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I feel like I may be the only developer that prefers Windows to MacOs. I really, really just do not get the "Mac Experience". It feels so clunky and counter int

I feel like I may be the only developer that prefers Windows to MacOs. I really, really just do not get the "Mac Experience". It feels so clunky and counter intuitive. - Why does the alt tab equivalent cycle through applications first, and I need another shortcut to cycle through the windows of that application? When I have an IDE with 5x instances, hosting different projects, it's a pain switching back to the project I want from another application - I attach a non Mac external monitor to a new MacBook Pro from work and the text is super blurry. Much googling later and I need to use something called Better Display to create a virtual display, and project that to my monitor. It's so confusing and sometimes break when I wake up from sleep and need to configure it again. - Why is there 2 modes of "full-size" windows? Regular style "fill the window", then another wierd one that sort of takes over the whole screen - Why does finder sometimes open in a sub folder as the "top level", then it's a total pain to move up to where you want. - Why are 3rd party applications distributed as Disk Images? Then some as package installers? It's weird and nonsensical. Mac hardware feels great, but I just cannot understand why it's the preferred developer platform.

Tao3300 4y ago
Finder sucks so much.
tourincomplete 4y ago
I just switched to Mac for work, and the app/window switching experience has been frustrating me so much I sent this to my coworkers: ——— Going from fullscreen App A to App B back to fullscreen App A: Brain on Windows: 1. Alt-tab -> App A 2. Alt-tab -> fullscreen App B Brain on Mac: 1. Cmd-tab -> App A 2. Cmd-tab -> Random App C 3. Cmd-tab -> back to App A 4. Cmd-tab -> other App B window you weren't looking for 5. Cmd-` App B windows a few times, nope not here either 6. Triple finger salute -> fullscreen App B Why. Why?
nordsieck 4y ago
> Why are 3rd party applications distributed as Disk Images? Then some as package installers? It's weird and nonsensical. Maybe you use a lot of paid software? I just use homebrew for everything, and it just works(tm) 98% of the time. Which is way better than my experience with Windows. I tried using a variety of Nanite, Chocolatey, etc. And none of it seems particularly mature. > Mac hardware feels great, but I just cannot understand why it's the preferred developer platform. In my experience, Windows is developer hostile if you aren't using Visual Studio. Almost everything is deployed to Linux, and OS X is close enough that most stuff just works, but the drivers and UI are also completely dependable.
- vips7L 4y ago
  Scoop on windows just works for me as a package manager.
runjake 4y ago
> I just cannot understand why… Because it’s natively UNIX-based and this well-supported by the tooling. Sure, Windows has WSL and it’s great and it’s gaining developers but IMHO it isn’t quite there yet. And it’s really important to acknowledge that there are a metric crapload of real world devs on Windows. I wouldn’t be surprised if the vast majority of programmers were on Windows.
- krzyk 4y ago
  So why not Linux? It is more Unix than macos, and is for power users unlike macos which tries to hide all the advanced options.
awinder 4y ago
“Why are 3rd party applications distributed as Disk Images? Then some as package installers? It's weird and nonsensical.” How many different bespoke ways of installing windows applications are there again? Is it even countable? Is installshield beloved by anyone untainted by just dealing with it for decades?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
guessbest 4y ago
Other than the taskbar from Win95-XP, I find everything that MacOS does more convenient and easier to use. The Disk Images are an especially well done considering that it is a less limiting form of read only ISO disk image. Also, find is better in most respects to base windows explorer, with the except of sorting directories before files and multi-select through the gui.
deergomoo 4y ago
> Why does the alt tab equivalent cycle through applications first I've always preferred this to Windows' approach; as soon as I have more than dozen open windows I find it very difficult to find what I need on Windows, whereas with macOS there's an extra layer of hierarchy to speed up the search. They really could add it as an option though, you shouldn't need a third-party app for this. > I attach a non Mac external monitor to a new MacBook Pro from work and the text is super blurry No idea what the virtual display thing is, and the issue may be the EDID thing that another commenter mentioned, but macOS' handling of "non-retina" screen resolution is absolute ass since they removed subpixel antialiasing a few versions back. You can still disable the gross "font smoothing" via a terminal command which helps a little, but since subpixel AA was removed, text on "low resolution" displays -- i.e. sub 150ppi -- looks like shit compared to Windows. Compared with the rather primitive way macOS handles UI scaling, the almost total lack of available > 4K displays for > 21.5" screen sizes to suit said scaling, and the fact that a good number of their most popular computers still ship with a non-integer scaling mode by default, getting an optimal image from a Mac is far more difficult than it should be. I know it's all good enough that most people don't care, but this is supposed to be the company where "good enough" isn't enough. > Why is there 2 modes of "full-size" windows? Regular style "fill the window", then another wierd one that sort of takes over the whole screen The "take-over" one was added during the peak of the iPhone and iPad exploding in popularity, when Apple was copying many iOS features back to the Mac. I don't begrudge it being there (my wife uses it almost exclusively for some reason), but I do wish I could switch the default behavior. I strongly dislike the notion that windows should be full-screen unless sharing with another app -- I prefer windows to be the size of their content, which is what the green button on macOS used to do (and still does, if you Option-click it). Windows makes this annoyingly difficult, though the new expanded snapping options in Windows 11 are very nice. > Why does finder sometimes open in a sub folder as the "top level", then it's a total pain to move up to where you want I've always found Finder to be the worst part of the Mac. Who knows why it does what it does. What determines the default window size? Why is it always far too small? We may never know. > Why are 3rd party applications distributed as Disk Images? Then some as package installers? It's weird and nonsensical. .app bundles are actually directories with metadata to make macOS treat them like files, so they can't be shared as-is. Sometimes you get them in plain zips, but I think the .dmg thing is a holdover from classic Mac OS. .pkg installers are usually used when the app needs to install extra stuff outside its bundle -- just like how sometimes Windows programs are an .exe and sometimes they're an .msi. I love macOS as a platform, but I completely agree with everything the person is saying in the linked Twitter thread. No-one at Apple seems to be equipped to steward the platform anymore, so the software decays even while the hardware is going through a renaissance. Unfortunately, the investment that is being put into it is largely to give application parity with new features they add to iOS. Things are superficially changed every year (often for the worse), but the actual base OS doesn't seem to be getting much in the way of features or improvements. Why do I need a third-party app to get reasonable window management? Why do I need two third-party apps to make a mouse usable (one to make the side buttons work, another to fix the scroll momentum and have a separate scroll direction to the trackpad)? Why do I need a third-party app to get a calendar in the menu bar? Why do I still get yelled at for yanking an idle USB stick without ejecting it first? That turned into for more of a rant than I intended.
vikingerik 4y ago
FYI for anyone who doesn't know: that other shortcut is Command+` to cycle between windows of one application. It's totally nondiscoverable (I read about it here), but once I learned that, it felt amazingly intuitive to separate the concerns of application-switching and window-switching. And Command+` works consistently on MacOS, unlike on Windows where every app reimplements its own multiple-document interface and so Ctrl-Tab hardly ever works.
- kitsunesoba 4y ago
  Separate management of applications and windows is a powerful and underrated tool in my opinion. Once you become accustomed to it, the Windows style of a big vat of random windows feels like a chaotic mess in comparison.
- bobviolier 4y ago
  Yeah agree here. It makes sense to have a shortcut to only cycle over the windows of the same app. In the example where you have 5 windows in an editor.. how nice that you can only cycle over those instead of also the other 20 windows you have open
- queuebert 4y ago
  It's right next to tab on most keyboards, so I would call that discoverable.
  - mrcarrot 4y ago
    Only if you're using a US keyboard layout.
- kemayo 4y ago
  If you're looking for another not-very-discoverable shortcut that's quite useful... press Command-Tab until you get to the application you want, then without releasing it press up (or down). You'll get the exposé view for the selected application's windows. While that's open you can arrow between them to select the one you want or type to select by window name.
- 4y ago
theonemind 4y ago
