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It's hard to dispute the excellent hardware Apple makes, but quite easy to do that to their software. My MBP dual-boots into Ubuntu so I can actually do my work

It's hard to dispute the excellent hardware Apple makes, but quite easy to do that to their software. My MBP dual-boots into Ubuntu so I can actually do my work and the 4S would make a great Android phone, though it still wouldn't be my choice due to its small screen. What it really comes down to is that their software is too opinionated. At every turn I get frustrated by one inanity or another until I give up and just use something that works without requiring mental contortions on my part.

jshen 15y ago
I feel the opposite. One example, when I use Linux I'm immediately met with the contortion of ctr-c/v/x not working as copy/paste across the board. Most notably in the terminal. Cmd-c/v/x works across the board.
- pyre 15y ago
  This is just a side-effect of Apple using a non-standard modifier key. I don't think that the CMD modifier was chosen so that it wouldn't collide with the use of ctrl- sequences in terminal emulators.
  - mbreese 15y ago
    Not quite... it's a side effect of Apple's Interface Guidelines. In Linux, there are a few different sets of guidelines (if you're lucky), so God only knows what was in the mind of the developer at the time they worked on a GUI. To top it off, most Mac devs think a lot about the design of the GUI and concentrate on human/device interaction. A Linux dev is more likely to be focused on just getting the damn thing to work. (There's merit in both approaches)
    - ralphsaunders 15y ago
      There really isn't. Getting the thing to work is the bare minimum.
    - ZeroGravitas 15y ago
      Being able to cut and paste in the terminal without thinking about it too much was one of my favourite features of Mac OS X, but it's nonsense to claim it's because of Apple's Interface Guidlines. It was just an unlucky coincidence that Apple avoided by chance. Meanwhile the shortcut command for quit is right next to the key to close a window (at least in Qwerty). That's kind of stupid, but lets not go building any grand theories to confirm our biases just based on that factoid.
      - jshen 15y ago
        "It was just an unlucky coincidence that Apple avoided by chance." The fact that they were not specifically thinking of the terminal (which you are assuming) does not mean that it was purely by chance. That's a non sequitur.
  - chadv 15y ago
    I think that cmd actually was designed so that it wouldn't collide with ctrl. If you look at the keyboard for the Apple II, it had a ctrl key, and I believe it was used for control characters. On later keyboards, they introduced the open apple key (ancestor of command) while retaining the ctrl key. Apple manufactured their own keyboards, so it was relatively easy for them to have separate keys for control characters and keyboard shortcuts. Microsoft on the other hand, did not have this luxury. They were inclined to base their software around existing keyboards, and so they co-opted the ctrl key for shortcuts. One cool thing I learned while researching this is that Emacs-style keybindings work in TextEdit or any native OS X text area. ^A go to beginning of line ^E end of line ^L center line vertically ^K kut (cuts text till end of the line and stores it in a separate buffer from the clipboard) ^Y yank (pastes from the kut buffer) ^D forward delete (^ = Ctrl) http://www.vintage-computer.com/images/apple2keyboard.jpg http://www.vintage-computer.com/images/apple2keyboard.jpg http://www.oldapplestuff.com/Images/Apple2Computers/Apple2eSystem.jpg http://www.oldapplestuff.com/Images/Apple2Computers/Apple2eS...
    - pyre 15y ago
      One cool thing I learned while researching this is that Emacs-style keybindings work in TextEdit or any native OS X text area. This is from OSX's NeXT legacy. This was not the case prior to OSX.
  - rbarooah 15y ago
    Yes it was, at least indirectly. The cmd key is designed to invoke shortcuts in the GUI layer and not conflict with anything that's a legacy from the text-mode style of interaction. That's why it's a special different key.
    - scelerat 15y ago
      This is an accurate way to think of what the relationship between the command key and the control key on the Mac is today. Historically, the Mac initially didn't have a control key. It was introduced later to accommodate terminal emulation. There was no "legacy" to accommodate for the Mac of 1984; it was a new platform with a completely different UI from most other computers of the time. Since then Control has been increasingly used as a general modifier key -- though still limited compared to command, for exactly the reason you state.
- skore 15y ago
  I know it's just "one example", but is it really that hard to remember that a few programs have that particular combination reserved? In most terminals I know, you just do Ctrl+Shift+x/v/c. Pressing one more key because you are in a special environment is hardly a big deal.
redthrowaway 15y ago
Did you have much difficulty getting Ubuntu running? I couldn't get Fedora to boot from USB or HD, even using rEFIt. I suppose I could check out Ubuntu again.
- wtallis 15y ago
  Macs have trouble booting legacy operating systems off external devices, but I've never had trouble booting anything off the internal drive, or booting off an external drive using EFI. At the moment, I'm running a Linux system off a firewire hard drive, with my bootloader, kernel, and initrd stored on the EFI protective partition of my internal drive.
  - redthrowaway 15y ago
    Hmmm. I've never been able to get Fedora installed from USB to the point it will let me boot off the Fedora partition. I'll try again with Ubuntu and see if I can get that working, then move from there to another distro. Thanks for your input; I appreciate it.
    - catch23 15y ago
      You won't be able to install via usb because refit/efi won't enable usb booting. You can use the internal dvd drive for installation however -- or replace the drive with a hard drive containing the installation medium. Best way to do this is to partition your first drive into 3 partitions before installing OSX using disk utility pre-installation. Install OSX, bootcamp, windows, then linux. Then you're free to remove your dvd drive if you prefer using a hard drive in that bay, but you'll need the drive for OS installations.
      - redthrowaway 15y ago
        Thanks for your advice. I was trying to do it without tripple-booting (no need for Windows), but I'll go ahead and give it a shot.
SoftwareMaven 15y ago
Good design is always opinionated. That you don't share those opinions doesn't make it poor design any more than it make you wrong for not sharing them. I spent a long time thinking about whether the hardware or software is more valuable to me, and, in the end, I agree with Gruber. The software really does make the platform.
jamesrom 15y ago
Funny how the iPhone suddenly has a "small screen"... When it first came out the phone and screen were criticized for being impractical due to it's large size. http://dcurt.is/2011/10/03/3-point-5-inches/ http://dcurt.is/2011/10/03/3-point-5-inches/
- cmatthias 15y ago
  Everytime I see this article mentioned, I cringe. I am a man with relatively small hands and I can reach the right edge and even the upper right corner of my Motorola Atrix 2 (almost as big as a Galaxy S II) easily. Have you actually tried this? Unless he has tiny, child-like hands, those graphics have to be inaccurate.
  - ugh 15y ago
    I certainly have no small hands and I can reach the upper corner – but it's so uncomfortable that it hurts. Reaching and comfortably reaching are different.
    - cmatthias 15y ago
      I can comfortably reach the upper right corner of my phone. Maybe I have larger hands than I think I do, or maybe I hold my phone differently than most people. But I still don't see how that blog post linked to in the parent comment is at all accurate.
- mikeash 15y ago
  It was also criticized for not having a physical keyboard. The smartphone world has changed tremendously.
  - bane 15y ago
    There are still quite a few Android phones out there with keyboards. I miss my BB keyboard on occasion, but I can usually just wait till I get to a proper computer if I want to type anything particularly lengthy.
tmeasday 15y ago
This doesn't actually mean that the software isn't the major thing that makes apple great though. Just because you find it frustrating doesn't mean the 99% of 'average' users don't find it vastly superior, usually without even realising it.

