43 ms·

Daily-driving a Mac, one year later

80 points by kingofclams 5y ago

smoldesu 5y ago
> You could probably make something as nice and integrated as Things on Linux, but for someone as busy as me, it is nice to use what is already there. I find this a funny point, as Things is one of the apps that has a near-direct clone[0] on Linux. It also costs $49.99 less than Things! [0] https://github.com/alainm23/planner https://github.com/alainm23/planner
- hugi 5y ago
  Haven't tried it, but I sincerely doubt it's as good as Things (one of those products you just fall in love with). Things pays attention to the tiniest detail in every single aspect, and it really shows that it's natively written for each of it's platforms, not some quick and cheap Electron crap. I've paid for Things on 4 platform and I'm very happy about it. I have no qualms paying for good software like that, I just hope these people make more software for me to use.
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    Well, for starters, Planner is also a native application written in Vala/GTK. The only non-native part about it is that you're forced to run it as a Flatpak (which is a bummer), but that makes it just about equally as "native" as any sandboxed Mac app. Almost to a comedic extent, Planner does copy a lot of the touches that Things has. For example, dragging the plus icon in the corner to a folder will create a new task there, much like Things. Each section of checkboxes also gets a tiny status indicator, and everything in it is drag-and-droppable. I understand your skepticism, but this really is a complete ripoff of Things in a glorious way. If nothing else, you can't deny the fact that it's more bang-for-your-buck being free and whatnot.
    - bastardoperator 5y ago
      I rather pay a developer for support and continued development. If the only difference between these apps is one is a rip off of the other and doesn't cost, that's not a very compelling argument from my limited perspective. Also, the commit comments on this project are total WTF.
      - smoldesu 5y ago
        > I rather pay a developer for support and continued development. If the only difference between these apps is one is a rip off of the other and doesn't cost, that's not a very compelling argument from my limited perspective. If you're adverse to taking things for free, you're always welcome to donate to the lead maintainer. Nobody is forcing you to take stuff for free, but conversely, arguing that something must be lower quality because you didn't spend more money on it isn't a very compelling argument either. Sounds like the same argument all those proprietary UNIX vendors made before... well, they became irrelevant. > Also, the commit comments on this project are total WTF. Man, imagine if you could look inside the VCS for Things... Who knows what kind of dragons lurk in there.
    - awilfox 5y ago
      Forced to run it as a Flatpak would have been a dealbreaker for me since Flatpak apps don't support Power and my main desktop was the libre Talos II. Looks like it is missing deadline support, otherwise you are right that it is almost a comedic clone of Things: https://github.com/alainm23/planner/issues/888 https://github.com/alainm23/planner/issues/888
      - smoldesu 5y ago
        Yeah, Flatpaks really are a shame in general. I don't blame anyone for disliking them, and I personally stopped using Planner after they (seemingly intentionally) broke support for native installation. As for deadlines, my strategy was to simply put tasks on the day they were due, since they would be aggregated in lists regardless of when they were dated. However, I can't deny it's missing the feature.
      - howinteresting 5y ago
        idk man, you're running Linux on an obscure architecture with miniscule market share and complaining about things not working. Just build an x86_64 desktop like a normal person. You'll even be able to add storage to it as you need, something you can't do on macOS.
- atty 5y ago
  Does planner have native apps on iOS/iPad that it syncs with? If it does, I can’t find it in the App Store currently.
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    It does. They're called "Todoist"
    - atty 5y ago
      Ahh very cool, may have to check it out, thanks.
rvz 5y ago
> At the end of the day, my goal in life is to make a difference, and also have a bit of fun. I want a system that is out of my way and lets me focus on that. For me, in 2022, that system is a Mac. TL;DR: Another very happy Apple customer. It seems that they are not looking back at the Linux Desktop. What can the Linux Desktop ecosystem learn from this?
- freefaler 5y ago
  Sadly paying salaries to people to improve an OS with even average designers and project managers will in time produce better results for a Desktop experience. Economic incentives can't be beaten in this case. Open source works great for developer tools and things that developers use, but for "consumer-grade" products I haven't seen a scalable business model.
- TobyTheDog123 5y ago
  That user (and developer) experience will always reign supreme. That you can have the most open source, extensible, low-to-no-cost, powerful operating system, and still lose out to a UI/UX that appeals to and is accessible to someone who doesn't know what an Ubuntu is, never mind how to install it. Apple took it one step further by not only providing this UI/UX to the "what's a driver" crowd, but also to developers. For developers, they get enough nonsense over the course of their day from npm version conflicts, build failures from compiling on unsupported architecture, and trying to figure out why their k8s pods are crash looping. To then add on more headache from trying to develop and compile with Ubuntu outside of the described use cases? No thanks. OSX (in most cases) just works: most developer tools provide a dedicated OSX package, you get the UIX benefits inherited from the "what's javascript" customers, and the hardware-software integration makes things consistently smooth. Unless one of the big linux distros finds the money to make the experience more appealing for the "Java? Like coffee?" userbase, this will continue to be the case.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  > What can the Linux Desktop ecosystem learn from this? Usability and functionality trumps ideology. The Linux world has spent (and is still spending) insane amounts of time & effort on ideological battles such as software freedom or the endless arguments against systemd while commercial OSes put that time towards actual functionality and end up ahead most of the time. I don't care how "free" your thing is, none of that freedom is useful if I can't use the thing because it just can't do what I need it to do.
goosedragons 5y ago
For me personally I found macOS got more in the way than out. Besides being easier to install MS Office on it seemed like every few months I'd encounter some speed bump caused by Apple and I'd have to find a workaround. Plus it just really sucks at window management and you're stuck with the macOS UI and whatever tweaks (usually paid) apps can do. For my workflow it just didn't work. I was also extremely annoyed at the lack of upgradable storage as my needs quickly outgrew the pitiful base storage. I gave up and switched to an older thinkpad that runs Linux natively and I now have 4 times the storage of the MacBook for peanuts and can easily add more for cheap. Slightly slower but feels much faster than macOS due to linux being much lighter.
