1 Mac mini is for updates. Otherwise it had been rock solid for me.
- joemi 5y ago
  Same here. MacOS on my M1 Macbook Pro has been really great so far.
  - TacticalCoder 5y ago
    hmmm not like that here. MacBook Air M1: it's the "living room computer", the one to surf from the couch and I do really dig it but once in a while everything locks up. I don't know why. Sometimes it does unstucks itself while at other times I force it off (and when it's all blocked and I hold the button to turn it off, even that is kinda not very responsive). I doesn't happen often, once every few days. But it's not anywhere near "Debian Linux" stable (where six months of uptime for a desktop are a regular thing).
    - tedd4u 5y ago
      Had my M1 MBA since last Nov, use every day for hours. Only rebooted when system updates came out. I would get Apple on it. Might be hardware.
      - kataklasm 5y ago
        That's the same as saying 'buy a new one :)'. The bets of Apple fixing anything and not just telling you to replace your 13 month old laptop are slim at best.
        mulderc 5y ago
        Apple has always been great to me with fixing things as long as I took it in to an apple store. The few times they didn’t do it for free they did the repairs at what I would consider a reasonable price. If someone it having issues with their apple hardware that is the first place to start, assuming you have an apple store that you can get to.
coldtea 5y ago
>Why is it that MacOS feels more and more like Windows did 10 years ago? Slower, bloatier, buggier. In 2015, I used to go months between reboots on my MacBook Pro. In 2021, I seem to have to reboot my M1 mini at least once a week. Some bizarro software, perhaps some that had you bypass SIP? Otherwise, I never had to reboot my M1 since I bought it last year (except for minor updates and Monterey).
deleted 5y ago
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eyelidlessness 5y ago
I don’t feel this way at all, and haven’t since 10.11 (El Capitan). Not that I never need a reboot, just… it hasn’t varied at all for me between major versions since. My observation is that macOS since then has been considered mature by Apple and generally updated to suit other initiatives. Which is fine and should be welcomed here!

zevv 5y ago

I have been running Debian on all of my laptop computers since 1999, just copying the whole file system to new hardware when upgrading. I only re-installed it once when switching from 32 to 64 bit.

skohan 5y ago
One of the nicer things about Linux is that it's just software. It's not trying to implement any corporate ownership over your hardware.
- vmception 5y ago
  Well they try. Almost all distros have tried/had someone try, over time.
- felixgallo 5y ago
  How’s your init process looking?
copperx 5y ago
Are you saying that you have been upgrading the same install since 1999 without having to ever reinstall from scratch? I find that to be impressive. Does it take a massive amount of effort?
- Moto7451 5y ago
  My current Intel Mac still has some remnants from running Mac OS X 10.2-10.4 on a G4 equipped Powermac 7300 using XPostFacto. Every so often I run into very odd plists and remnants of long obsolete programs. I’ve used the migration assistant each time I moved from Mac to Mac. All the PPC only apps went away when Rosetta was removed and the 32bit Carbon apps were similarly discarded. Support files sometimes stick around but the transfer agent is generally pretty tidy.
  - ridiculous_fish 5y ago
    Time Machine quietly bridges these architectural transition. It's no mean feat to migrate PPC->Intel and then Intel->M1. It silently works and this is the Mac at its best.

rurban 5y ago

This should carry a (2009) in it's headline. After Snow Leopard it went downhill with reliability and stability, but got new exciting features: iOS compatibility, yeah. No more x32 support, yeah! No more OpenGL support, yeah! New filesystem without identifier normalization, yeah! No more /use/local/bin/. No more kernel drivers. Mail and mDNSResponder constantly crashing, and every new release the list keeps growing. The new Windows.