jshen 15y ago

I feel the opposite. One example, when I use Linux I'm immediately met with the contortion of ctr-c/v/x not working as copy/paste across the board. Most notably in the terminal. Cmd-c/v/x works across the board.

pyre 15y ago
This is just a side-effect of Apple using a non-standard modifier key. I don't think that the CMD modifier was chosen so that it wouldn't collide with the use of ctrl- sequences in terminal emulators.
- mbreese 15y ago
  Not quite... it's a side effect of Apple's Interface Guidelines. In Linux, there are a few different sets of guidelines (if you're lucky), so God only knows what was in the mind of the developer at the time they worked on a GUI. To top it off, most Mac devs think a lot about the design of the GUI and concentrate on human/device interaction. A Linux dev is more likely to be focused on just getting the damn thing to work. (There's merit in both approaches)
  - ralphsaunders 15y ago
    There really isn't. Getting the thing to work is the bare minimum.
  - ZeroGravitas 15y ago
    Being able to cut and paste in the terminal without thinking about it too much was one of my favourite features of Mac OS X, but it's nonsense to claim it's because of Apple's Interface Guidlines. It was just an unlucky coincidence that Apple avoided by chance. Meanwhile the shortcut command for quit is right next to the key to close a window (at least in Qwerty). That's kind of stupid, but lets not go building any grand theories to confirm our biases just based on that factoid.
    - jshen 15y ago
      "It was just an unlucky coincidence that Apple avoided by chance." The fact that they were not specifically thinking of the terminal (which you are assuming) does not mean that it was purely by chance. That's a non sequitur.
- chadv 15y ago
  I think that cmd actually was designed so that it wouldn't collide with ctrl. If you look at the keyboard for the Apple II, it had a ctrl key, and I believe it was used for control characters. On later keyboards, they introduced the open apple key (ancestor of command) while retaining the ctrl key. Apple manufactured their own keyboards, so it was relatively easy for them to have separate keys for control characters and keyboard shortcuts. Microsoft on the other hand, did not have this luxury. They were inclined to base their software around existing keyboards, and so they co-opted the ctrl key for shortcuts. One cool thing I learned while researching this is that Emacs-style keybindings work in TextEdit or any native OS X text area. ^A go to beginning of line ^E end of line ^L center line vertically ^K kut (cuts text till end of the line and stores it in a separate buffer from the clipboard) ^Y yank (pastes from the kut buffer) ^D forward delete (^ = Ctrl) http://www.vintage-computer.com/images/apple2keyboard.jpg http://www.vintage-computer.com/images/apple2keyboard.jpg http://www.oldapplestuff.com/Images/Apple2Computers/Apple2eSystem.jpg http://www.oldapplestuff.com/Images/Apple2Computers/Apple2eS...
  - pyre 15y ago
    One cool thing I learned while researching this is that Emacs-style keybindings work in TextEdit or any native OS X text area. This is from OSX's NeXT legacy. This was not the case prior to OSX.
- rbarooah 15y ago
  Yes it was, at least indirectly. The cmd key is designed to invoke shortcuts in the GUI layer and not conflict with anything that's a legacy from the text-mode style of interaction. That's why it's a special different key.
  - scelerat 15y ago
    This is an accurate way to think of what the relationship between the command key and the control key on the Mac is today. Historically, the Mac initially didn't have a control key. It was introduced later to accommodate terminal emulation. There was no "legacy" to accommodate for the Mac of 1984; it was a new platform with a completely different UI from most other computers of the time. Since then Control has been increasingly used as a general modifier key -- though still limited compared to command, for exactly the reason you state.
skore 15y ago
I know it's just "one example", but is it really that hard to remember that a few programs have that particular combination reserved? In most terminals I know, you just do Ctrl+Shift+x/v/c. Pressing one more key because you are in a special environment is hardly a big deal.