Mac has weak multi-tasking and window management UI. The Dock also sucks: https://www.asktog.com/columns/044top10docksucks.html https://www.asktog.com/columns/044top10docksucks.html . Strengths: 1. Really nice trackpad. It tracks smoothly. Really well integrated trackpad gestures. It makes a difference. 2. It is literally UNIX 3. Native-app developers that care (eroding year-by-year, but software companies like Panic, Omni, BareBones make first-class software that belongs on the platform). (Windows certainly has more apps, and probably more high quality apps by volume, but Mac apps tend a bit more toward high-quality-density in a more limited application pool) 4. Drivers. I swear, I get laptops from manufacturers with bad Windows installs, glitchy drivers, poor configuration, etc. I also hate cleaning crapware off of new machines and fresh installing OSes. 5. Lack of options. Few people explicitly value this, and sometimes, the Mac way is dumb, but since it's often the Mac way or the highway, it takes some cognitive overhead out of computing. Overall, I find the Mac less of a hassle. Most things are pretty good, and you mostly can't fiddle with them too much, so you get the strength of that on the whole, not in one particular dazzling thing (except the trackpad.) Garbage window management and multi-tasking indisputable, though.
- bradleyjg 4y ago
  I’ve used dos, windows, linux, and mac. I appreciate the fact that macs are not very tweakable. I won’t speak for others but for me endless customization of everything supposedly for optimization was just another form of procrastination. I also appreciate that it mostly either works or it doesn’t. Either it’s broken and I need to swap it for a refurb or it works. Not much staying up late reading obscure stack overflow posts (in the old days webforums, in the old old days newsgroups) and trying this one more thing to fix the problem de jure.
jononomo 4y ago
This is the least relatable comment I have ever read on Hacker News. When I switched to a Mac from a Windows machine it was like switching from living in a van to living in a luxury condo. I will never go back.
ris58h 4y ago
If you need Windows like alt tab, check out https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/ https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/ It's free and open-source https://github.com/lwouis/alt-tab-macos https://github.com/lwouis/alt-tab-macos
- smeagull 4y ago
  Yup, and it breaks for certain applications like Chrome or Terminal when they are launched after it. The Alt-Tab just ignores that they exist. Macs fucking suck.
sodapopcan 4y ago
I'm not one to defend the "mac experience" but some of the stuff you mention I actually really like, namely like the separate key-combo for switching between app windows and the two modes of full screen (although I never use full-full screen anymore). Finder is definitely not great. It's improved over the years which is kind of sad as it's not a whole lot better. You still can't cmd+x a file to move it to another location. I'm not sure when it happened (probably a while ago) but you can actually rename files in open dialogs now! I didn't notice when it happened because I gave up trying many years ago. Anyway, I like macos as it gives me a linux-esque command-line experience out of the box without having dive into managing a Linux installs (although that's probably not as big a deal as I think it is), because the hardware is nice, and otherwise because it's just what I'm used to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ For non-developer reasons, Logic, even though not the best, is so insanely cheap for what you get, and as a light gamer, Minecraft runs decently well on my Mac Mini.
- kitsunesoba 4y ago
  You can cut and paste files in Finder, it’s just a decision that’s made on the “paste” side of the process instead of the “cut” side. Copy as usual with Command-C, then at your destination move the file with Command-Option-V. This allows you to change your mind about whether you want the file to be duplicated or moved without having to first navigate back to the source and perform an additional action.
  - sodapopcan 4y ago
    Oh cool! I never knew that. How long has that been a thing? In a way I actually like this better as in Windows I used to cut and every-so often I'd blow out my clipboard somehow (at least, I have memories of that... it was like 20 years ago).
    - kitsunesoba 4y ago
      Based on an archive.org snapshot[0] of an Apple support page[1], the move shortcut has been in place since at least 2015. And yeah, the Mac way makes more sense to me too. It's a lot less likely for Command-Option-V to be fat-fingered than both Ctrl-X and Ctrl-V. Shortcuts like this are all over the place in macOS, and have been for decades. They're usually discoverable by glancing through menus while holding down various modifier keys. [0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20151128115451/https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236 https://web.archive.org/web/20151128115451/https://support.a... [1]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236
jononomo 4y ago
So you just put up with a crappy trackpad?
amelius 4y ago
Also: why is there a traffic light in the top of every window?
mattlondon 4y ago
Couldn't agree more. The UI is MacOS is actively anti-user in my opinion. E.g. menus that are not attached to the window, a task bar that hides the open windows, maximise that doesn't, "natural scrolling" that is unnatural if you use a mouse, no proper window snapping and layouting etc. The only thing going for MacOS is the linux-like terminal. Now that Windows has that too (WSL) I see no advantage. However, the hardware is nice. Way nicer than any windows dell or Asus or whatever I've had.
zamalek 4y ago
I'm with you here. I've been using a Mac at my new job since November. I fucking hate it. I have burned so much time on stuff not working, and it's not just me - others seem to just accept and forget it. One great example of this is the recent bout of zero days: forty five minutes for a minor release update? How on earth does anyone think that's acceptable? I'm no longer a fan of Windows, having moved along to Linux on my personal machine, but both Windows and Linux are in a completely different universe to MacOS when it comes to bare minimum competency.
- yurishimo 4y ago
  Can you outline some other problems you have lost time to besides a software update? I agree that they’re pretty long too, but if that’s your only complaint it’s a bit moot since every OS provides a mechanism for installing updates during off hours.
  - zamalek 4y ago
    Notwithstanding that you don't leave a zero day unpatched til after hours, some other time sinks: * M1 compatability issues. * Problems surrounding containers. Yes, I have used Rancher Desktop, yes I have used Colima. Neither is a first-class citizen. (As-per usual with Mac dev tools). * Dual monitor. * External keyboards, keyboard shortcuts, and customizations.
wruza 4y ago
I feel like I may be the only developer that prefers Windows to MacOs No, I’m also using windows, having many years experience with all of the mainstream OSes. Mac hardware feels great Does it?? Maybe, if you cover the price with your hand and close browser tabs with same-price pc configurations. Also their aluminium edges are pretty sharp, I can remember few times when I damaged that thing around my fingernails with display or keyboard edges.
throwaways85989 4y ago
I have thick fingers (physical labor produces those) and the mac short-cuts are really not made for guys like me. Yes, i can change that. But still.
danbolt 4y ago
> Why does the alt tab equivalent cycle through applications first, and I need another shortcut to cycle through the windows of that application? When I have an IDE with 5x instances, hosting different projects, it's a pain switching back to the project I want from another application. I find your feelings really interesting here. Or, I grew up with Windows, but realizing that on Mac OS X was an "a-ha! brilliant!" moment for me. I really loved that it was available on Pop!_OS.
tailspin2019 4y ago
You won’t convince me to switch back to windows in a hurry, but I agree with all of your points entirely. (Aside from the monitor issue - not sure what that’s all about!) macOS could do with some work on window management and I’m not convinced that what’s coming in Ventura is what we actually needed.
smeagull 4y ago
I agree actually. I'm primarily a Linux developer, but am now forced on to an M1 mac for work, and it's hot garbage. They force their own half-assed unsupported ways of doing things and break the standards that work on both Windows and Linux. The state of gaming is actually worse than on Linux.
grapeskin 4y ago
1 is preference. 2 is something I haven’t experienced. I guess maybe you’re using low resolution monitors? I find Windows to be incredibly blurry or text painfully sharp. 3 is something where I think the Mac mindset is to not really use full screen windows. I personally always have part of my desktop visible and most Mac users I’ve seen in the wild seem to do the same. Probably a consequence of the drag and drop mindset (which Windows is painful to use due to it doing the opposite of MacOS when it comes to drag and drop) Enable the file path setting in your finder options. Super easy to navigate up then. Disk images are nice in that usually they contain a drag and drop application install process, while windows often has some messy installer that leaves a trail of shit in its wake that’s sometimes impossible to fully remove when you’re trying to uninstall the program. But… I think a zip file would do all a disk image could and make more sense to people. Sometimes I do encounter zips, though.
- lastangryman 4y ago
  Of course, it's all preference, I'm not making a case to say it's objectively bad, just I find it inferior. The monitor is a ultrawide LG that works perfectly on windows. A Google for "blurry text external monitor MacBook Pro" turns up many people with the same issue (edit: it's a 1440p monitor) Thanks for the finder tip, that will help.
  - frou_dh 4y ago
    > I'm not making a case to say it's objectively bad, just I find it inferior. That's good, because usually in this kind of debate there's an undercurrent of "I've been using X for decades (and so know it inside out). When I try Y, anything that differs from X is objectively wrong"
    - account-5 4y ago
      Which is generally all the Mac os just works statements are in my experience.
  - Darthy 4y ago
