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Hiya! I'm going to clarify some of my issues below. I don't intend this to come off in an argumentative tone. > > I was always told it was just like Linux with

Hiya! I'm going to clarify some of my issues below. I don't intend this to come off in an argumentative tone. > > I was always told it was just like Linux with a better UX. > That is definitely not true. Whoever told you that has probably never used either one of the systems. I agree it's not true, but this is the impression I got from other devs. I certainly prefer the dev experience on MacOS compared to Windows. > > Multiple desktops, but you can't move windows between them with keyboard shortcuts. > I use Rectangle app. It's free and open source, and has this functionality. Wait, are you sure? I'm talking about moving windows between "Spaces", not separate monitors. I love Rectangle to bits, but AFAIK MacOS provides devs no API for moving between spaces. My experience on MacOS would really drastically improve if there's a way to do this! (Hope there's someone at Apple who might be reading this...) > > Child windows (e.g. to open or save files) will move the parent window if (1) it's wider or taller than the parent window and (2) the parent window is near an edge. This is very funny but only the first time > This is just complaining about nothing. The parent window returns to the original position once the child window is closed. This is not my experience. (Perhaps it's a setting I flipped unintentionally, or perhaps it is app dependent?) Once moved, the window will stay there until manually returned to its proper position. I do agree, it wouldn't be worth mentioning if the window returned. > > Running applications downloaded from the internet is obtuse and time-consuming. > Sorry, what? When downloading certain applications from the internet, MacOS will prevent you from running it, with a dialogue window along the lines of "We haven't seen this file before, so we've put it in the trash for you." The dialogue window for an unfamiliar app is almost identical to one for known-bad malware. There is a secreted location where you can ask the OS to run it anyways. Apps that you have recently attempted to open will be listed somewhere in the system settings. > > Even the newer laptops with "fixed keyboards" have problems. (Every 2021 MBP I've tried has a bad capslock key. This is supposed to be by design.) > If you mean the tiny delay between pressing it and activating the lock, it's definitely not a broken thing. Arguably, it should be an accessibility option, either opt-in or opt-out. As it stands, there's no option. > Most people tend to like it though as it absolutely kills the possibility of accidentally switching it on. This is the opposite of my experience. It turns on when I don't intend it to, and does not active when I intend it to. (This is my experience on two separate MBPs, so I believe it's part of the intended experience.) I definitely believe a lot of people like this, and it's probably not a big issue for most others. > How is XCode a macOS complaint? It's an IDE, not part of the OS. I never have it installed on my computers as I don't write mac or iDevice apps. I haven't used Xcode a lot. But the experience was surprising (sluggish, huge download). I understand Xcode updates also update system-wide Python and Git. (I think this caused me an issue, but I'm not 100% sure where the blame falls.) > bricking from user-accessible settings Never seen or heard of that one, but sounds horrible. Yeah :( If you set the display to "web colors", it won't posterize to the web palette, it'll instead map every non-web color to black. Rebooting in safe mode, resetting eeprom, etc. doesn't fix it. (FWIW, I think this is only a soft-brick.) > > features are obtuse/obfuscated and lack affordances for discovery > I'm not even sure what you mean by that. "Affordances" such as skeumorphs implying a button is a button, etc. One of the most well-known examples is the "option" key providing alternate options in many menus, or the `super`+`shift`+`cmd`+`4`+`space` five-key shortcut for screenshot with selection. This is one of my biggest, but also most subjective, complaints. I near-completely skipped the OSX timeframe, but if I hadn't, I might be arguing Windows or GNOME is the most obtuse. > > The benefit that the newest Apple laptops had are its battery, but that was ruined with the latest major update to MacOS. > I'm typing this on an M2 Pro that's been on for about 4h. It's up-to-date and has 69% battery left. Have you noticed a battery decline since the recent OS update in August/September? The battery life is still great (M1 Pro), but I'm getting closer to 8 hours now rather than 18 hours. (Currently 67%, down from 80%, after 2 hours mild use.) > > A cautionary tale for anyone else who's happy in Linux land! > Also