- alphabettsy 5y ago
  > every few months I'd encounter some speed bump caused by Apple and I'd have to find a workaround > switched to an older thinkpad that runs Linux natively The idea of using an older Thinkpad with Linux having fewer “speed bumps” than any Mac seems hard to imagine based on my own experience. Guess it depends on what you use a computer for.
  - marssaxman 5y ago
    That was my experience. I never consciously switched; I just realized, one day, that I had stopped bothering to use my Mac in favor of my Linux-based, second-hand Thinkpad. MacOS used to be my home, but over time it steadily felt more like Apple's home, in which I was only welcome if I did things their way. Linux offers its own frustrations, but at least it's my machine.
    - alphabettsy 5y ago
      Sure but that’s a completely different argument. I don’t think anyone would argue that Linux is not more customizable or does not give you more options.
      - goosedragons 5y ago
jdrc 5y ago
Linux desktop is a very low bar to clear for nearly everything
- number6 5y ago
  Yes. It's only undermatched by the windows desktop. Who has a file manager that's also the window manager ah and the shell...
  - Kwpolska 5y ago
    Explorer isn’t the window manager. And does it really matter it’s serving as the shell? What technical benefits would a split bring?
    - number6 5y ago
      Right, they changed that 15 years ago. Splitting would make them more interchangeable and stable - crashing one part does not tears the whole stack down. What is the benefit of putting all the different functionality in one application?
      - awilfox 5y ago
        Explorer was never the WM; you could kill explorer.exe off in both 9x and NT systems without affecting window management. I don't remember how it worked in 9x, but NT used CSRSS.EXE for window management until NT 4 moved GDI into the kernel. DWM handles it in Vista and newer.
  - jdrc 5y ago
    Windows is vastly superior
    - slater 5y ago
      [citation needed]
koprulusector 5y ago
I’ll keep my tiling window manager and keyboard driven workflow, along with the ability to sudo to root and modify my system as I please, rather than banging my head against the wall because Apple has literally locked me out of parts of my own file system, or have some obscure launcher/service management that’s poorly documented. Or the fact that servers all run Linux and apples non-posix, slightly different, proprietary tooling is just subtly different enough to make it a huge pain in the ass when you run a command to deploy something and it’s botched by a subtle difference like slightly different flags/behavior. Sounds like Mac is great for blogging, happy to hear it; as long as I’m doing software development, deployments, etc, I’ll stick with Linux.
- Otek 5y ago
  With yabai I have tiling window manager on MacOS and 100% keyboard driven development, like I would have on i3. It’s more difficult to setup than on Linux but I had too much drivers-related problems with Linux (Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi mostly) to run it daily. Also homebrew seems to be better than any package manager on Linux. Maybe pacman is good enough.
- andyfleming 5y ago
  I’ve never understood the window tiling complaint. While MacOS doesn’t have tiling built in, it’s readily available for free. Are there features that aren’t available in those applications?
  - sph 5y ago
    macOS window management is incredibly worse than the other two operating system, and that's if you use Spectacle and other helper tools. Without them, it's even worse. I loved my time with macOS but window management was definitely the worst thing about the OS for me.
    - brailsafe 5y ago
      Ya but... how could those differences be so impactful? I tile my windows occasionally, it's handy, but I can't imagine that being my single issue vote.
loloquwowndueo 5y ago
“Platform A has these features I find convenient therefore I migrated from platform B which doesn’t have them”. That’s all this article is. Platform B might as well have been windows. I’m not sure why everyone is reading it as a dismissal of desktop Linux as a concept. I tried a Mac for a while, found it too restrictive, moved back to Linux on the desktop - doesn’t mean the Mac sucks or anything, just wasn’t right for me.
- gurjeet 5y ago
  I bet Linux, whatever distro you use, wasn’t right for you to begin with; but you made it yours by tweaking it to your liking. Trust me, you can tweak macOS to your liking, as well. I used to be a Linux lover, but after trying for almost a decade, for my desktop needs, I’ve given up on Linux, and adopted macOS. macOS is a POSIX environment, and you have almost the whole GNU ecosystem available to you, if you want.
  - loloquwowndueo 5y ago
    Well- one of my main gripes was that I had to spend a lot of time and work getting macOS to behave like Linux did - so at some point I decided to stop wasting my time and use the real thing :) so “whatever distro you use, wasn’t right for you to begin with; but you made it yours by tweaking it to your liking.” You’re not entirely wrong but it was far less painful than tweaking macOS. “ you can tweak macOS to your liking” - see above. “ you have almost the whole GNU ecosystem available to you” yeah I tried the whole ports / fink thing and it was too much work vs. the equivalent on any Linux distribution (no extra work at all).
    - ricardobeat 5y ago
      Homebrew is a much more reliable package manager than macports. Trying to make OSX into Linux might have been the problem there, it’s just a little different in many aspects. What kind of tools did you miss?
    - bastardoperator 5y ago
2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
They left Linux because they want stability and portability so they jumped to macOS? I don't understand. Also: I just punched directions into GNOME Maps and it worked flawlessly and cast my entire desktop to my Shield TV via Chrome browser.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > They left Linux because they want stability and portability so they jumped to macOS? I don't understand. Which bit don’t you understand? macOS is stable with fantastic professional QA and support, and it lets you run more cross-platform ported software than Linux does.
  - sofixa 5y ago
    > and it lets you run more cross-platform ported software than Linux does That's a stretch and i find it unlikely, but it's not like we have numbers. However, macOS makes it hard to run random software ( like a utility from GitHub) with their code signing "security" stuff ( working around it is anything but intuitive).
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      Can you list many major applications available on Windows and on Linux, but not macOS? The other way around you have major industry applications like Photoshop, Illustrator, Premier, Office, Ableton, AutoCAD, etc.
      - awilfox 5y ago