black_puppydog 5y ago
I thought the whole point of using windows is an insanely long backwards compatibility and future support window? Hence the name windowS? :)
acdha 5y ago
> Snow Leopard it went downhill with reliability and stability … Mail and mDNSResponder constantly crashing If this isn’t just hyperbole, try a clean reinstall after a hardware diagnostic. This isn’t normal. (/usr/local/bin is fine, are you perhaps referring to Homebrew changing its preferred location?) You can argue about 32-bit support but given that the platform first went 64-bit in 2003 it’s kind of hard to say you didn’t have advanced warning. Similarly, the writing has been the wall for OpenGL since Microsoft stopped favoring it on the most popular platforms in the 1990s. The model doesn’t fit how modern hardware works and it’s not surprising that they don’t want to keep supporting a standard which the industry increasingly doesn’t use.
dev_tty01 5y ago
I'm guessing you are not an actual user of the system you are criticizing since you are wrong on so many points. Not my experience at all. Many of your criticisms are simply false. usr/local/bin is fine. OpenGL is an antiquated system that is a poor match to modern GPUs and it too was deprecated for a long time. mDNSResponder did have some issues but we have been past that for many, many years. Never had issues with Mail that a reindex command wouldn't clean up. APFS has been nothing but an improvement in my experience. 32 bit support was deprecated for over a decade. Sometimes it is time to move on. As far as kernel drivers, yes there are still some 3rd party kernel drivers, but the (ongoing) transition to system extensions running in user space is absolutely an improvement.

SamuelAdams 5y ago

I wonder if this “more sealed boot loader” will make it more difficult to dual boot Linux and MacOS? Curious if the Ashai Linux devs have a plan for this.

kayodelycaon 5y ago
Nope. You can disable secure boot. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208198 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208198
easton 5y ago
Their plan has always required disabling the secure boot stuff.

ericbarrett 5y ago

How often are the SHA-256 hashes on the System volume snapshot checked? Could something that can write to the drive root, and understood APFS, silently change the file without updating its recorded metadata (including hash)? Or is the hash checked every time a file is opened?

my123 5y ago
Checked all the time, it's a Merkle tree structure. You can modify the seal when the Sealed System Volume feature is off. (which requires Secure Boot to be set to Permissive Security, and FileVault to be off at the time of disabling)
- qPM9l3XJrF 5y ago
  Why is it possible to turn Sealed System Volume off? Is there a way that malware might be able to turn it off?
  - Someone 5y ago
    Reading https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208198 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208198, the official way to do it requires booting from Mac OS recovery and entering an administrator password. ⇒ there may of course be bugs, but Apple’s intent is there isn’t any way for malware to do that

c7DJTLrn 5y ago

Anyone know why macOS updates take so long? It's nuts, I just upgraded to one of the new MacBooks and even on that it took about 20 minutes to upgrade from 12.0.0 to 12.0.1, so not even a major release upgrade. The CPU is wicked fast, the SSD is wicked fast, so why does it feel like I'm suddenly using a Pentium when upgrading?

Tagbert 5y ago
In the last couple of version, updates are no longer differentials but full OS updates. They are shipped as a single signed package that is loaded into one of the protected volumes of the disk. This is supposed to be a security measure to prevent compromises of components of the OS. The downside is big slow updates. Hopefully they work on that and do more like the differential updates that they use for iOS.
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
  They could still apply a tiny patch and then checksum the whole thing, surely?
  - kaba0 5y ago
    Just divide the whole thing into read-only units and reuse the unchanged ones, a la nixos.
  - dymk 5y ago
    And if the checksum fails, what then?
    - howinteresting 5y ago
      Use a Merkle tree.
    - wazzaps 5y ago
      Maybe checksum before updating? Or revert the patch if it fails?

ricardonunez 5y ago

My MBP2017 came with a few issues and a every update was a flip the coin, it could have go either way good or bad. Bluetooth didn’t work well with my mouse, keyboard has some issues, speaker blowed off, etc. When Apple did the butterfly keyboard recall, they replaced the chasis and that pretty much everything aside from the bottom cover and the monitor. Since then, my computer has been amazing, no issues, better battery, better keyboard, connectivity, Bluetooth and more importantly every update has gone flawless. I’m wondering if it was a board problem, but whatever it was it definitely made MacOS way more reliable too.

thesquib 5y ago

The latest update bricked many laptops at work. Like no boot, no sad Mac, get a new laptop situation. We are at the point where people joke they are flipping a coin on whether the next update from Apple will brick their laptop or not. For me, the macOS ecosystem is no longer reliable enough as a daily driver.

