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The experience is much worse on a mac when you have a _poor_ internet connection. - Apple just doesn't care about the size of their updates. Minor OS & XCode u

The experience is much worse on a mac when you have a _poor_ internet connection. - Apple just doesn't care about the size of their updates. Minor OS & XCode updates are in the gigabytes. - Updates that you don't need right now cannot be cancelled, paused or rate-limited and will just eat your entire data cap with no warning. - Applications literally take longer to open because of gatekeeper checks

anamexis 4y ago
Worth noting that macOS has a “low data mode” which solves several of these issues. Apps can hook into it also. https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/449668/what-is-low-data-mode-on-macos-ventura-wlan-exactly https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/449668/what-is-low...
- sdflhasjd 4y ago
  Good to hear that is now a feature in Ventura, better late than never... The enraging experience I had that prompted my complaint happened on Monterey.
- croutonwagon 4y ago
  This is somewhat handy. Im currently traveling and relying tethering LTE witb a 1GB/day limit. Let me tell you on MacOS that is VERY easy to burn through in 15 minutes. Ultimately i have been using my personal laptop with ubuntu to stay under the limit. MacOS even with low data mode seems to use a lot of extraneous data for some reason. I havent had time to really see what its doing but its been heavy. The first couple days i burned through my allocation in a out 5 minutes.
  - skinnymuch 4y ago
    You can get apps like Roadtrip to help with data usage
    - croutonwagon 4y ago
      Thats my own pet peeve. Everything, even some of the post basic functionality needs apps. Three finger middle click…need an app Want natural scrolling settings separate between a mouse and touchpad, need an app Want to dock to hide and reappear faster, need an app Want to control what data leaves your computer/makes call homes…app Want to use a non apple keyboard with keybinds…most likely gonna need usb overdrive or something.
      - TheNewsIsHere 4y ago
        > Want to use a non apple keyboard with keybinds…most likely gonna need usb overdrive or something. What keybindings are you using that requires an application to support using a third party keyboard? I’ve been using third party keyboards with macOS for years and have never had need of any third party app.
        croutonwagon 4y ago
        Volume controls and media buttons (stop/play/pause/next etc). Generally i have had to USB overdrive since catalina for basic functionality on even old keyboards (ie: dell multimedia keyboard) But that brings its own caveats. And doing it through a dock is problematic though (it requires a reboot to function) it works fine on a mac mini. In general ive just given up on maintaining the functionality.
jrochkind1 4y ago
> - Updates that you don't need right now cannot be cancelled, paused or rate-limited and will just eat your entire data cap with no warning. You should be able to turn off "check for updates" and "download new update when available", and only manually check for updates at a time and network location of your choice. Search for "to set update options" on this page: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/keep-your-mac-up-to-date-mchlpx1065/mac https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/keep-your-mac-up-to... But you may mean something different than I was thinking; maybe you don't find this functionality suitable, or find it doesn't work properly?
- sdflhasjd 4y ago
  My experience was that these options didn't do anything if the download had already started, everything else I tried from restarting to killing processes was fought back with a newly spawned process update. Trying to SSH into a server to fix an emergency while on a spotty 3G hotspot was made far more stressful by my computer being out of my control.
  - jrochkind1 4y ago
    Oh, I wouldn't expect them to do anything if the download had already started, sure. It would be nice to able to abort, agreed. I misunderstood what you were describing. But perhaps you (or other readers) might want to leave those settings unchecked so it never automatically downloads, and you can manually tell it to download when you want, when you're in a location you want to. I believe you can have it check for updates and notify you, but not automatically download, too, with the right settings.
    - yencabulator 4y ago
      That's a horrible trade-off for most users, who have decent internet almost always except that one time they don't.

anamexis 4y ago

Worth noting that macOS has a “low data mode” which solves several of these issues. Apps can hook into it also. https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/449668/what-is-low-data-mode-on-macos-ventura-wlan-exactly https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/449668/what-is-low...

sdflhasjd 4y ago
Good to hear that is now a feature in Ventura, better late than never... The enraging experience I had that prompted my complaint happened on Monterey.
croutonwagon 4y ago
This is somewhat handy. Im currently traveling and relying tethering LTE witb a 1GB/day limit. Let me tell you on MacOS that is VERY easy to burn through in 15 minutes. Ultimately i have been using my personal laptop with ubuntu to stay under the limit. MacOS even with low data mode seems to use a lot of extraneous data for some reason. I havent had time to really see what its doing but its been heavy. The first couple days i burned through my allocation in a out 5 minutes.
- skinnymuch 4y ago
  You can get apps like Roadtrip to help with data usage
  - croutonwagon 4y ago
    Thats my own pet peeve. Everything, even some of the post basic functionality needs apps. Three finger middle click…need an app Want natural scrolling settings separate between a mouse and touchpad, need an app Want to dock to hide and reappear faster, need an app Want to control what data leaves your computer/makes call homes…app Want to use a non apple keyboard with keybinds…most likely gonna need usb overdrive or something.
    - TheNewsIsHere 4y ago
      > Want to use a non apple keyboard with keybinds…most likely gonna need usb overdrive or something. What keybindings are you using that requires an application to support using a third party keyboard? I’ve been using third party keyboards with macOS for years and have never had need of any third party app.
      - croutonwagon 4y ago
        Volume controls and media buttons (stop/play/pause/next etc). Generally i have had to USB overdrive since catalina for basic functionality on even old keyboards (ie: dell multimedia keyboard) But that brings its own caveats. And doing it through a dock is problematic though (it requires a reboot to function) it works fine on a mac mini. In general ive just given up on maintaining the functionality.

jrochkind1 4y ago

> - Updates that you don't need right now cannot be cancelled, paused or rate-limited and will just eat your entire data cap with no warning. You should be able to turn off "check for updates" and "download new update when available", and only manually check for updates at a time and network location of your choice. Search for "to set update options" on this page: https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/keep-your-mac-up-to-date-mchlpx1065/mac https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/keep-your-mac-up-to... But you may mean something different than I was thinking; maybe you don't find this functionality suitable, or find it doesn't work properly?

sdflhasjd 4y ago
My experience was that these options didn't do anything if the download had already started, everything else I tried from restarting to killing processes was fought back with a newly spawned process update. Trying to SSH into a server to fix an emergency while on a spotty 3G hotspot was made far more stressful by my computer being out of my control.
- jrochkind1 4y ago
  Oh, I wouldn't expect them to do anything if the download had already started, sure. It would be nice to able to abort, agreed. I misunderstood what you were describing. But perhaps you (or other readers) might want to leave those settings unchecked so it never automatically downloads, and you can manually tell it to download when you want, when you're in a location you want to. I believe you can have it check for updates and notify you, but not automatically download, too, with the right settings.
  - yencabulator 4y ago
    That's a horrible trade-off for most users, who have decent internet almost always except that one time they don't.