        One of my friends reminded me of CrossOver, which has eliminated that last small gap. And it is nice to finally be able to give back to the WINE community after using it for so long – I think my first use of WINE was Red Hat 9 in 2002. The only one I can think of that isn't a total niche is SQL Server. Siemens NX dropped Mac support a while ago, but the Linux version is CLI-only. There are some more niche software (PaintShop Pro, A&B, Pro Motion NG) that suggest WINE for Linux users but I don't know how much that counts.
_8j50 5y ago
I have found time to be the biggest factor. I use to have hours every day to tinker with Linux, I enjoy the tinkering personally and I can endure the lack of features. But at some point I began spending more than 8h on average on my work and really needed a break each day to not get burned out and take care of *health,on top of which I have a backlog of things to study up on for $work, any platform (including windows) that gets out of my way is welcome. Not FOSS in general, but specifically the Linux desktop ecosystem is very chaotic. There is this rush to get a close-enough adoptation of features from other desktops which in itself adds chaos. I did learn a lot from dealing with the chaos but even when I had free time, practical things like editing government forms or sending a resume in a specific format (converting botches the formatting) made me almost pull my hair out. Unpopular opinion: Linux desktops needs to be proprietary software friendly. As in accept blob installers that can install desktop applications that work well on any major DE and without consideration for package managers. Paid apps should also be a thing on Linux.
- vladvasiliu 5y ago
  > Unpopular opinion: Linux desktops needs to be proprietary software friendly. As in accept blob installers that can install desktop applications that work well on any major DE and without consideration for package managers. Paid apps should also be a thing on Linux. Isn't this already the case? I'm running Spotify and Steam games with no issues here. While I agree with your greater point that a system that gets out of your way is nice, I always find myself swearing when using Windows and trying to bend macOS to do things the way I want. In the end I just gave up and went back to Linux on a "basic" PC (no Nvidia or multiple GPUs on my laptop). The two major things I miss are HD streaming on PrimeVideo and Photoshop, both of which work well on Windows and macOS. For the former I bought I firetv stick and for the latter, I dual boot (I only need it occasionally).
  - _8j50 5y ago
    They have to do a lot of work coming up with custom installers or packages for distros. If you have gentoo+kde for example you can't just download a blob, open it and just have it work. It depends on what you are doing I guess. I remember getting frustrated at windows too. Linux is the best at being configurable and controllable from an administrative workload perspective but not from a productivity or entertainment application UX.
Tehchops 5y ago
I'm honestly torn. I was a big Linux proponent for a while, then Apple won me over with Macs for a time. They did "just work" for my day-to-day(DevOps). However, last spring, I bought a new personal system for freelance work/side projects, and have been running Ubuntu as my daily driver. Funny enough, it seems like during that same period the my UX on my work-supplied Mac(2019-era MBP) has been steadily declining. I've been dealing with maddening slowdowns and numerous bluetooth issues(with Airpods no less!). Conversely, I find working on the Ubuntu machine much more enjoyable, and I'm exploring the option of getting a Linux machine supplied by work as well. I'll caveat by saying it took some time to hone in on solid configurations, tweaks, and a good DE/WM(i3wm), but I gotta say Linux is winning me back over. All that being said, I'm not deluded enough to think Linux(in its current state) is ever going to make inroads with Apple's consumer/pro-sumer userbase. It's still very much an enthusiast option in my mind.
- SuperSandro2000 5y ago
  Mac's aren't even that great for DevOps. You get horrible out of date GNU things like bash 3 and are almost forced to upgrade and install a lot of stuff via brew at which point you also could have installed a Linux.
- Nextgrid 5y ago
  The new AirPods-related bullshit that broke existing functionality pushed me to switch to Linux for day to day work. It's a downgrade in certain ways, but at least I can actually join calls reliably.
nmstoker 5y ago
All seems sensible stuff, the "it just works" can't be overstated. But the Apple Maps point felt like a stretch - Google Maps is available everywhere. I don't see much to suggest you'd need it as an app, it works great in the browser with hardware accelerated graphics, which it has had for 10+ years.
- awilfox 5y ago
  I've never had hardware accelerated graphics work correctly, and I don't want to have to use the Google ecosystem – that's an article for another day, probably. When I was "all-in" on the libre ecosystem, I used a ThinkPad for laptop and Talos for desktop. The ThinkPad had just the Intel iGPU that didn't work right in Firefox, and the Talos had blue lines through everything in OSM because "lol x86 monoculture" meant Firefox's Layers didn't work right on Power. I had graphics acceleration working in raw Mesa, so if there was a native app, it would have Just Worked – probably on both systems.
  - sph 5y ago
    When did you last use Linux? Because hardware acceleration has been working and default in Firefox for a while, except on NVIDIA, and video acceleration (not required for Google Maps) needed manual tweaking the Firefox config but has been available as well for a while. The Linux desktop moves at incredible pace. The experience I had 2 years ago was more crude than my desktop in 2022.
    - awilfox 5y ago
      February 2021 as a daily-driver; I still have a VM to this day.
vbezhenar 5y ago
I’m a bit disappointed by current macOS state. Xcode breaks console: even man man starts throwing some warnings. softwareupdate —-install-rosetta reports success with error and doesn’t actually installs anything. Xcode still requires Rosetta. I unpacked JDK and every console command fails because macOS doesn’t trust it yada yada. I have to go to settings and allow every binary. And I need 4 JDKs… After compiling go helloworld first launch takes like second. It seems to check notatization of my hello world. So much for M1 speed. After boot Spotlight hammers CPU for 3-5 minutes. So much for battery life. It’s a mess for development. Nothing unsolvable but definitely worse than it was 7 years ago.
- awilfox 5y ago
  That's interesting. Xcode didn't require Rosetta for me. I also didn't have any issues installing Rosetta when I finally did need the functionality. Was this when the M1 was first released? I didn't have an M1 until August 2021.
  - vbezhenar 5y ago
    It was few days ago on latest versions and M1 MacBook.
atty 5y ago
I see some people in the comments saying they strongly prefer Linux desktop to Mac/Windows. If you are one of those people, I am curious - are you comfortable changing system configurations, using the terminal, updating system software by hand, etc? Because I quite enjoy playing around with Linux on the desktop, but I would never suggest it to anyone who isn’t already familiar and enjoys that sort of stuff.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- goldorak 5y ago