    Maybe you're refering to subpixel rendering, which Windows still has, but has ben phased out on Mac with the introduction of retina displays? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering#OS_X https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering#OS_X
derefr 4y ago
> I attach a non Mac external monitor to a new MacBook Pro from work and the text is super blurry. Much googling later and I need to use something called Better Display to create a virtual display, and project that to my monitor That’s not the correct solution. The correct solution is for the monitor manufacturer to stop reporting an EDID that identifies their monitor as a TV (and thereby forces the OS to default to YUV rather than SRGB.) macOS here is just following the EDID spec to the letter. (Linux does too, as it happens.) Windows is the one “doing it wrong” (i.e. not to spec), by falling back to SRGB whenever it’s unsure, rather than falling back to YUV. This results in a lot of TVs being unhappy (no signal) when plugged into Windows PCs, but working fine under macOS / Linux.
- _chu1 4y ago
  [flagged]
- vladvasiliu 4y ago
  > That’s not the correct solution. The correct solution is for the monitor manufacturer to stop reporting an EDID that identifies their monitor as a TV (and thereby forces the OS to default to YUV rather than SRGB.) Is this an EDID issue? OP didn't specify what the "non Mac monitor" is, but I'd expect it to be a lower DPI one. I get the blurry text on an Apple Thunderbolt Display, too. I think this is related to the removal of sub-pixel antialiasing in Mac OS a few versions back.
- wruza 4y ago
  I just stopped reporting edid on my display and wow it looks so great now, thanks!
- CaptainZapp 4y ago
  As a person, who just wants to use that damn thing your reply sounds a bit like: "You're holding it wrong"
- sdflhasjd 4y ago
  It could just be macOs's staggeringly bad text rendering on low dpi displays. I believe that subpixel font rendering being removed several years ago is the cause.
poloniculmov 4y ago
I have to use a Mac for work, after not really touching the Apple ecosystem. I was amazed that every other dev I talked with had a list of tiny apps that you need to install in order to have a nice experience. On the latest versions of Windows, things just work (or I'm very good at fixing my annoyances).
- faebi 4y ago
  Have you edited a PDF recently
skneko 4y ago
Don't worry I'm European and 90% of developers I know think exactly like you (and me). It's just that the HN crowd is typically North American, and people tend to like what they have grown with.
- jononomo 4y ago
  All the European developers I worked with in Berlin used Macs. I can understand using Linux, but using Windows as a web developer just doesn't make sense because all of the tutorials and stack overflow discussions and forum discussions will assume you're using a Unix shell.
- dagmx 4y ago
  This is such an odd extrapolation. You can see tons of Macs or Linux in use in Europe, at conventions , in lots of dev communities, in design studios. I suspect you’re in a self selected bubble. Which you sort of allude to by saying “developers you know”, but I don’t see how that extrapolates to the continent as a whole.
- timeon 4y ago
  > people tend to like what they have grown with That is why parent post called mac 'counter intuitive'.
- piva00 4y ago
  I live in Europe and 95% of the engineers I've worked with here in major companies use a Mac. A few use Linux, absolutely no one I know (300+ developers I've interacted/paired with in the past 7 years) had a Windows machine. Not a single one.
  - kramerger 4y ago
    Exactly where have you been working? I haven't seen that many macs outside design departments in any big European company I have visited. Some big companies such as Sony actually have Linux as their first choice, windows second.
llanowarelves 4y ago
I agree. In my experience, Windows "just works". And when it comes to working on graphics-intensive applications, and using commercial software packages it's a shoo-in.
- ricardobayes 4y ago
  For all the hate MS gets, windows 11 is pretty much perfect. Never had any issues with it whatsoever. Even teams runs well on it, not so much on Mac from what I hear. "I can't share my screen" "Teams has crashed" I would be furious if my 2k EUR Mac couldn't run a chat app.
  - vr46 4y ago
    Teams is a poorly-built app, a terrible experience and hardly any kind of benchmark for the quality of a Mac.
    - ricardobayes 4y ago
      Same could be said for Safari though.
  - WastingMyTime89 4y ago
    If someone from MS gets the wrong idea reading this, I can attest than Teams is absolutely awful to use on my 2k EUR Windows 10 machine.
  - white_dragon88 4y ago
    Yeah… you lost all credibility when bringing up teams as a benchmark. It’s a piece of utter steaming junk that I would barely call software. Zoom and slack work just fine because they weren’t built by imbeciles.
    - Tao3300 4y ago
      Zoom and Slack do not work fine. Zoom just sits around devouring CPU while it's not even on a call. If I ever walk in and my MacBook sounds like a jet trying to take off and is hot enough to cook dinner on, I know it's because Slack wants to update. I have no idea what it's doing to show me that "needs to install a helper" dialog.
hot_gril 4y ago
I like Macs a lot but agree in a couple of ways: Full-screen mode wasn't done well, and they never fixed it. Disk images don't make sense for distributing software cause they take longer to open for no reason, though the usual Windows way of having an exe installer is even worse.
atoav 4y ago
Not a Mac developer here, but I spent significant time on both plattforms and run Kubuntu/Linux since 4 years. It depends probably on what you are developing, but when you are doing stuff for backend, it will very likely end up running on a Linux box. This means having your platform, terminal and so on closer to Linux is useful (e.g. you have bash). Windows has WSL now, so this would be a way as well. From all UIs I like KDE Neon the best. It is truly a good experience.
jesseryoung 4y ago
I'm with you, I'm a dev who prefers Windows over Mac. I'm convinced that most Mac users don't use multiple monitors and they're completely fine with the really poor window management. It boggles my mind; I am objectively less productive with a single monitor than I am with multiple.
- nordsieck 4y ago
  > I am objectively less productive with a single monitor than I am with multiple. I've tried multi-monitor setups before with both Windows and OS X, and I just don't like them. I moved to a 43" 4K TV, and I like it much better, especially with a window manager like Rectangle. If I need extra screen real estate, OS X has pretty good support for virtual desktops, but I haven't felt the need yet. One of these days, I might feel cramped by my setup, but I suspect that I'd rather go up to 50" than get multiple monitors. Especially if I could go 8K by then.
- kitsunesoba 4y ago
  Longtime user of a 2-3 display setup here, and I would strongly disagree. If anything Windows’ support of multiple displays is bad… last I knew it couldn’t even set per-display or per-virtual-desktop wallpapers, and its virtual desktop support (which is essential for a multi monitor setup in my eyes) is nowhere near as mature as that of macOS or practically any Linux DE. The key is that with macOS, you don’t really manage windows. Just let windows be where they will, like papers on a desk, and then manage desktops. While I’m working I’m constantly flipping between desktops on both my primary and secondary displays, with the primary display being set up with desktops of primary windows and the secondary display being set up with desktops of secondary and tertiary windows. The ability to mix and match sets between displays is powerful and way more natural to me than cobbling together some kind of overcomplicated window snapping setup or something like that.
- DangitBobby 4y ago
  I've found Mac window management to be completely un-usable... Until I install Magnet from the app store for $3. Then sanity prevails. And with much weeping and gnashing of teeth, I've managed to get the right combination of dongles to get my 32" and 49" monitors to work at the same time. It was worth the pain to be on a Unix machine, at the end of the day.
ricardobayes 4y ago
The design choices to be different really grind my gears. For example the window close buttons. There's no reason for a western user group to put action buttons on the top left of the window, but Mac did it, to be different.
- pseudalopex 4y ago
  The close button was top left since 1984. Working in a left to right language means eyes and pointer spend more time on the left.
GordonS 4y ago
It's not just you. I regularly use both Windows and MacOS, though I started with Windows king before MacOS... and I just fine MacOS so unintuitive, ugly and clunky! Also, it regularly crashes when plugging/unplugging an external monitor. Actually, it crashes every now and then for no discernable reason too - feels like Windows back in the day when BSOD was common! And not MacOS' fault, but I absolutely loathe my MBP's touchpad! Even on the highest sensitivity setting, presses take too much force. And it just feels... weird. Nothing I can put my finger on, but using it still feels unnatural somehow. Plus, it regularly registers phantom touches, which is incredibly irritating.
- white_dragon88 4y ago
  If it’s randomly crashing that could be a hardware issue. I’ve owned numerous MacBooks and Mac minis over the years, nothing should ever be crashing randomly, especially not macOS.
  - GordonS 4y ago
    It does it even when nothing else is plugged in, and I've had occasional crashes since I got it 5+ years ago (so, across multiple MacOS versions). TBH, the crashing when plugging/unplugging, HiDPI issues and general ugliness and clunkyness are far more annoying tho!
    - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
      I’ve got an LG28” 4K on a 2019 MBP. I’ve never experienced a crash but the monitor will sometimes flick (lose video for a second, sometimes it will also auto lock). Just once or twice a day, so no biggie. It took me awhile to configure my monitor correctly, and the color is still off. I got my wife the 24” 4K that Apple recommends and it has been much better for her (as a designer, she wouldn’t have put up with wrong colors).