redthrowaway 15y ago

Did you have much difficulty getting Ubuntu running? I couldn't get Fedora to boot from USB or HD, even using rEFIt. I suppose I could check out Ubuntu again.

wtallis 15y ago
Macs have trouble booting legacy operating systems off external devices, but I've never had trouble booting anything off the internal drive, or booting off an external drive using EFI. At the moment, I'm running a Linux system off a firewire hard drive, with my bootloader, kernel, and initrd stored on the EFI protective partition of my internal drive.
- redthrowaway 15y ago
  Hmmm. I've never been able to get Fedora installed from USB to the point it will let me boot off the Fedora partition. I'll try again with Ubuntu and see if I can get that working, then move from there to another distro. Thanks for your input; I appreciate it.
  - catch23 15y ago
    You won't be able to install via usb because refit/efi won't enable usb booting. You can use the internal dvd drive for installation however -- or replace the drive with a hard drive containing the installation medium. Best way to do this is to partition your first drive into 3 partitions before installing OSX using disk utility pre-installation. Install OSX, bootcamp, windows, then linux. Then you're free to remove your dvd drive if you prefer using a hard drive in that bay, but you'll need the drive for OS installations.
    - redthrowaway 15y ago
      Thanks for your advice. I was trying to do it without tripple-booting (no need for Windows), but I'll go ahead and give it a shot.

SoftwareMaven 15y ago

Good design is always opinionated. That you don't share those opinions doesn't make it poor design any more than it make you wrong for not sharing them. I spent a long time thinking about whether the hardware or software is more valuable to me, and, in the end, I agree with Gruber. The software really does make the platform.

jamesrom 15y ago

Funny how the iPhone suddenly has a "small screen"... When it first came out the phone and screen were criticized for being impractical due to it's large size. http://dcurt.is/2011/10/03/3-point-5-inches/ http://dcurt.is/2011/10/03/3-point-5-inches/

cmatthias 15y ago
Everytime I see this article mentioned, I cringe. I am a man with relatively small hands and I can reach the right edge and even the upper right corner of my Motorola Atrix 2 (almost as big as a Galaxy S II) easily. Have you actually tried this? Unless he has tiny, child-like hands, those graphics have to be inaccurate.
- ugh 15y ago
  I certainly have no small hands and I can reach the upper corner – but it's so uncomfortable that it hurts. Reaching and comfortably reaching are different.
  - cmatthias 15y ago
    I can comfortably reach the upper right corner of my phone. Maybe I have larger hands than I think I do, or maybe I hold my phone differently than most people. But I still don't see how that blog post linked to in the parent comment is at all accurate.
mikeash 15y ago
It was also criticized for not having a physical keyboard. The smartphone world has changed tremendously.
- bane 15y ago
  There are still quite a few Android phones out there with keyboards. I miss my BB keyboard on occasion, but I can usually just wait till I get to a proper computer if I want to type anything particularly lengthy.

tmeasday 15y ago

This doesn't actually mean that the software isn't the major thing that makes apple great though. Just because you find it frustrating doesn't mean the 99% of 'average' users don't find it vastly superior, usually without even realising it.