  For me yes, It's really convenient and easy to manage (specially between multiple targets, git integration...) For my parents and family, well they just don't usually change anything so for me it's win-win situation.
dopeboy 5y ago
Ubuntu user since the 5.04 days. The vertical integration the apple ecosystem offers is incredible and not something linux can ever compete with. I see my fiancee use her iphone with her apple tv and her mac - everything connects together, seamlessly. There are walled garden elements to it but look, I'm done fighting the FOSS fight I waged in my late teens and early 20s. I got work to do, my life to live, etc. My advice to the Ubuntu, Fedora, etc teams: focus ruthlessly on creating a smooth experience for the office/enterprise clientele who mostly use a narrow set of hardware (thinkpads x/t, dell inspirons, etc). Get this to a place where everything just works and lobby partners when it doesn't. Example from two days ago: shared my screen on zoom, clicked to stop screen sharing and the UI on my side didn't update. So another attendee went to share their screen and I couldn't see it - I had to rejoin. Worst still, that happens intermittently. That said, I'm personally bearish on this ever happening against a much more well funded incumbent that is now producing ground breaking hardware with the M1s, etc.
- LeFantome 5y ago
  I am not arguing really. I think you are mostly right. That said, I use Zoom daily on Manjaro and have not had that happen. It happened to me just last week on my iPhone though. While I love Airplay, I use Plex to stream media not only to my iPhone and the Apple TV downstairs but also to my Roku, my LG TV, an Amazon Fire stick, and my son’s Android tablet. Even after buying expensive apps, I could never get AirPlay working on the Fire stick or the LG TV ( the places my wife wants to watch ).
  - awilfox 5y ago
    I found Jellyfin to be a great media server. Its client is so nice and works on Roku. Not sure about LG TVs. It's libre and .NET so it runs anywhere – including my Mac server :)
- dhzhzjsbevs 5y ago
  Email zoom your info. They have excellent Linux support and staff work to resolve issues quickly.
- 5y ago
vehemenz 5y ago
About the final point—are Macs really "high cost"? Looking at their current lineup, configured with a minimum of 16GB and 512GB: M1 Mac Mini .......... $1099 M1 MacBook Air ....... $1399 M1 iMac ......,....... $1699 M1 Pro Mac Studio .... $1999 M1 Pro MacBook Pro 14" $1999 M1 Pro MacBook Pro 16" $2499 I'll restrain myself from listing the ways comparing Macs to PCs is not apples to apples. Unless you go for costly storage upgrades (which I agree are overpriced), all of these prices are pretty reasonable for a 4-year ownership period. Considering Macs are typically owned longer than PCs, I don't see how anyone that can afford comparable PCs or UltraBooks would be priced out of Apple products.
- awilfox 5y ago
  My concern with the Mac mini in particular is that then you need a display, and honestly, having an LG Ultrafine 4K hooked up to my Mac Studio, you really need a 5K display to get the most out of a Mac. I think 1440p displays work well too, or at least they did back in 2014 when I was using Macs, but I didn't see any for sale when I was shopping for an interim while I wait three months for the Studio Display to ship.
  - Tagbert 5y ago
    It depends on what your needs are for a monitor. If you are used to 5K 2xRetina then 4K will be a little off. I am currently using a 27” 4K display scaled to 1440p. It is not quite as sharp as a true 5K display but it works well enough. Until recently the only 5K monitor was a pretty weak LG. The new Apple Studio display does finally bring out a desirable monitor but I’m not ready to spend that much for a personal display. Stay away from an old 2K 1440p at this point. Since Apple removed the old sub pixel rendering, those 1440p panels look too soft anymore. The 4K scaled 1440p looks much sharper than those.
    - awilfox 5y ago
      Yeah, I'm pretty happy with the 4K scaled to 1440p as well. Scaled to 1080p looked so crisp and well-rendered I could cry, but the UI elements were far too big. My main use case for the Mac Studio is photography and video editing, so an Apple Studio display is definitely on my wish list.
cirrus3 5y ago
Pop_- 5y ago
To my experience, it’s the integrated OCR that really pleased me as a new mac user come from linux. I basically get to treat images with text like normal paragraph. And it just get my daily work done without any issue.
perfopt 5y ago
My experience with Macs has been good in most aspects except one. In the years I used a Mac I stopped tinkering and OS/systems related hobby projects. I continued to use Linux at work. I recently set up a home firewall with OpenBSD and have an itch to assemble a desktop exclusively for *BSD and Linux. If only hardware prices were not so high...
wink 5y ago
Fascinating, I've never heard of this universal clipboard and I'd absolutely hate it. Guess I'm one of those anti-mobile curmudgeons because I see how it could help with what the author described, but for the 1 thing per week I share between my mobile and computers there are 'safer' ways that won't leak everything everywhere else. Maybe people are different (as I usually note when I say that I hate the 'close lid for sleep' on laptops and go out of my way to disable that) :P
8fingerlouie 5y ago
As someone who exclusively used Linux desktops since the early Gnome 1.x days, who migrated to MacOS around 2005, the major selling point of MacOS is "it just works". Your experience may differ if you're not "all in" on the Apple ecosystem, but using mostly/only Apple devices means that everything integrates, and integrates well. You may recreate a similar experience with Android and KDE (or Windows i guess), but it feels much more "tacked on" than in MacOS where it just works out of the box. I also mostly use "stock apps" which may or may not improve my experience. Instead of trying to force MacOS to fit my workflow, i fit my workflow to the tools available, and it has rewarded me well. I still keep a VM with Gnome (Debian 11) running every now and then, but it's mostly just for fun.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  > Your experience may differ if you're not "all in" on the Apple ecosystem This is something that frustrates me, and it's one of the reasons I'll never go "all in" on the Apple ecosystem. It's tantamount to John Deere designing special cupholders in their tractors that cost $150, lest you risk your drink tipping over. I'm not paying more money to a company that actively wants to price me out of new experiences. I think Snow Leopard to Mojave was a really good time to own a Mac; generally speaking, the software and hardware experiences complimented one another. Nowadays, Apple is a hardware company that sells software products, and Tim Cook is doing everything he can to continue driving up the marginal utility they capitalize on. It's an absurd business, I refuse to support it.