fair, but I was very happy in Linux land. When I bought my first MacBook, I just wanted it for the hardware. The first thing I did was install Linux on it. After a while I decided to dual-boot OS X, mostly influenced by some of my smartest friends and colleagues, many of which also pretty big on Linux. > It did take me a while to get used to it. I had to let go of many behaviours, customisation options, etc. It was a little painful for a couple months. After that, I was fine and really enjoying the freedom to not think about OS breakages. I could just close the lid and put the computer in my bag, and I could trust that everything would be as I left them when I opened it again. > I stopped spending every available second on another customisation or optimisation. I started focusing more and better at the task at hand. > An anecdote to counter your anecdotal cautionary tale. :) Absolutely valid! And I do appreciate hearing things from your side. I think we ultimately share the same mindset. The best distro is one which requires the least amount of customization to get the stability/features/etc you want. Experiences like yours are what made MacOS so tantalizing

cassianoleal 4y ago
> Hiya! I'm going to clarify some of my issues below. I don't intend this to come off in an argumentative tone. Hi! I hope I hadn't come across as argumentative either, it was not my intention. I appreciate you taking the time to respond. I haven't responded to every single point. The ones I skipped you can assume I either simply agree completely or otherwise didn't have anything of value to add. > I'm talking about moving windows between "Spaces", not separate monitors. I love Rectangle to bits, but AFAIK MacOS provides devs no API for moving between spaces. I swear I was under the impression it did but I can't find it now so I assume you're right. My bad. > Once moved, the window will stay there until manually returned to its proper position. Perhaps I'm misremembering this one as well but this is the kind of thing that would annoy me so I assumed it behaved the way I said. I just tried it with Pages though, and the behaviour was even worse - the child window just overflowed to the side of the screen, making part of it invisible unless I manually moved the window further to the centre of the screen. :( > When downloading certain applications from the internet, MacOS will prevent you from running it, with a dialogue window along the lines of "We haven't seen this file before, so we've put it in the trash for you." I see. By default, macOS will check for signed binaries and try to validate that signature. If it fails either check (no sig, invalid sig) it asks if you want to cancel or bin the binary. I'm not sure but I think with recent macOS versions it also needs to be notarised in order to pass. > The dialogue window for an unfamiliar app is almost identical to one for known-bad malware. That's because macOS takes a zero-trust approach to executables. If it doesn't pass the checks I mentioned above, it treats it as malware. The difference between known malware and unknown malware is just that - knowledge - so it wouldn't make sense to treat it differently in either case. There used to be a config option in system preferences to allow any executables. I'm sure the option still exists somewhere but if it does it's hidden. Cynics will say it's because Apple wants to maximise the number of paid developers. Less cynical people will say it's as a protection. Personally, I don't think it's done out of malice but I don't think the fact that more money comes in hurts them either. > There is a secreted location where you can ask the OS to run it anyways. Apps that you have recently attempted to open will be listed somewhere in the system settings. I haven't seen that. Usually if I want to run an unsigned binary I find it in Finder, right click and select Open. That makes a similar dialogue appear but with a button to override and open it anyway. The OS then sets the binary as trusted and doesn't ask again. Definitely not discoverable. Again, it's either to maximise income or to better secure users. Or somewhere in between. > Xcode > the experience was surprising (sluggish, huge download). Yep, agree. The 2 or 3 times I downloaded it I had a similar experience. That said, I don't use it and don't consider it part of the OS itself since it's definitely not required unless you're writing and/or compiling native apps. > I understand Xcode updates also update system-wide Python and Git. No idea but it wouldn't bother me either. To me, these kinds of tools and languages existing system-wide are just a convenience for quickly running a script where I don't care about dependencies or the language version, or to install Homebrew - which used to require git, although I don't think that's the case anymore. Past that point, everything is installed for my user so I don't