lastdong 4y ago
I prefer all my apps fullscreen and it’s so easy to swipe left or right to change desktops or between fullscreen apps - life savier when you’re in a single screen (I actually use it with multiple screens too). Windows is only now catching up in 11.
wodenokoto 4y ago
I’m using a windows machine for work and I hate it. Explorer and outlook change application icon depending on what you are doing. I can never find them when I alt-tab. I can never find anything in word or excel or any other application that use windows style menus. On Mac you at least get a real menu. I never got used to macOS’ alt-tab when I switched more than a decade ago, but now that I’m back on windows I find that their behavior works even worse. So maybe that’s a “don’t ever try to learn another alt-tab behavior than what you already do now” > Why are 3rd party applications distributed as Disk Images? Then some as package installers? It's weird and nonsensical. As if the installation experience on windows is consistent. Some things come as a zipped exe, some as an msi, others as a zip file that extract to an exe which runs an install program. > Mac hardware feels great, but I just cannot understand why it's the preferred developer platform. Isn’t that because it comes with a Unix shell? I’m using wsl and only like 1 or 2 gui programs can talk with my Linux files in a reasonable fashion.
- nordsieck 4y ago
  > I never got used to macOS’ alt-tab when I switched more than a decade ago, but now that I’m back on windows I find that their behavior works even worse. So maybe that’s a “don’t ever try to learn another alt-tab behavior than what you already do now” I think the one big benefit I notice of OSX style program management vs Windows style is: with OSX, you have have a program open, but without any windows. Whereas with Windows, if you close all of a program's windows, that typically kills the program. Really, this mostly shows up when I want to create a new incognito browser window when I don't have any browser windows currently open. On OSX, I just tab to the browser and open up a new window. On Windows, I have to start a new regular window and then open a new incognito windows. It's pretty annoying.
  - same_difference 4y ago
    You can right click the browser icon in taskbar or start menu > new incognito window.
    - nordsieck 4y ago
WastingMyTime89 4y ago
I think it’s mostly linked to what you are used to. I never Alt+Tab on macOS because I am used to using Exposé and the Windows equivalent frustrates me to no end with its extremely slow animation, same things with virtual desktops which feel very clunky on Windows but works fine on macOS.
- Macha 4y ago
  Huh, Mac is the one platform I avoid virtual desktops because the experience is so clunky with no keyboard commands to move items between spaces or jump to spaces, and the weirdness with fullscreen windows being their own space but then returning to a previous space when fullscreen is exited.
  - cassianoleal 4y ago
    > no keyboard commands to move items between spaces Not natively but Rectangle.app is a FOSS app that has them. > jump to spaces Control+(left arrow|right arrow) does it for me. It doesn't hop across destops but it gets me where I want quickly without moving my hand off the keyboard. > fullscreen windows being their own space but then returning to a previous space when fullscreen is exited I'm not sure what you'd consider superior to this. If I have a window on Desktop 2 and make it fullscreen, I usually want it to go back to Desktop 2 when I exit it.
    - Hamuko 4y ago
      >Control+(left arrow|right arrow) does it for me. It doesn't hop across destops but it gets me where I want quickly without moving my hand off the keyboard. You can create desktop-specific shortcuts in Keyboard → Shortcuts → Mission Control → Switch to Desktop N
white_dragon88 4y ago
It’s preferred due to several reasons: - lack of degradation of performance due to bloated registry, fragmented disks (probably out of date but still hurts my soul to think out) - a control panel that doesn’t suck - several things due to its unix heritage which are far better then windows imo (case sensitive file system, bash/zsh terminal) - lack of concern regarding bloatware installed by vendors - don’t have to crap like dot net c++ extensions and other nonsense just to run something - a more stable, less crashy experience, this is anecdotal but true to me - reliable warranty and support policies, Apple absolutely kicks ass here I just want to get shit done with minimal auxillary stuff involved. And that’s why I use ios, macOS. Every aspect of it was designed thoughtfully, and not slapped together. I stopped liking windows at version 8 and have never looked back.
- filchermcurr 4y ago
  I prefer macOS over Windows, but I think a lot of your points are... outdated, or just outright myths to begin with. I can't find any (non-anecdotal) evidence that a "bloated" registry impacts performance at all on a modern system. If you have benchmarks or something, I would love to see them! (not being a jerk, I really would). If you think macOS applications cleanly uninstall when you drag them to the trash, that definitely is not the case. Check out ~/Library and see the ghosts of applications past. Disk fragmentation isn't an issue on SSDs. Anybody still running Windows on a spinning drive has worse problems than fragmentation. The settings situation does suck, that's absolutely true. APFS and NTFS both allow you to choose case sensitivity depending on your preference, so I'd say they're on equal footing there. PowerShell isn't that bad, but you can still use bash with WSL or cygwin if you really want to. I've always clean installed Windows, so I don't know about vendor bloatware. The bloatiest thing I can think of are shortcuts in the start menu to install ridiculous things like Candy Crush, but those are just shortcut ads, not actually installed things. Distasteful, sure, but easy enough to wipe out with a script. Anecdotally, I've had way more kernel panics in macOS than I have blue screens of death in Windows 10. The T2 fiasco alone has caused me more crashes than I can count. Anyway, I think in 2022, operating system choice is more of a personal preference thing than a technical one. They're all equally bad, just in different ways.
illi 4y ago
Why so many comments about Mac vs Windows, when the subject is Mac now vs Mac yesterday?
- dsq 4y ago
  Do you mean the mac experience used to be better? I don’t really know, i have windows. What has degraded?
rubslopes 4y ago
> Why does finder sometimes open in a sub folder as the "top level", then it's a total pain to move up to where you want. OH God, I hate that so much. Can't understand the reason behind this behavior.
- lastangryman 4y ago
  It's infuriating. Comes across as patronising, like Apple assuming the concept of a disk represented a tree of folders and files, and I am currently viewing a specific position in that tree, is too complex for me to understand.
sys_64738 4y ago
> Why does the alt tab equivalent cycle through applications first, and I need another shortcut to cycle through the windows of that application? I guess I’m the opposite a single command+tab switches between apps then command+~ to cycle through the windows in the app is very intuitive to me. Cycling through dozens of windows on Microsoft is laborious a confusing in my experience.
- adambatkin 4y ago
  And just to make sure your brain always has to concentrate when switching (beyond the fact that you now need two sets of shortcuts instead of one): Cmd+Tab cycles from most-recently-used (what you would expect) but Cmd+~ blindly switches to the next window in a cycle (not what anyone expects or wants).
pjmlp 4y ago
> Mac hardware feels great, but I just cannot understand why it's the preferred developer platform. Depends what the word developer means.... In the context of Apple ecosystem developer is quite good, in the context of Windows or game console developer not great, for embedded developer depends on the luck of hardware vendor support for macOS, in the context of certified UNIX developer, it gets the job done.
throwaway675309 4y ago
because it's easy to manage packages using brew, Windows has the... winget which is all but abandoned. For the longest time there was no such thing as WSL so Mac had a serious advantage for us who migrated between Linux and Mac. And as you've mentioned I've had so many quality control issues with Windows computers including Dell and Asus that eventually I just said fuck it I'd rather spend 3 to 4 grand on a machine that I know will work flawlessly.
- marliechiller 4y ago
  there is chocolatey as well which i find works great
- filchermcurr 4y ago
  Chocolatey makes it very easy.
- philistine 4y ago
  Hear hear for Homebrew, who in my mind is single-handedly responsible for getting Apple to stop shipping old versions of scripting languages. We can soon, with Ventura, link the Brew version of Python, and Ruby, and everything. Hear hear !
  - roiboosxh 4y ago
    Can you expand on the Ventura news please? A quick google revealed nothing…
    - philistine 4y ago
      Apple no longer ships scripting languages with macOS Ventura. They had said future versions of macOS wouldn’t have them last year with Catalina. I guess future meant next one. You have to install them yourself, just like Java was removed a while ago. Honestly it’s great news, since Apple has always shipped very old versions, and you always had to be careful when linking against the system versions. Ruby is particularly batshit insane to manage multiple versions, at least for me. I absolutely believe that the ascendancy of Homebrew is single-handedly responsible for the removal of those languages. Homebrew is magnificent, and with its recent change of the default install location to the correct Unix location, it’s a nearly perfect package manager for macOS.
woleium 4y ago
> - Why does finder sometimes open in a sub folder as the "top level", then it's a total pain to move up to where you want. you can right click on the folder icon at the very top of the window to get a drop-down of all folders going down to the root.