80 points by kingofclams 5y ago

> You could probably make something as nice and integrated as Things on Linux, but for someone as busy as me, it is nice to use what is already there. I find this a funny point, as Things is one of the apps that has a near-direct clone[0] on Linux. It also costs $49.99 less than Things! [0] https://github.com/alainm23/planner https://github.com/alainm23/planner

hugi 5y ago
Haven't tried it, but I sincerely doubt it's as good as Things (one of those products you just fall in love with). Things pays attention to the tiniest detail in every single aspect, and it really shows that it's natively written for each of it's platforms, not some quick and cheap Electron crap. I've paid for Things on 4 platform and I'm very happy about it. I have no qualms paying for good software like that, I just hope these people make more software for me to use.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  Well, for starters, Planner is also a native application written in Vala/GTK. The only non-native part about it is that you're forced to run it as a Flatpak (which is a bummer), but that makes it just about equally as "native" as any sandboxed Mac app. Almost to a comedic extent, Planner does copy a lot of the touches that Things has. For example, dragging the plus icon in the corner to a folder will create a new task there, much like Things. Each section of checkboxes also gets a tiny status indicator, and everything in it is drag-and-droppable. I understand your skepticism, but this really is a complete ripoff of Things in a glorious way. If nothing else, you can't deny the fact that it's more bang-for-your-buck being free and whatnot.
  - bastardoperator 5y ago
    I rather pay a developer for support and continued development. If the only difference between these apps is one is a rip off of the other and doesn't cost, that's not a very compelling argument from my limited perspective. Also, the commit comments on this project are total WTF.
    - smoldesu 5y ago
      > I rather pay a developer for support and continued development. If the only difference between these apps is one is a rip off of the other and doesn't cost, that's not a very compelling argument from my limited perspective. If you're adverse to taking things for free, you're always welcome to donate to the lead maintainer. Nobody is forcing you to take stuff for free, but conversely, arguing that something must be lower quality because you didn't spend more money on it isn't a very compelling argument either. Sounds like the same argument all those proprietary UNIX vendors made before... well, they became irrelevant. > Also, the commit comments on this project are total WTF. Man, imagine if you could look inside the VCS for Things... Who knows what kind of dragons lurk in there.
  - awilfox 5y ago
    Forced to run it as a Flatpak would have been a dealbreaker for me since Flatpak apps don't support Power and my main desktop was the libre Talos II. Looks like it is missing deadline support, otherwise you are right that it is almost a comedic clone of Things: https://github.com/alainm23/planner/issues/888 https://github.com/alainm23/planner/issues/888
    - smoldesu 5y ago
      Yeah, Flatpaks really are a shame in general. I don't blame anyone for disliking them, and I personally stopped using Planner after they (seemingly intentionally) broke support for native installation. As for deadlines, my strategy was to simply put tasks on the day they were due, since they would be aggregated in lists regardless of when they were dated. However, I can't deny it's missing the feature.
    - howinteresting 5y ago
      idk man, you're running Linux on an obscure architecture with miniscule market share and complaining about things not working. Just build an x86_64 desktop like a normal person. You'll even be able to add storage to it as you need, something you can't do on macOS.
atty 5y ago
Does planner have native apps on iOS/iPad that it syncs with? If it does, I can’t find it in the App Store currently.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  It does. They're called "Todoist"
  - atty 5y ago
    Ahh very cool, may have to check it out, thanks.

rvz 5y ago

> At the end of the day, my goal in life is to make a difference, and also have a bit of fun. I want a system that is out of my way and lets me focus on that. For me, in 2022, that system is a Mac. TL;DR: Another very happy Apple customer. It seems that they are not looking back at the Linux Desktop. What can the Linux Desktop ecosystem learn from this?

freefaler 5y ago
Sadly paying salaries to people to improve an OS with even average designers and project managers will in time produce better results for a Desktop experience. Economic incentives can't be beaten in this case. Open source works great for developer tools and things that developers use, but for "consumer-grade" products I haven't seen a scalable business model.
TobyTheDog123 5y ago
That user (and developer) experience will always reign supreme. That you can have the most open source, extensible, low-to-no-cost, powerful operating system, and still lose out to a UI/UX that appeals to and is accessible to someone who doesn't know what an Ubuntu is, never mind how to install it. Apple took it one step further by not only providing this UI/UX to the "what's a driver" crowd, but also to developers. For developers, they get enough nonsense over the course of their day from npm version conflicts, build failures from compiling on unsupported architecture, and trying to figure out why their k8s pods are crash looping. To then add on more headache from trying to develop and compile with Ubuntu outside of the described use cases? No thanks. OSX (in most cases) just works: most developer tools provide a dedicated OSX package, you get the UIX benefits inherited from the "what's javascript" customers, and the hardware-software integration makes things consistently smooth. Unless one of the big linux distros finds the money to make the experience more appealing for the "Java? Like coffee?" userbase, this will continue to be the case.
Nextgrid 5y ago
> What can the Linux Desktop ecosystem learn from this? Usability and functionality trumps ideology. The Linux world has spent (and is still spending) insane amounts of time & effort on ideological battles such as software freedom or the endless arguments against systemd while commercial OSes put that time towards actual functionality and end up ahead most of the time. I don't care how "free" your thing is, none of that freedom is useful if I can't use the thing because it just can't do what I need it to do.

goosedragons 5y ago

For me personally I found macOS got more in the way than out. Besides being easier to install MS Office on it seemed like every few months I'd encounter some speed bump caused by Apple and I'd have to find a workaround. Plus it just really sucks at window management and you're stuck with the macOS UI and whatever tweaks (usually paid) apps can do. For my workflow it just didn't work. I was also extremely annoyed at the lack of upgradable storage as my needs quickly outgrew the pitiful base storage. I gave up and switched to an older thinkpad that runs Linux natively and I now have 4 times the storage of the MacBook for peanuts and can easily add more for cheap. Slightly slower but feels much faster than macOS due to linux being much lighter.