Tagbert 5y ago
I remember helping a friend a few years ago who thought he had truly bricked his MacBook. There is a restore process that reinstalls the OS when an update goes wrong. I don’t recall the process now as I’ve never needed it since but it is somewhere on Apples site. I seriously doubt these laptops are truly bricked. Obviously something cause the installer to fail but there are recovery options built in that are not part of the OS. this is probably a good place to start https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/macos-recovery-a-mac-apple-silicon-mchl82829c17/12.0/mac/12.0 https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/macos-recovery-a-ma...
- thesquib 5y ago
  Unfortunately they won't even turn on so this won't work.
  - my123 5y ago
    The recovery process is bootROM (non-erasable) based, it works even if they cannot be turned on. For T2: https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-configurator-2/revive-or-restore-an-intel-based-mac-apdebea5be51/mac https://support.apple.com/guide/apple-configurator-2/revive-... For M1: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/apple-configurator-2/apdd5f3c75ad/mac https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/apple-configurator-2/a...
- my123 5y ago
  (this recovery process is also available for Apple T2 x86 Macs)
hamstergene 5y ago

nickjj 5y ago

I think popular applications should be included with OS reliability because in your day to day these are the tools you use. I've been using a MBP (2020 Intel) for work (work issued laptop) for about a week full time and if I leave Chrome open for more than a day every tab will crash even if I only have a few tabs open. Opening a new tab results in the "Aw, Snap!" crashed tab page with the unhappy face until I fully close Chrome then it works like normal. The only extensions I use are uBlock Origin and LastPass. It happens frequently. The system isn't stressed in the slightest too in terms of CPU or memory usage. Does this happen for anyone else? It's running the latest Big Sur. This hasn't happened to me ever on Windows or Linux after years of hardcore usage.

deleted 5y ago
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evilduck 5y ago
Nope, I have the last 16" Intel MBP and Chrome chugs along just fine for days and weeks on end. I pretty much only close it for Chrome prompted app updates or macOS prompted system updates. edit: It might be worth purging your Chrome files out of the various ~/Library locations.
yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
> I think popular applications should be included with OS reliability because in your day to day these are the tools you use. I think you're understating it. The point of the OS is to run applications; if running applications doesn't work, the system is probably insufficient.
sumedh 5y ago
I have a 2016 mbp with lots chrome tabs and other extensions, it works fine for week or two and then everything hangs and the Mac restarts. I am still on Catalina
maccard 5y ago
> I think popular applications should be included with OS reliability because in your day to day these are the tools you use. Mac ships with Safari if you want that. Blaming Mac for the quality of third party software is a bit odd.

brasetvik 5y ago

Happy to be unvisionary on this one, but the change log I wish for the next major release is this one: - We changed nothing, but spent most our time on Bluetooth reliability, and remaining time on general reliability. That’d meaningfully impact most working days, whereas most of the last few majors really haven’t.