Tao3300 4y ago

Finder sucks so much.

tourincomplete 4y ago

I just switched to Mac for work, and the app/window switching experience has been frustrating me so much I sent this to my coworkers: ——— Going from fullscreen App A to App B back to fullscreen App A: Brain on Windows: 1. Alt-tab -> App A 2. Alt-tab -> fullscreen App B Brain on Mac: 1. Cmd-tab -> App A 2. Cmd-tab -> Random App C 3. Cmd-tab -> back to App A 4. Cmd-tab -> other App B window you weren't looking for 5. Cmd-` App B windows a few times, nope not here either 6. Triple finger salute -> fullscreen App B Why. Why?

nordsieck 4y ago

> Why are 3rd party applications distributed as Disk Images? Then some as package installers? It's weird and nonsensical. Maybe you use a lot of paid software? I just use homebrew for everything, and it just works(tm) 98% of the time. Which is way better than my experience with Windows. I tried using a variety of Nanite, Chocolatey, etc. And none of it seems particularly mature. > Mac hardware feels great, but I just cannot understand why it's the preferred developer platform. In my experience, Windows is developer hostile if you aren't using Visual Studio. Almost everything is deployed to Linux, and OS X is close enough that most stuff just works, but the drivers and UI are also completely dependable.

vips7L 4y ago
Scoop on windows just works for me as a package manager.

runjake 4y ago

> I just cannot understand why… Because it’s natively UNIX-based and this well-supported by the tooling. Sure, Windows has WSL and it’s great and it’s gaining developers but IMHO it isn’t quite there yet. And it’s really important to acknowledge that there are a metric crapload of real world devs on Windows. I wouldn’t be surprised if the vast majority of programmers were on Windows.

krzyk 4y ago
So why not Linux? It is more Unix than macos, and is for power users unlike macos which tries to hide all the advanced options.

awinder 4y ago

“Why are 3rd party applications distributed as Disk Images? Then some as package installers? It's weird and nonsensical.” How many different bespoke ways of installing windows applications are there again? Is it even countable? Is installshield beloved by anyone untainted by just dealing with it for decades?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

guessbest 4y ago

Other than the taskbar from Win95-XP, I find everything that MacOS does more convenient and easier to use. The Disk Images are an especially well done considering that it is a less limiting form of read only ISO disk image. Also, find is better in most respects to base windows explorer, with the except of sorting directories before files and multi-select through the gui.

deergomoo 4y ago

> Why does the alt tab equivalent cycle through applications first I've always preferred this to Windows' approach; as soon as I have more than dozen open windows I find it very difficult to find what I need on Windows, whereas with macOS there's an extra layer of hierarchy to speed up the search. They really could add it as an option though, you shouldn't need a third-party app for this. > I attach a non Mac external monitor to a new MacBook Pro from work and the text is super blurry No idea what the virtual display thing is, and the issue may be the EDID thing that another commenter mentioned, but macOS' handling of "non-retina" screen resolution is absolute ass since they removed subpixel antialiasing a few versions back. You can still disable the gross "font smoothing" via a terminal command which helps a little, but since subpixel AA was removed, text on "low resolution" displays -- i.e. sub 150ppi -- looks like shit compared to Windows. Compared with the rather primitive way macOS handles UI scaling, the almost total lack of available > 4K displays for > 21.5" screen sizes to suit said scaling, and the fact that a good number of their most popular computers still ship with a non-integer scaling mode by default, getting an optimal image from a Mac is far more difficult than it should be. I know it's all good enough that most people don't care, but this is supposed to be the company where "good enough" isn't enough. > Why is there 2 modes of "full-size" windows? Regular style "fill the window", then another wierd one that sort of takes over the whole screen The "take-over" one was added during the peak of the iPhone and iPad exploding in popularity, when Apple was copying many iOS features back to the Mac. I don't begrudge it being there (my wife uses it almost exclusively for some reason), but I do wish I could switch the default behavior. I strongly dislike the notion that windows should be full-screen unless sharing with another app -- I prefer windows to be the size of their content, which is what the green button on macOS used to do (and still does, if you Option-click it). Windows makes this annoyingly difficult, though the new expanded snapping options in Windows 11 are very nice. > Why does finder sometimes open in a sub folder as the "top level", then it's a total pain to move up to where you want I've always found Finder to be the worst part of the Mac. Who knows why it does what it does. What determines the default window size? Why is it always far too small? We may never know. > Why are 3rd party applications distributed as Disk Images? Then some as package installers? It's weird and nonsensical. .app bundles are actually directories with metadata to make macOS treat them like files, so they can't be shared as-is. Sometimes you get them in plain zips, but I think the .dmg thing is a holdover from classic Mac OS. .pkg installers are usually used when the app needs to install extra stuff outside its bundle -- just like how sometimes Windows programs are an .exe and sometimes they're an .msi. I love macOS as a platform, but I completely agree with everything the person is saying in the linked Twitter thread. No-one at Apple seems to be equipped to steward the platform anymore, so the software decays even while the hardware is going through a renaissance. Unfortunately, the investment that is being put into it is largely to give application parity with new features they add to iOS. Things are superficially changed every year (often for the worse), but the actual base OS doesn't seem to be getting much in the way of features or improvements. Why do I need a third-party app to get reasonable window management? Why do I need two third-party apps to make a mouse usable (one to make the side buttons work, another to fix the scroll momentum and have a separate scroll direction to the trackpad)? Why do I need a third-party app to get a calendar in the menu bar? Why do I still get yelled at for yanking an idle USB stick without ejecting it first? That turned into for more of a rant than I intended.

vikingerik 4y ago

FYI for anyone who doesn't know: that other shortcut is Command+` to cycle between windows of one application. It's totally nondiscoverable (I read about it here), but once I learned that, it felt amazingly intuitive to separate the concerns of application-switching and window-switching. And Command+` works consistently on MacOS, unlike on Windows where every app reimplements its own multiple-document interface and so Ctrl-Tab hardly ever works.

kitsunesoba 4y ago
Separate management of applications and windows is a powerful and underrated tool in my opinion. Once you become accustomed to it, the Windows style of a big vat of random windows feels like a chaotic mess in comparison.
bobviolier 4y ago
Yeah agree here. It makes sense to have a shortcut to only cycle over the windows of the same app. In the example where you have 5 windows in an editor.. how nice that you can only cycle over those instead of also the other 20 windows you have open
queuebert 4y ago
It's right next to tab on most keyboards, so I would call that discoverable.
- mrcarrot 4y ago
  Only if you're using a US keyboard layout.
kemayo 4y ago
If you're looking for another not-very-discoverable shortcut that's quite useful... press Command-Tab until you get to the application you want, then without releasing it press up (or down). You'll get the exposé view for the selected application's windows. While that's open you can arrow between them to select the one you want or type to select by window name.
4y ago

theonemind 4y ago

Mac has weak multi-tasking and window management UI. The Dock also sucks: https://www.asktog.com/columns/044top10docksucks.html https://www.asktog.com/columns/044top10docksucks.html . Strengths: 1. Really nice trackpad. It tracks smoothly. Really well integrated trackpad gestures. It makes a difference. 2. It is literally UNIX 3. Native-app developers that care (eroding year-by-year, but software companies like Panic, Omni, BareBones make first-class software that belongs on the platform). (Windows certainly has more apps, and probably more high quality apps by volume, but Mac apps tend a bit more toward high-quality-density in a more limited application pool) 4. Drivers. I swear, I get laptops from manufacturers with bad Windows installs, glitchy drivers, poor configuration, etc. I also hate cleaning crapware off of new machines and fresh installing OSes. 5. Lack of options. Few people explicitly value this, and sometimes, the Mac way is dumb, but since it's often the Mac way or the highway, it takes some cognitive overhead out of computing. Overall, I find the Mac less of a hassle. Most things are pretty good, and you mostly can't fiddle with them too much, so you get the strength of that on the whole, not in one particular dazzling thing (except the trackpad.) Garbage window management and multi-tasking indisputable, though.