alphabettsy 5y ago
> every few months I'd encounter some speed bump caused by Apple and I'd have to find a workaround > switched to an older thinkpad that runs Linux natively The idea of using an older Thinkpad with Linux having fewer “speed bumps” than any Mac seems hard to imagine based on my own experience. Guess it depends on what you use a computer for.
- marssaxman 5y ago
  That was my experience. I never consciously switched; I just realized, one day, that I had stopped bothering to use my Mac in favor of my Linux-based, second-hand Thinkpad. MacOS used to be my home, but over time it steadily felt more like Apple's home, in which I was only welcome if I did things their way. Linux offers its own frustrations, but at least it's my machine.
  - alphabettsy 5y ago
    Sure but that’s a completely different argument. I don’t think anyone would argue that Linux is not more customizable or does not give you more options.
    - goosedragons 5y ago

jdrc 5y ago

Linux desktop is a very low bar to clear for nearly everything

number6 5y ago
Yes. It's only undermatched by the windows desktop. Who has a file manager that's also the window manager ah and the shell...
- Kwpolska 5y ago
  Explorer isn’t the window manager. And does it really matter it’s serving as the shell? What technical benefits would a split bring?
  - number6 5y ago
    Right, they changed that 15 years ago. Splitting would make them more interchangeable and stable - crashing one part does not tears the whole stack down. What is the benefit of putting all the different functionality in one application?
    - awilfox 5y ago
      Explorer was never the WM; you could kill explorer.exe off in both 9x and NT systems without affecting window management. I don't remember how it worked in 9x, but NT used CSRSS.EXE for window management until NT 4 moved GDI into the kernel. DWM handles it in Vista and newer.
- jdrc 5y ago
  Windows is vastly superior
  - slater 5y ago
    [citation needed]

koprulusector 5y ago

I’ll keep my tiling window manager and keyboard driven workflow, along with the ability to sudo to root and modify my system as I please, rather than banging my head against the wall because Apple has literally locked me out of parts of my own file system, or have some obscure launcher/service management that’s poorly documented. Or the fact that servers all run Linux and apples non-posix, slightly different, proprietary tooling is just subtly different enough to make it a huge pain in the ass when you run a command to deploy something and it’s botched by a subtle difference like slightly different flags/behavior. Sounds like Mac is great for blogging, happy to hear it; as long as I’m doing software development, deployments, etc, I’ll stick with Linux.

Otek 5y ago
With yabai I have tiling window manager on MacOS and 100% keyboard driven development, like I would have on i3. It’s more difficult to setup than on Linux but I had too much drivers-related problems with Linux (Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi mostly) to run it daily. Also homebrew seems to be better than any package manager on Linux. Maybe pacman is good enough.
andyfleming 5y ago
I’ve never understood the window tiling complaint. While MacOS doesn’t have tiling built in, it’s readily available for free. Are there features that aren’t available in those applications?
- sph 5y ago
  macOS window management is incredibly worse than the other two operating system, and that's if you use Spectacle and other helper tools. Without them, it's even worse. I loved my time with macOS but window management was definitely the worst thing about the OS for me.
  - brailsafe 5y ago
    Ya but... how could those differences be so impactful? I tile my windows occasionally, it's handy, but I can't imagine that being my single issue vote.

loloquwowndueo 5y ago

“Platform A has these features I find convenient therefore I migrated from platform B which doesn’t have them”. That’s all this article is. Platform B might as well have been windows. I’m not sure why everyone is reading it as a dismissal of desktop Linux as a concept. I tried a Mac for a while, found it too restrictive, moved back to Linux on the desktop - doesn’t mean the Mac sucks or anything, just wasn’t right for me.

gurjeet 5y ago
I bet Linux, whatever distro you use, wasn’t right for you to begin with; but you made it yours by tweaking it to your liking. Trust me, you can tweak macOS to your liking, as well. I used to be a Linux lover, but after trying for almost a decade, for my desktop needs, I’ve given up on Linux, and adopted macOS. macOS is a POSIX environment, and you have almost the whole GNU ecosystem available to you, if you want.
- loloquwowndueo 5y ago
  Well- one of my main gripes was that I had to spend a lot of time and work getting macOS to behave like Linux did - so at some point I decided to stop wasting my time and use the real thing :) so “whatever distro you use, wasn’t right for you to begin with; but you made it yours by tweaking it to your liking.” You’re not entirely wrong but it was far less painful than tweaking macOS. “ you can tweak macOS to your liking” - see above. “ you have almost the whole GNU ecosystem available to you” yeah I tried the whole ports / fink thing and it was too much work vs. the equivalent on any Linux distribution (no extra work at all).
  - ricardobeat 5y ago
    Homebrew is a much more reliable package manager than macports. Trying to make OSX into Linux might have been the problem there, it’s just a little different in many aspects. What kind of tools did you miss?
  - bastardoperator 5y ago

2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago

They left Linux because they want stability and portability so they jumped to macOS? I don't understand. Also: I just punched directions into GNOME Maps and it worked flawlessly and cast my entire desktop to my Shield TV via Chrome browser.

chrisseaton 5y ago
> They left Linux because they want stability and portability so they jumped to macOS? I don't understand. Which bit don’t you understand? macOS is stable with fantastic professional QA and support, and it lets you run more cross-platform ported software than Linux does.
- sofixa 5y ago
  > and it lets you run more cross-platform ported software than Linux does That's a stretch and i find it unlikely, but it's not like we have numbers. However, macOS makes it hard to run random software ( like a utility from GitHub) with their code signing "security" stuff ( working around it is anything but intuitive).
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    Can you list many major applications available on Windows and on Linux, but not macOS? The other way around you have major industry applications like Photoshop, Illustrator, Premier, Office, Ableton, AutoCAD, etc.
    - awilfox 5y ago
      One of my friends reminded me of CrossOver, which has eliminated that last small gap. And it is nice to finally be able to give back to the WINE community after using it for so long – I think my first use of WINE was Red Hat 9 in 2002. The only one I can think of that isn't a total niche is SQL Server. Siemens NX dropped Mac support a while ago, but the Linux version is CLI-only. There are some more niche software (PaintShop Pro, A&B, Pro Motion NG) that suggest WINE for Linux users but I don't know how much that counts.