quaesitor 5y ago
OSX bluetooth is far more reliable than Windows. It's not even close, it's like comparing beer pong to shooting the moon with a rifle. If I only had my Windows machines, I would have thrown out all my bluetooth peripherals.
- bittercynic 5y ago
  I'm not sure what that saying means. Both sound absurdly unreliable, but I like it!
- blntechie 5y ago
  Linux is easily the worst (well, at least Ubuntu and Mint) with respect to Bluetooth pairing and remembering it for me. I use a multi-device Bluetooth keyboard to switch between a Windows laptop, Ubuntu laptop and a MacBook Pro almost daily. So when I tap the button in the keyboard to switch, it takes 5 seconds to connect (if it connects) on Ubuntu, almost instantly in Windows, and couple of seconds on Mac. And Ubuntu laptop cannot do wakeup from sleep with Bluetooth keyboard or mouse even with tons of tinkering with the /usb/devices/*/power/wakeup conf and in /etc/rc.local and /etc/init.d.
  - nix23 5y ago
    >And Ubuntu laptop cannot do wakeup from sleep with Bluetooth keyboard or mouse even with tons of tinkering with the /usb/devices/*/power/wakeup conf and in /etc/rc.local and /etc/init.d. Install powertop and disable the usb-sleep option.
- ubertaco 5y ago
  I've had the opposite experience; I've used the same Bluetooth headphones, mouse, and keyboard with two work machines (a MacBook and a Linux tower) and my personal Windows machine. Windows is rock-solid, just works with no problems. Linux works mostly fine, with occasional audio stuttering issues that go away after a few seconds. The MacBook is an unusable nightmare. If I ever try to use a mic or webcam of any sort while the headphones are connected, the whole Bluetooth stack immediately crashes and doesn't recover for at least an entire minute, usually more like 2-3 minutes. Also, sometimes this happens just randomly anyways with no discernable pattern or cause. Also, sometimes the Bluetooth stack forgets my keyboard exists, and I have to walk back through the pairing process again (this happens 1-3 times per month). Then there are times when it randomly shuffles scroll speed on my mouse. If it weren't so frustrating how unusable the macOS Bluetooth stack is, it would be almost funny in a "hidden-camera-prank-show" sort of way. I've switched to working full-time on my Linux tower (also provided by my employer) and it's been a tremendous quality of life improvement. On the rare occasions that I have issues, I can usually get to the bottom of the problem and fix it. With the MacBook, I'm lucky if I get "Something went wrong :(", and all the voodoo remedies I've seen online haven't helped.

post_break 5y ago

I used to update Mac OS versions day one. Now I put at least a month buffer before updating. Mac OS never used to nag so much about updates.

aasasd 5y ago

There's a fun podcast episode from 2012 where Siracusa flogs HFS+ and praises ZFS, for two hours: https://5by5.tv/hypercritical/56 https://5by5.tv/hypercritical/56 With a thorough explanation that filesystems shouldn't ever lose track of intact and corrupted data, in the 2010s—i.e. should have checksums of the data. Plus some discussion of WinFS/ReFS on top, and a story of how ZFS almost landed in OSX. I listened to it a few years later, but before APFS properly arrived on my Macbook. Was just the right mix of indignation with fascination that someone can go on about it for two hours straight. Which reminds me: perhaps I should look into receiving further rants about computing in audio format. Sitting on my ass before the screen does me no good.

Tagbert 5y ago
"rants about computing in audio format" sounds like a lot of the podcasts I listen to :)

qPM9l3XJrF 5y ago

What's the best way to get this sort of secure book on linux/bsd?

kaladin_1 5y ago

The update to Monterey broke all my ntfs tools. While I know that Apple officially doesn't support ntfs, it doesn't make it less painful that I can't write to my external mass storage.

mistersquid 5y ago
> The update to Monterey broke all my ntfs tools. If your tools are scripts that run in the background, check to make sure the binary running those (e.g. /usr/bin/perl) has the proper permissions. Each time I've upgraded to Catalina, Big Sur, and now Monterey, I keep forgetting to add the binary to System Preferences… > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Full Disk Access. Good luck.

jamesfisher 5y ago

Adding this website to the user-scalable=0 sin bin. No way I can read that tiny text in those images

aasasd 5y ago
Firefox on Android has a nice feature among the accessibility options: every site is user-scalable, in the zoom-in direction. (I do sometimes wish, however, that zooming out was also always possible: some site authors seem to love children-book-grade font sizes, which fit about three words on a line and ten lines on the screen.)

andresp 5y ago

I see the opposite... For example, since a couple of months/updates ago Finder doesn't show me new files in a directory unless I force the search with spotlight. It is remarkable that a bug like this can happen in such a basic feature like the file browser.