bradleyjg 4y ago
I’ve used dos, windows, linux, and mac. I appreciate the fact that macs are not very tweakable. I won’t speak for others but for me endless customization of everything supposedly for optimization was just another form of procrastination. I also appreciate that it mostly either works or it doesn’t. Either it’s broken and I need to swap it for a refurb or it works. Not much staying up late reading obscure stack overflow posts (in the old days webforums, in the old old days newsgroups) and trying this one more thing to fix the problem de jure.

jononomo 4y ago

This is the least relatable comment I have ever read on Hacker News. When I switched to a Mac from a Windows machine it was like switching from living in a van to living in a luxury condo. I will never go back.

ris58h 4y ago

If you need Windows like alt tab, check out https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/ https://alt-tab-macos.netlify.app/ It's free and open-source https://github.com/lwouis/alt-tab-macos https://github.com/lwouis/alt-tab-macos

smeagull 4y ago
Yup, and it breaks for certain applications like Chrome or Terminal when they are launched after it. The Alt-Tab just ignores that they exist. Macs fucking suck.

sodapopcan 4y ago

I'm not one to defend the "mac experience" but some of the stuff you mention I actually really like, namely like the separate key-combo for switching between app windows and the two modes of full screen (although I never use full-full screen anymore). Finder is definitely not great. It's improved over the years which is kind of sad as it's not a whole lot better. You still can't cmd+x a file to move it to another location. I'm not sure when it happened (probably a while ago) but you can actually rename files in open dialogs now! I didn't notice when it happened because I gave up trying many years ago. Anyway, I like macos as it gives me a linux-esque command-line experience out of the box without having dive into managing a Linux installs (although that's probably not as big a deal as I think it is), because the hardware is nice, and otherwise because it's just what I'm used to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ For non-developer reasons, Logic, even though not the best, is so insanely cheap for what you get, and as a light gamer, Minecraft runs decently well on my Mac Mini.

kitsunesoba 4y ago
You can cut and paste files in Finder, it’s just a decision that’s made on the “paste” side of the process instead of the “cut” side. Copy as usual with Command-C, then at your destination move the file with Command-Option-V. This allows you to change your mind about whether you want the file to be duplicated or moved without having to first navigate back to the source and perform an additional action.
- sodapopcan 4y ago
  Oh cool! I never knew that. How long has that been a thing? In a way I actually like this better as in Windows I used to cut and every-so often I'd blow out my clipboard somehow (at least, I have memories of that... it was like 20 years ago).
  - kitsunesoba 4y ago
    Based on an archive.org snapshot[0] of an Apple support page[1], the move shortcut has been in place since at least 2015. And yeah, the Mac way makes more sense to me too. It's a lot less likely for Command-Option-V to be fat-fingered than both Ctrl-X and Ctrl-V. Shortcuts like this are all over the place in macOS, and have been for decades. They're usually discoverable by glancing through menus while holding down various modifier keys. [0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20151128115451/https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236 https://web.archive.org/web/20151128115451/https://support.a... [1]: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201236

jononomo 4y ago

So you just put up with a crappy trackpad?

amelius 4y ago

Also: why is there a traffic light in the top of every window?

mattlondon 4y ago

Couldn't agree more. The UI is MacOS is actively anti-user in my opinion. E.g. menus that are not attached to the window, a task bar that hides the open windows, maximise that doesn't, "natural scrolling" that is unnatural if you use a mouse, no proper window snapping and layouting etc. The only thing going for MacOS is the linux-like terminal. Now that Windows has that too (WSL) I see no advantage. However, the hardware is nice. Way nicer than any windows dell or Asus or whatever I've had.

zamalek 4y ago

I'm with you here. I've been using a Mac at my new job since November. I fucking hate it. I have burned so much time on stuff not working, and it's not just me - others seem to just accept and forget it. One great example of this is the recent bout of zero days: forty five minutes for a minor release update? How on earth does anyone think that's acceptable? I'm no longer a fan of Windows, having moved along to Linux on my personal machine, but both Windows and Linux are in a completely different universe to MacOS when it comes to bare minimum competency.

yurishimo 4y ago
Can you outline some other problems you have lost time to besides a software update? I agree that they’re pretty long too, but if that’s your only complaint it’s a bit moot since every OS provides a mechanism for installing updates during off hours.
- zamalek 4y ago
  Notwithstanding that you don't leave a zero day unpatched til after hours, some other time sinks: * M1 compatability issues. * Problems surrounding containers. Yes, I have used Rancher Desktop, yes I have used Colima. Neither is a first-class citizen. (As-per usual with Mac dev tools). * Dual monitor. * External keyboards, keyboard shortcuts, and customizations.

wruza 4y ago

I feel like I may be the only developer that prefers Windows to MacOs No, I’m also using windows, having many years experience with all of the mainstream OSes. Mac hardware feels great Does it?? Maybe, if you cover the price with your hand and close browser tabs with same-price pc configurations. Also their aluminium edges are pretty sharp, I can remember few times when I damaged that thing around my fingernails with display or keyboard edges.

throwaways85989 4y ago

I have thick fingers (physical labor produces those) and the mac short-cuts are really not made for guys like me. Yes, i can change that. But still.

danbolt 4y ago

> Why does the alt tab equivalent cycle through applications first, and I need another shortcut to cycle through the windows of that application? When I have an IDE with 5x instances, hosting different projects, it's a pain switching back to the project I want from another application. I find your feelings really interesting here. Or, I grew up with Windows, but realizing that on Mac OS X was an "a-ha! brilliant!" moment for me. I really loved that it was available on Pop!_OS.

tailspin2019 4y ago

You won’t convince me to switch back to windows in a hurry, but I agree with all of your points entirely. (Aside from the monitor issue - not sure what that’s all about!) macOS could do with some work on window management and I’m not convinced that what’s coming in Ventura is what we actually needed.

smeagull 4y ago

I agree actually. I'm primarily a Linux developer, but am now forced on to an M1 mac for work, and it's hot garbage. They force their own half-assed unsupported ways of doing things and break the standards that work on both Windows and Linux. The state of gaming is actually worse than on Linux.

grapeskin 4y ago

1 is preference. 2 is something I haven’t experienced. I guess maybe you’re using low resolution monitors? I find Windows to be incredibly blurry or text painfully sharp. 3 is something where I think the Mac mindset is to not really use full screen windows. I personally always have part of my desktop visible and most Mac users I’ve seen in the wild seem to do the same. Probably a consequence of the drag and drop mindset (which Windows is painful to use due to it doing the opposite of MacOS when it comes to drag and drop) Enable the file path setting in your finder options. Super easy to navigate up then. Disk images are nice in that usually they contain a drag and drop application install process, while windows often has some messy installer that leaves a trail of shit in its wake that’s sometimes impossible to fully remove when you’re trying to uninstall the program. But… I think a zip file would do all a disk image could and make more sense to people. Sometimes I do encounter zips, though.

lastangryman 4y ago
Of course, it's all preference, I'm not making a case to say it's objectively bad, just I find it inferior. The monitor is a ultrawide LG that works perfectly on windows. A Google for "blurry text external monitor MacBook Pro" turns up many people with the same issue (edit: it's a 1440p monitor) Thanks for the finder tip, that will help.
- frou_dh 4y ago
  > I'm not making a case to say it's objectively bad, just I find it inferior. That's good, because usually in this kind of debate there's an undercurrent of "I've been using X for decades (and so know it inside out). When I try Y, anything that differs from X is objectively wrong"
  - account-5 4y ago
    Which is generally all the Mac os just works statements are in my experience.
- Darthy 4y ago
  Maybe you're refering to subpixel rendering, which Windows still has, but has ben phased out on Mac with the introduction of retina displays? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering#OS_X https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering#OS_X

derefr 4y ago

> I attach a non Mac external monitor to a new MacBook Pro from work and the text is super blurry. Much googling later and I need to use something called Better Display to create a virtual display, and project that to my monitor That’s not the correct solution. The correct solution is for the monitor manufacturer to stop reporting an EDID that identifies their monitor as a TV (and thereby forces the OS to default to YUV rather than SRGB.) macOS here is just following the EDID spec to the letter. (Linux does too, as it happens.) Windows is the one “doing it wrong” (i.e. not to spec), by falling back to SRGB whenever it’s unsure, rather than falling back to YUV. This results in a lot of TVs being unhappy (no signal) when plugged into Windows PCs, but working fine under macOS / Linux.