_8j50 5y ago

I have found time to be the biggest factor. I use to have hours every day to tinker with Linux, I enjoy the tinkering personally and I can endure the lack of features. But at some point I began spending more than 8h on average on my work and really needed a break each day to not get burned out and take care of *health,on top of which I have a backlog of things to study up on for $work, any platform (including windows) that gets out of my way is welcome. Not FOSS in general, but specifically the Linux desktop ecosystem is very chaotic. There is this rush to get a close-enough adoptation of features from other desktops which in itself adds chaos. I did learn a lot from dealing with the chaos but even when I had free time, practical things like editing government forms or sending a resume in a specific format (converting botches the formatting) made me almost pull my hair out. Unpopular opinion: Linux desktops needs to be proprietary software friendly. As in accept blob installers that can install desktop applications that work well on any major DE and without consideration for package managers. Paid apps should also be a thing on Linux.

vladvasiliu 5y ago
> Unpopular opinion: Linux desktops needs to be proprietary software friendly. As in accept blob installers that can install desktop applications that work well on any major DE and without consideration for package managers. Paid apps should also be a thing on Linux. Isn't this already the case? I'm running Spotify and Steam games with no issues here. While I agree with your greater point that a system that gets out of your way is nice, I always find myself swearing when using Windows and trying to bend macOS to do things the way I want. In the end I just gave up and went back to Linux on a "basic" PC (no Nvidia or multiple GPUs on my laptop). The two major things I miss are HD streaming on PrimeVideo and Photoshop, both of which work well on Windows and macOS. For the former I bought I firetv stick and for the latter, I dual boot (I only need it occasionally).
- _8j50 5y ago
  They have to do a lot of work coming up with custom installers or packages for distros. If you have gentoo+kde for example you can't just download a blob, open it and just have it work. It depends on what you are doing I guess. I remember getting frustrated at windows too. Linux is the best at being configurable and controllable from an administrative workload perspective but not from a productivity or entertainment application UX.

Tehchops 5y ago

I'm honestly torn. I was a big Linux proponent for a while, then Apple won me over with Macs for a time. They did "just work" for my day-to-day(DevOps). However, last spring, I bought a new personal system for freelance work/side projects, and have been running Ubuntu as my daily driver. Funny enough, it seems like during that same period the my UX on my work-supplied Mac(2019-era MBP) has been steadily declining. I've been dealing with maddening slowdowns and numerous bluetooth issues(with Airpods no less!). Conversely, I find working on the Ubuntu machine much more enjoyable, and I'm exploring the option of getting a Linux machine supplied by work as well. I'll caveat by saying it took some time to hone in on solid configurations, tweaks, and a good DE/WM(i3wm), but I gotta say Linux is winning me back over. All that being said, I'm not deluded enough to think Linux(in its current state) is ever going to make inroads with Apple's consumer/pro-sumer userbase. It's still very much an enthusiast option in my mind.

SuperSandro2000 5y ago
Mac's aren't even that great for DevOps. You get horrible out of date GNU things like bash 3 and are almost forced to upgrade and install a lot of stuff via brew at which point you also could have installed a Linux.
Nextgrid 5y ago
The new AirPods-related bullshit that broke existing functionality pushed me to switch to Linux for day to day work. It's a downgrade in certain ways, but at least I can actually join calls reliably.

nmstoker 5y ago

All seems sensible stuff, the "it just works" can't be overstated. But the Apple Maps point felt like a stretch - Google Maps is available everywhere. I don't see much to suggest you'd need it as an app, it works great in the browser with hardware accelerated graphics, which it has had for 10+ years.

awilfox 5y ago
I've never had hardware accelerated graphics work correctly, and I don't want to have to use the Google ecosystem – that's an article for another day, probably. When I was "all-in" on the libre ecosystem, I used a ThinkPad for laptop and Talos for desktop. The ThinkPad had just the Intel iGPU that didn't work right in Firefox, and the Talos had blue lines through everything in OSM because "lol x86 monoculture" meant Firefox's Layers didn't work right on Power. I had graphics acceleration working in raw Mesa, so if there was a native app, it would have Just Worked – probably on both systems.
- sph 5y ago
  When did you last use Linux? Because hardware acceleration has been working and default in Firefox for a while, except on NVIDIA, and video acceleration (not required for Google Maps) needed manual tweaking the Firefox config but has been available as well for a while. The Linux desktop moves at incredible pace. The experience I had 2 years ago was more crude than my desktop in 2022.
  - awilfox 5y ago
    February 2021 as a daily-driver; I still have a VM to this day.

vbezhenar 5y ago

I’m a bit disappointed by current macOS state. Xcode breaks console: even man man starts throwing some warnings. softwareupdate —-install-rosetta reports success with error and doesn’t actually installs anything. Xcode still requires Rosetta. I unpacked JDK and every console command fails because macOS doesn’t trust it yada yada. I have to go to settings and allow every binary. And I need 4 JDKs… After compiling go helloworld first launch takes like second. It seems to check notatization of my hello world. So much for M1 speed. After boot Spotlight hammers CPU for 3-5 minutes. So much for battery life. It’s a mess for development. Nothing unsolvable but definitely worse than it was 7 years ago.

awilfox 5y ago
That's interesting. Xcode didn't require Rosetta for me. I also didn't have any issues installing Rosetta when I finally did need the functionality. Was this when the M1 was first released? I didn't have an M1 until August 2021.
- vbezhenar 5y ago
  It was few days ago on latest versions and M1 MacBook.

atty 5y ago

I see some people in the comments saying they strongly prefer Linux desktop to Mac/Windows. If you are one of those people, I am curious - are you comfortable changing system configurations, using the terminal, updating system software by hand, etc? Because I quite enjoy playing around with Linux on the desktop, but I would never suggest it to anyone who isn’t already familiar and enjoys that sort of stuff.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
goldorak 5y ago
For me yes, It's really convenient and easy to manage (specially between multiple targets, git integration...) For my parents and family, well they just don't usually change anything so for me it's win-win situation.