really touch the system ones. > If you set the display to "web colors", it won't posterize to the web palette, it'll instead map every non-web color to black. Rebooting in safe mode, resetting eeprom, etc. doesn't fix it. (FWIW, I think this is only a soft-brick.) That sounds like a pretty big fuck up... I wouldn't even know how to do it though, so it's at least a somewhat obscure way to brick your computer. :D > "Affordances" such as skeumorphs implying a button is a button, etc. I don't personally have an issue with how it is with regards to that but I believe you that some people might. I did prefer the buttons though, they're definitely easier to spot and understand. > "option" key providing alternate options Yeah, that's a weird one. I frequently see myself experimenting with the option key when a menu is open just to see if there's a hidden option somewhere. It also doesn't help that in some places it changes as you press and release the button with the menu open, in other places it only shows the extra options if you press option as you're clicking to open the menu (wifi, for instance). > five-key shortcut for screenshot with selection. I agree these shortcuts are not discoverable but the Screenshot app is. Arguably, shortcuts are hard to make discoverable, especially system-wide ones. > Have you noticed a battery decline since the recent OS update in August/September? I haven't, but I couldn't anyway since this model was only released last month. :) I don't think I'll ever get 18h out of it though due to everything I tend to have open all the time. Here's a weird thing though. I had left the laptop sleeping after typing my previous post. It had 69% battery like I mentioned. When I picked it up now, it had 74%. Not sure what's going on exactly. > I think we ultimately share the same mindset. The best distro is one which requires the least amount of customization to get the stability/features/etc you want. Experiences like yours are what made MacOS so tantalizing Indeed. Don't get me wrong, there are things in macOS that bother me. External display has been pretty hit-and-miss. When I connect my trackball via bluetooth, it thinks it's a keyboard - which it kind of is, since it has mappable buttons -, so it displays the keyboard setup dialogue which doesn't go away since there's no way to close it and still use the trackball, and I can't get through it because the device doesn't have the keys it wants me to press. At one point I figured out how to do it and it stopped but it was not a great experience. I really wish this laptop had FaceID, or alternatively that I could buy an external TouchID sensor that didn't come attached to a full keyboard. I've had some weirdness around DNS resolution which I think might be a bug in Tailscale but I couldn't figure out how to troubleshoot. The new System Settings has had enough written and ranted about that I don't think I need to repeat any of it. :D There are other things I dislike but the tradeoffs are still widely in favour of macOS for me.

cassianoleal 4y ago

> Hiya! I'm going to clarify some of my issues below. I don't intend this to come off in an argumentative tone. Hi! I hope I hadn't come across as argumentative either, it was not my intention. I appreciate you taking the time to respond. I haven't responded to every single point. The ones I skipped you can assume I either simply agree completely or otherwise didn't have anything of value to add. > I'm talking about moving windows between "Spaces", not separate monitors. I love Rectangle to bits, but AFAIK MacOS provides devs no API for moving between spaces. I swear I was under the impression it did but I can't find it now so I assume you're right. My bad. > Once moved, the window will stay there until manually returned to its proper position. Perhaps I'm misremembering this one as well but this is the kind of thing that would annoy me so I assumed it behaved the way I said. I just tried it with Pages though, and the behaviour was even worse - the child window just overflowed to the side of the screen, making part of it invisible unless I manually moved the window further to the centre of the screen. :( > When downloading certain applications from the internet, MacOS will prevent you from running it, with a dialogue window along the lines of "We haven't seen this file before, so we've put it in the trash for you." I see. By default, macOS will check for signed binaries and try to validate that signature. If it fails either check (no sig, invalid sig) it asks if you want to cancel or bin the binary. I'm not sure but I think with recent macOS versions it also needs to be notarised in order to pass. > The dialogue window for an unfamiliar app is almost identical to one for known-bad malware. That's because macOS takes a zero-trust approach to executables. If it doesn't pass the checks I mentioned above, it treats it