_chu1 4y ago
[flagged]
vladvasiliu 4y ago
> That’s not the correct solution. The correct solution is for the monitor manufacturer to stop reporting an EDID that identifies their monitor as a TV (and thereby forces the OS to default to YUV rather than SRGB.) Is this an EDID issue? OP didn't specify what the "non Mac monitor" is, but I'd expect it to be a lower DPI one. I get the blurry text on an Apple Thunderbolt Display, too. I think this is related to the removal of sub-pixel antialiasing in Mac OS a few versions back.
wruza 4y ago
I just stopped reporting edid on my display and wow it looks so great now, thanks!
CaptainZapp 4y ago
As a person, who just wants to use that damn thing your reply sounds a bit like: "You're holding it wrong"
sdflhasjd 4y ago
It could just be macOs's staggeringly bad text rendering on low dpi displays. I believe that subpixel font rendering being removed several years ago is the cause.

poloniculmov 4y ago

I have to use a Mac for work, after not really touching the Apple ecosystem. I was amazed that every other dev I talked with had a list of tiny apps that you need to install in order to have a nice experience. On the latest versions of Windows, things just work (or I'm very good at fixing my annoyances).

faebi 4y ago
Have you edited a PDF recently

skneko 4y ago

Don't worry I'm European and 90% of developers I know think exactly like you (and me). It's just that the HN crowd is typically North American, and people tend to like what they have grown with.

jononomo 4y ago
All the European developers I worked with in Berlin used Macs. I can understand using Linux, but using Windows as a web developer just doesn't make sense because all of the tutorials and stack overflow discussions and forum discussions will assume you're using a Unix shell.
dagmx 4y ago
This is such an odd extrapolation. You can see tons of Macs or Linux in use in Europe, at conventions , in lots of dev communities, in design studios. I suspect you’re in a self selected bubble. Which you sort of allude to by saying “developers you know”, but I don’t see how that extrapolates to the continent as a whole.
timeon 4y ago
> people tend to like what they have grown with That is why parent post called mac 'counter intuitive'.
piva00 4y ago
I live in Europe and 95% of the engineers I've worked with here in major companies use a Mac. A few use Linux, absolutely no one I know (300+ developers I've interacted/paired with in the past 7 years) had a Windows machine. Not a single one.
- kramerger 4y ago
  Exactly where have you been working? I haven't seen that many macs outside design departments in any big European company I have visited. Some big companies such as Sony actually have Linux as their first choice, windows second.

llanowarelves 4y ago

I agree. In my experience, Windows "just works". And when it comes to working on graphics-intensive applications, and using commercial software packages it's a shoo-in.

ricardobayes 4y ago
For all the hate MS gets, windows 11 is pretty much perfect. Never had any issues with it whatsoever. Even teams runs well on it, not so much on Mac from what I hear. "I can't share my screen" "Teams has crashed" I would be furious if my 2k EUR Mac couldn't run a chat app.
- vr46 4y ago
  Teams is a poorly-built app, a terrible experience and hardly any kind of benchmark for the quality of a Mac.
  - ricardobayes 4y ago
    Same could be said for Safari though.
- WastingMyTime89 4y ago
  If someone from MS gets the wrong idea reading this, I can attest than Teams is absolutely awful to use on my 2k EUR Windows 10 machine.
- white_dragon88 4y ago
  Yeah… you lost all credibility when bringing up teams as a benchmark. It’s a piece of utter steaming junk that I would barely call software. Zoom and slack work just fine because they weren’t built by imbeciles.
  - Tao3300 4y ago
    Zoom and Slack do not work fine. Zoom just sits around devouring CPU while it's not even on a call. If I ever walk in and my MacBook sounds like a jet trying to take off and is hot enough to cook dinner on, I know it's because Slack wants to update. I have no idea what it's doing to show me that "needs to install a helper" dialog.

hot_gril 4y ago

I like Macs a lot but agree in a couple of ways: Full-screen mode wasn't done well, and they never fixed it. Disk images don't make sense for distributing software cause they take longer to open for no reason, though the usual Windows way of having an exe installer is even worse.

atoav 4y ago

Not a Mac developer here, but I spent significant time on both plattforms and run Kubuntu/Linux since 4 years. It depends probably on what you are developing, but when you are doing stuff for backend, it will very likely end up running on a Linux box. This means having your platform, terminal and so on closer to Linux is useful (e.g. you have bash). Windows has WSL now, so this would be a way as well. From all UIs I like KDE Neon the best. It is truly a good experience.

jesseryoung 4y ago

I'm with you, I'm a dev who prefers Windows over Mac. I'm convinced that most Mac users don't use multiple monitors and they're completely fine with the really poor window management. It boggles my mind; I am objectively less productive with a single monitor than I am with multiple.

nordsieck 4y ago
> I am objectively less productive with a single monitor than I am with multiple. I've tried multi-monitor setups before with both Windows and OS X, and I just don't like them. I moved to a 43" 4K TV, and I like it much better, especially with a window manager like Rectangle. If I need extra screen real estate, OS X has pretty good support for virtual desktops, but I haven't felt the need yet. One of these days, I might feel cramped by my setup, but I suspect that I'd rather go up to 50" than get multiple monitors. Especially if I could go 8K by then.
kitsunesoba 4y ago
Longtime user of a 2-3 display setup here, and I would strongly disagree. If anything Windows’ support of multiple displays is bad… last I knew it couldn’t even set per-display or per-virtual-desktop wallpapers, and its virtual desktop support (which is essential for a multi monitor setup in my eyes) is nowhere near as mature as that of macOS or practically any Linux DE. The key is that with macOS, you don’t really manage windows. Just let windows be where they will, like papers on a desk, and then manage desktops. While I’m working I’m constantly flipping between desktops on both my primary and secondary displays, with the primary display being set up with desktops of primary windows and the secondary display being set up with desktops of secondary and tertiary windows. The ability to mix and match sets between displays is powerful and way more natural to me than cobbling together some kind of overcomplicated window snapping setup or something like that.
DangitBobby 4y ago
I've found Mac window management to be completely un-usable... Until I install Magnet from the app store for $3. Then sanity prevails. And with much weeping and gnashing of teeth, I've managed to get the right combination of dongles to get my 32" and 49" monitors to work at the same time. It was worth the pain to be on a Unix machine, at the end of the day.

ricardobayes 4y ago

The design choices to be different really grind my gears. For example the window close buttons. There's no reason for a western user group to put action buttons on the top left of the window, but Mac did it, to be different.

pseudalopex 4y ago
The close button was top left since 1984. Working in a left to right language means eyes and pointer spend more time on the left.

GordonS 4y ago

It's not just you. I regularly use both Windows and MacOS, though I started with Windows king before MacOS... and I just fine MacOS so unintuitive, ugly and clunky! Also, it regularly crashes when plugging/unplugging an external monitor. Actually, it crashes every now and then for no discernable reason too - feels like Windows back in the day when BSOD was common! And not MacOS' fault, but I absolutely loathe my MBP's touchpad! Even on the highest sensitivity setting, presses take too much force. And it just feels... weird. Nothing I can put my finger on, but using it still feels unnatural somehow. Plus, it regularly registers phantom touches, which is incredibly irritating.

white_dragon88 4y ago
If it’s randomly crashing that could be a hardware issue. I’ve owned numerous MacBooks and Mac minis over the years, nothing should ever be crashing randomly, especially not macOS.
- GordonS 4y ago
  It does it even when nothing else is plugged in, and I've had occasional crashes since I got it 5+ years ago (so, across multiple MacOS versions). TBH, the crashing when plugging/unplugging, HiDPI issues and general ugliness and clunkyness are far more annoying tho!
  - seanmcdirmid 4y ago
    I’ve got an LG28” 4K on a 2019 MBP. I’ve never experienced a crash but the monitor will sometimes flick (lose video for a second, sometimes it will also auto lock). Just once or twice a day, so no biggie. It took me awhile to configure my monitor correctly, and the color is still off. I got my wife the 24” 4K that Apple recommends and it has been much better for her (as a designer, she wouldn’t have put up with wrong colors).