dopeboy 5y ago

Ubuntu user since the 5.04 days. The vertical integration the apple ecosystem offers is incredible and not something linux can ever compete with. I see my fiancee use her iphone with her apple tv and her mac - everything connects together, seamlessly. There are walled garden elements to it but look, I'm done fighting the FOSS fight I waged in my late teens and early 20s. I got work to do, my life to live, etc. My advice to the Ubuntu, Fedora, etc teams: focus ruthlessly on creating a smooth experience for the office/enterprise clientele who mostly use a narrow set of hardware (thinkpads x/t, dell inspirons, etc). Get this to a place where everything just works and lobby partners when it doesn't. Example from two days ago: shared my screen on zoom, clicked to stop screen sharing and the UI on my side didn't update. So another attendee went to share their screen and I couldn't see it - I had to rejoin. Worst still, that happens intermittently. That said, I'm personally bearish on this ever happening against a much more well funded incumbent that is now producing ground breaking hardware with the M1s, etc.

LeFantome 5y ago
I am not arguing really. I think you are mostly right. That said, I use Zoom daily on Manjaro and have not had that happen. It happened to me just last week on my iPhone though. While I love Airplay, I use Plex to stream media not only to my iPhone and the Apple TV downstairs but also to my Roku, my LG TV, an Amazon Fire stick, and my son’s Android tablet. Even after buying expensive apps, I could never get AirPlay working on the Fire stick or the LG TV ( the places my wife wants to watch ).
- awilfox 5y ago
  I found Jellyfin to be a great media server. Its client is so nice and works on Roku. Not sure about LG TVs. It's libre and .NET so it runs anywhere – including my Mac server :)
dhzhzjsbevs 5y ago
Email zoom your info. They have excellent Linux support and staff work to resolve issues quickly.
5y ago

vehemenz 5y ago

About the final point—are Macs really "high cost"? Looking at their current lineup, configured with a minimum of 16GB and 512GB: M1 Mac Mini .......... $1099 M1 MacBook Air ....... $1399 M1 iMac ......,....... $1699 M1 Pro Mac Studio .... $1999 M1 Pro MacBook Pro 14" $1999 M1 Pro MacBook Pro 16" $2499 I'll restrain myself from listing the ways comparing Macs to PCs is not apples to apples. Unless you go for costly storage upgrades (which I agree are overpriced), all of these prices are pretty reasonable for a 4-year ownership period. Considering Macs are typically owned longer than PCs, I don't see how anyone that can afford comparable PCs or UltraBooks would be priced out of Apple products.

awilfox 5y ago
My concern with the Mac mini in particular is that then you need a display, and honestly, having an LG Ultrafine 4K hooked up to my Mac Studio, you really need a 5K display to get the most out of a Mac. I think 1440p displays work well too, or at least they did back in 2014 when I was using Macs, but I didn't see any for sale when I was shopping for an interim while I wait three months for the Studio Display to ship.
- Tagbert 5y ago
  It depends on what your needs are for a monitor. If you are used to 5K 2xRetina then 4K will be a little off. I am currently using a 27” 4K display scaled to 1440p. It is not quite as sharp as a true 5K display but it works well enough. Until recently the only 5K monitor was a pretty weak LG. The new Apple Studio display does finally bring out a desirable monitor but I’m not ready to spend that much for a personal display. Stay away from an old 2K 1440p at this point. Since Apple removed the old sub pixel rendering, those 1440p panels look too soft anymore. The 4K scaled 1440p looks much sharper than those.
  - awilfox 5y ago
    Yeah, I'm pretty happy with the 4K scaled to 1440p as well. Scaled to 1080p looked so crisp and well-rendered I could cry, but the UI elements were far too big. My main use case for the Mac Studio is photography and video editing, so an Apple Studio display is definitely on my wish list.

cirrus3 5y ago

Pop_- 5y ago

To my experience, it’s the integrated OCR that really pleased me as a new mac user come from linux. I basically get to treat images with text like normal paragraph. And it just get my daily work done without any issue.

perfopt 5y ago

My experience with Macs has been good in most aspects except one. In the years I used a Mac I stopped tinkering and OS/systems related hobby projects. I continued to use Linux at work. I recently set up a home firewall with OpenBSD and have an itch to assemble a desktop exclusively for *BSD and Linux. If only hardware prices were not so high...

wink 5y ago

Fascinating, I've never heard of this universal clipboard and I'd absolutely hate it. Guess I'm one of those anti-mobile curmudgeons because I see how it could help with what the author described, but for the 1 thing per week I share between my mobile and computers there are 'safer' ways that won't leak everything everywhere else. Maybe people are different (as I usually note when I say that I hate the 'close lid for sleep' on laptops and go out of my way to disable that) :P

8fingerlouie 5y ago

As someone who exclusively used Linux desktops since the early Gnome 1.x days, who migrated to MacOS around 2005, the major selling point of MacOS is "it just works". Your experience may differ if you're not "all in" on the Apple ecosystem, but using mostly/only Apple devices means that everything integrates, and integrates well. You may recreate a similar experience with Android and KDE (or Windows i guess), but it feels much more "tacked on" than in MacOS where it just works out of the box. I also mostly use "stock apps" which may or may not improve my experience. Instead of trying to force MacOS to fit my workflow, i fit my workflow to the tools available, and it has rewarded me well. I still keep a VM with Gnome (Debian 11) running every now and then, but it's mostly just for fun.

smoldesu 5y ago
> Your experience may differ if you're not "all in" on the Apple ecosystem This is something that frustrates me, and it's one of the reasons I'll never go "all in" on the Apple ecosystem. It's tantamount to John Deere designing special cupholders in their tractors that cost $150, lest you risk your drink tipping over. I'm not paying more money to a company that actively wants to price me out of new experiences. I think Snow Leopard to Mojave was a really good time to own a Mac; generally speaking, the software and hardware experiences complimented one another. Nowadays, Apple is a hardware company that sells software products, and Tim Cook is doing everything he can to continue driving up the marginal utility they capitalize on. It's an absurd business, I refuse to support it.