as malware. The difference between known malware and unknown malware is just that - knowledge - so it wouldn't make sense to treat it differently in either case. There used to be a config option in system preferences to allow any executables. I'm sure the option still exists somewhere but if it does it's hidden. Cynics will say it's because Apple wants to maximise the number of paid developers. Less cynical people will say it's as a protection. Personally, I don't think it's done out of malice but I don't think the fact that more money comes in hurts them either. > There is a secreted location where you can ask the OS to run it anyways. Apps that you have recently attempted to open will be listed somewhere in the system settings. I haven't seen that. Usually if I want to run an unsigned binary I find it in Finder, right click and select Open. That makes a similar dialogue appear but with a button to override and open it anyway. The OS then sets the binary as trusted and doesn't ask again. Definitely not discoverable. Again, it's either to maximise income or to better secure users. Or somewhere in between. > Xcode > the experience was surprising (sluggish, huge download). Yep, agree. The 2 or 3 times I downloaded it I had a similar experience. That said, I don't use it and don't consider it part of the OS itself since it's definitely not required unless you're writing and/or compiling native apps. > I understand Xcode updates also update system-wide Python and Git. No idea but it wouldn't bother me either. To me, these kinds of tools and languages existing system-wide are just a convenience for quickly running a script where I don't care about dependencies or the language version, or to install Homebrew - which used to require git, although I don't think that's the case anymore. Past that point, everything is installed for my user so I don't really touch the system ones. > If you set the display to "web colors", it won't posterize to the web palette, it'll instead map every non-web color to black. Rebooting in safe mode, resetting eeprom, etc. doesn't fix it. (FWIW, I think this is only a soft-brick.) That sounds like a pretty big fuck up... I wouldn't even know how to do it though, so it's at least a somewhat obscure way to brick your computer. :D > "Affordances" such as skeumorphs implying a button is a button, etc. I don't personally have an issue with how it is with regards to that but I believe you that some people might. I did prefer the buttons though, they're definitely easier to spot and understand. > "option" key providing alternate options Yeah, that's a weird one. I frequently see myself experimenting with the option key when a menu is open just to see if there's a hidden option somewhere. It also doesn't help that in some places it changes as you press and release the button with the menu open, in other places it only shows the extra options if you press option as you're clicking to open the menu (wifi, for instance). > five-key shortcut for screenshot with selection. I agree these shortcuts are not discoverable but the Screenshot app is. Arguably, shortcuts are hard to make discoverable, especially system-wide ones. > Have you noticed a battery decline since the recent OS update in August/September? I haven't, but I couldn't anyway since this model was only released last month. :) I don't think I'll ever get 18h out of it though due to everything I tend to have open all the time. Here's a weird thing though. I had left the laptop sleeping after typing my previous post. It had 69% battery like I mentioned. When I picked it up now, it had 74%. Not sure what's going on exactly. > I think we ultimately share the same mindset. The best distro is one which requires the least amount of customization to get the stability/features/etc you want. Experiences like yours are what made MacOS so tantalizing Indeed. Don't get me wrong, there are things in macOS that bother me. External display has been pretty hit-and-miss. When I connect my trackball via bluetooth, it thinks it's a keyboard - which it kind of is, since it has mappable buttons -, so it displays the keyboard setup dialogue which doesn't go away since there's no way to close it and still use the trackball, and I can't get through it because the device doesn't have the keys it wants me to press. At one point I figured out how to do it and it stopped but it was not a great experience. I really wish this laptop had FaceID, or alternatively that I could buy an external TouchID sensor that didn't come attached to a full keyboard. I've had some weirdness around DNS resolution which I think might be a bug in Tailscale but I couldn't figure out how to troubleshoot. The new System Settings has had enough written and ranted about that I don't think I need to repeat any of it. :D There are other things I dislike but the tradeoffs are still widely in favour of macOS for me.