lastdong 4y ago

I prefer all my apps fullscreen and it’s so easy to swipe left or right to change desktops or between fullscreen apps - life savier when you’re in a single screen (I actually use it with multiple screens too). Windows is only now catching up in 11.

wodenokoto 4y ago

I’m using a windows machine for work and I hate it. Explorer and outlook change application icon depending on what you are doing. I can never find them when I alt-tab. I can never find anything in word or excel or any other application that use windows style menus. On Mac you at least get a real menu. I never got used to macOS’ alt-tab when I switched more than a decade ago, but now that I’m back on windows I find that their behavior works even worse. So maybe that’s a “don’t ever try to learn another alt-tab behavior than what you already do now” > Why are 3rd party applications distributed as Disk Images? Then some as package installers? It's weird and nonsensical. As if the installation experience on windows is consistent. Some things come as a zipped exe, some as an msi, others as a zip file that extract to an exe which runs an install program. > Mac hardware feels great, but I just cannot understand why it's the preferred developer platform. Isn’t that because it comes with a Unix shell? I’m using wsl and only like 1 or 2 gui programs can talk with my Linux files in a reasonable fashion.

nordsieck 4y ago
> I never got used to macOS’ alt-tab when I switched more than a decade ago, but now that I’m back on windows I find that their behavior works even worse. So maybe that’s a “don’t ever try to learn another alt-tab behavior than what you already do now” I think the one big benefit I notice of OSX style program management vs Windows style is: with OSX, you have have a program open, but without any windows. Whereas with Windows, if you close all of a program's windows, that typically kills the program. Really, this mostly shows up when I want to create a new incognito browser window when I don't have any browser windows currently open. On OSX, I just tab to the browser and open up a new window. On Windows, I have to start a new regular window and then open a new incognito windows. It's pretty annoying.
- same_difference 4y ago
  You can right click the browser icon in taskbar or start menu > new incognito window.
  - nordsieck 4y ago

WastingMyTime89 4y ago

I think it’s mostly linked to what you are used to. I never Alt+Tab on macOS because I am used to using Exposé and the Windows equivalent frustrates me to no end with its extremely slow animation, same things with virtual desktops which feel very clunky on Windows but works fine on macOS.

Macha 4y ago
Huh, Mac is the one platform I avoid virtual desktops because the experience is so clunky with no keyboard commands to move items between spaces or jump to spaces, and the weirdness with fullscreen windows being their own space but then returning to a previous space when fullscreen is exited.
- cassianoleal 4y ago
  > no keyboard commands to move items between spaces Not natively but Rectangle.app is a FOSS app that has them. > jump to spaces Control+(left arrow|right arrow) does it for me. It doesn't hop across destops but it gets me where I want quickly without moving my hand off the keyboard. > fullscreen windows being their own space but then returning to a previous space when fullscreen is exited I'm not sure what you'd consider superior to this. If I have a window on Desktop 2 and make it fullscreen, I usually want it to go back to Desktop 2 when I exit it.
  - Hamuko 4y ago
    >Control+(left arrow|right arrow) does it for me. It doesn't hop across destops but it gets me where I want quickly without moving my hand off the keyboard. You can create desktop-specific shortcuts in Keyboard → Shortcuts → Mission Control → Switch to Desktop N

white_dragon88 4y ago

It’s preferred due to several reasons: - lack of degradation of performance due to bloated registry, fragmented disks (probably out of date but still hurts my soul to think out) - a control panel that doesn’t suck - several things due to its unix heritage which are far better then windows imo (case sensitive file system, bash/zsh terminal) - lack of concern regarding bloatware installed by vendors - don’t have to crap like dot net c++ extensions and other nonsense just to run something - a more stable, less crashy experience, this is anecdotal but true to me - reliable warranty and support policies, Apple absolutely kicks ass here I just want to get shit done with minimal auxillary stuff involved. And that’s why I use ios, macOS. Every aspect of it was designed thoughtfully, and not slapped together. I stopped liking windows at version 8 and have never looked back.

filchermcurr 4y ago
I prefer macOS over Windows, but I think a lot of your points are... outdated, or just outright myths to begin with. I can't find any (non-anecdotal) evidence that a "bloated" registry impacts performance at all on a modern system. If you have benchmarks or something, I would love to see them! (not being a jerk, I really would). If you think macOS applications cleanly uninstall when you drag them to the trash, that definitely is not the case. Check out ~/Library and see the ghosts of applications past. Disk fragmentation isn't an issue on SSDs. Anybody still running Windows on a spinning drive has worse problems than fragmentation. The settings situation does suck, that's absolutely true. APFS and NTFS both allow you to choose case sensitivity depending on your preference, so I'd say they're on equal footing there. PowerShell isn't that bad, but you can still use bash with WSL or cygwin if you really want to. I've always clean installed Windows, so I don't know about vendor bloatware. The bloatiest thing I can think of are shortcuts in the start menu to install ridiculous things like Candy Crush, but those are just shortcut ads, not actually installed things. Distasteful, sure, but easy enough to wipe out with a script. Anecdotally, I've had way more kernel panics in macOS than I have blue screens of death in Windows 10. The T2 fiasco alone has caused me more crashes than I can count. Anyway, I think in 2022, operating system choice is more of a personal preference thing than a technical one. They're all equally bad, just in different ways.

illi 4y ago

Why so many comments about Mac vs Windows, when the subject is Mac now vs Mac yesterday?

dsq 4y ago
Do you mean the mac experience used to be better? I don’t really know, i have windows. What has degraded?

rubslopes 4y ago

> Why does finder sometimes open in a sub folder as the "top level", then it's a total pain to move up to where you want. OH God, I hate that so much. Can't understand the reason behind this behavior.

lastangryman 4y ago
It's infuriating. Comes across as patronising, like Apple assuming the concept of a disk represented a tree of folders and files, and I am currently viewing a specific position in that tree, is too complex for me to understand.

sys_64738 4y ago

> Why does the alt tab equivalent cycle through applications first, and I need another shortcut to cycle through the windows of that application? I guess I’m the opposite a single command+tab switches between apps then command+~ to cycle through the windows in the app is very intuitive to me. Cycling through dozens of windows on Microsoft is laborious a confusing in my experience.

adambatkin 4y ago
And just to make sure your brain always has to concentrate when switching (beyond the fact that you now need two sets of shortcuts instead of one): Cmd+Tab cycles from most-recently-used (what you would expect) but Cmd+~ blindly switches to the next window in a cycle (not what anyone expects or wants).

pjmlp 4y ago

> Mac hardware feels great, but I just cannot understand why it's the preferred developer platform. Depends what the word developer means.... In the context of Apple ecosystem developer is quite good, in the context of Windows or game console developer not great, for embedded developer depends on the luck of hardware vendor support for macOS, in the context of certified UNIX developer, it gets the job done.

throwaway675309 4y ago

because it's easy to manage packages using brew, Windows has the... winget which is all but abandoned. For the longest time there was no such thing as WSL so Mac had a serious advantage for us who migrated between Linux and Mac. And as you've mentioned I've had so many quality control issues with Windows computers including Dell and Asus that eventually I just said fuck it I'd rather spend 3 to 4 grand on a machine that I know will work flawlessly.

marliechiller 4y ago
there is chocolatey as well which i find works great
filchermcurr 4y ago
Chocolatey makes it very easy.
philistine 4y ago
Hear hear for Homebrew, who in my mind is single-handedly responsible for getting Apple to stop shipping old versions of scripting languages. We can soon, with Ventura, link the Brew version of Python, and Ruby, and everything. Hear hear !
- roiboosxh 4y ago
  Can you expand on the Ventura news please? A quick google revealed nothing…
  - philistine 4y ago
    Apple no longer ships scripting languages with macOS Ventura. They had said future versions of macOS wouldn’t have them last year with Catalina. I guess future meant next one. You have to install them yourself, just like Java was removed a while ago. Honestly it’s great news, since Apple has always shipped very old versions, and you always had to be careful when linking against the system versions. Ruby is particularly batshit insane to manage multiple versions, at least for me. I absolutely believe that the ascendancy of Homebrew is single-handedly responsible for the removal of those languages. Homebrew is magnificent, and with its recent change of the default install location to the correct Unix location, it’s a nearly perfect package manager for macOS.

woleium 4y ago

> - Why does finder sometimes open in a sub folder as the "top level", then it's a total pain to move up to where you want. you can right click on the folder icon at the very top of the window to get a drop-down of all folders going down to the root.