5 ms·

> how awful macOS is just curious, but what parts are awful? customization? or just generally bugs?

by andrekandre 3y ago

tristan957 3y ago
No window snapping.
- aidos 3y ago
  Is…that it? There are apps that let you do that. If you were feeling sadistic you could write some AppleScript to do it for you.
  - howinteresting 3y ago
    Ah yes, then you download an app for that. And that app has its own updater. Then you realize you want your mouse and trackpad to scroll in reverse directions. So you download an app for that, which comes with its own updater. And then you want a flat acceleration profile for your mouse, and you download an app for that. That, too, comes with its own updater. Next, you realize that the Mac app-based cmd-tab sucks and you'd much rather have Windows-like behavior. So you download an app for that, which also comes with its own updater. (Yes, yes, I know the arguments Apple users bring out, it's always been done this way on Mac etc etc. Still really bad.) Then you get a taste of auto-tiling on Linux and spend a couple hours setting up yabai and skhd (thankfully updated via homebrew), before realizing that you'll need to turn off SIP [1] for a semi-usable experience. Then you do go and turn off SIP, and you realize that your iOS apps no longer work because macOS has DRM built into its hardware that detects if you've turned off SIP. And then, one of those apps prompts you for an update, and in doing so it steals your keyboard focus while you're typing. And you say "is this what I spent $2500 to experience", and cry. [1] https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai#requirements-and-caveats https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai#requirements-and-caveat...
    - Tao3300 3y ago
      What's an "update"? Don't you mean a helper? I come back from lunch and my MacBook sounds like a jet turbine and is nearly on fire. Something needs a whole CPU just to show me a freaking dialog.
    - dealuromanet 3y ago
      > Then you realize you want your mouse and trackpad to scroll in reverse directions. No, I don't. I want it to be like pushing or dragging a virtual piece of paper. That's what it is and how it feels the most natural to me. That being said I'm pretty sure you can already configure this without an app, in the system preferences. > Next, you realize that the Mac app-based cmd-tab sucks and you'd much rather have Windows-like behavior. No way. I love the cmd + tab and pairing that with keyboard shortcuts for navigating browser tabs is super powerful and doesn't require compromising the beautiful giant amount of screen real estate by inducing multitasking with multiple windows open. It's okay if it comes as a configuration but I would hope the default behavior stays this way.
      - howinteresting 3y ago
        > No, I don't. I want it to be like pushing or dragging a virtual piece of paper. That's what it is and how it feels the most natural to me. Yes, that's what makes sense for a trackpad. Many people want that behavior for their trackpad, and also for their mice to scroll in the traditional direction, which is the opposite that of a trackpad. > That being said I'm pretty sure you can already configure this without an app, in the system preferences. Have you actually tried it out? > No way. I love the cmd + tab and pairing that with keyboard shortcuts for navigating browser tabs is super powerful and doesn't require compromising the beautiful giant amount of screen real estate by inducing multitasking with multiple windows open. I really don't know how macOS-style application vs Windows-style window switchers have any bearing on this. Why should two Firefox windows next to each other be treated differently from a Firefox window next to Safari window? A browser window is a browser window.
        kaba0 3y ago
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- red2awn 3y ago
  Just use the Rectangle app, problem solved. It would be nice to have it built in, but it is not a big deal.
- throwawayai2 3y ago
  There are multiple apps for this. I've had window management on my macs for a decade+.
- chezelenkoooo 3y ago
  Everyone mentioning multiple apps such as "rectangle" or "amethyst" doesn't really understand how restrictive they are compared to tools like i3 or sway. Window snapping, tiling and screen navigation is a HUGE deal. I basically don't use my mouse when programming in Linux and it's really difficult to do the same on Mac.
  - russelg 3y ago
    Then you want "yabai".
    - zer0-c00l 3y ago
      which, while better than the native macos experience, is really clunky compared to i3.
  - hibbelig 3y ago
    I used to love tiling window managers. But I found out that UI heavy applications (those with a lot of extra things around the data itself, eg an IDE with toolbars and stuff around the actual editor) don’t seem to fit well into half a screen, so I prefer to use a predictable arrangement where for instance the left and bottom bit of my terminal is visible even though part of it is obstructed by the web browser. (Then I can click the web app and see if the log message I was waiting for appears in the terminal.) I use Hammerspoon for this and I have keyboard shortcuts that will move the window and resize it to a predefined position. And I have shortcuts to select certain apps quickly. Hammerspoon is scripted in lua so I don’t feel very constrained in what I can do. There is also Phoenix, it uses JS.
- dealuromanet 3y ago
  I haven't missed window snapping since going full Apple a couple years ago. Whenever I need to see another tab or window, like if writing code and wanting documentation at the same time, command + tab and browser tab shortcuts are really fast and responsive and seamless. I prefer the larger amount of screen real estate in use without snapping plus the keyboard shortcuts over reducing the screen real estate to multitask via snapped windows, because windows side by side affect my focus more than just tabbing when needed.
alphanullmeric 3y ago
The window management and workspaces are horrible compared to gnome. nothing you expect to work actually works. Basic things like putting more than 2 windows in the same workspace are impossible. The animations are also worse than gnome, which is very surprising considering how macOS is known for its animations.
AbacusAvenger 3y ago
Personally I have two major issues with macOS: CPU usage and bugs. There are a ton of background services that periodically spin up for no obvious reason, consuming a ton of CPU for a few minutes at a time, then go back to idle. I don't know what they're doing or why. Luckily since they're background services, they're bound to the efficiency cores on Apple Silicon, so they don't hurt battery life or thermals too much most of the time. And as far as bugs go, the worst part is that bug reports through the Feedback app go largely ignored and bugs seem to keep accumulating. Even for bugs with clear and well-documented repro cases, Apple doesn't seem to pay any attention. I'm a game developer, so the majority of my bug reports come from issues I've experienced with the graphics drivers or with Xcode. Here's a few examples: - On macOS devices with > 60Hz displays, there is some awful stuttering with Metal apps in full screen mode. For some reason, CAMetalLayer nextDrawable sometimes just takes a very long time whenever it uses direct-to-display mode for presentation. That mode is implicitly enabled for full screen Metal apps, in order to bypass the display compositor and theoretically reduce latency. This bug also applies to MacBooks with the built in "ProMotion" (120Hz) displays. I'd be perfectly happy if there was just some flag to say "don't use direct-to-display", but if there is one, it's not documented anywhere. I haven't found a workaround yet. I originally reported this in August 2022. Apple replied once in October 2022 to say "we can't reproduce this, please provide a demo app". I provided the app that reliably reproduces the problem within an hour of their reply, but they've been silent since. - Metal and OpenGL (the latter is emulated via Metal on Apple Silicon Macs) both exhibit a bug with triangle merging that causes partial derivatives to go very wrong along primitive edges. There's a usable workaround for this on the Metal side (just enable a [[sample_mask]] even if you're not doing multisampling). There's no such workaround for the OpenGL side, unfortunately. I was able to work with Asahi Lina to fix this for Mesa on Asahi Linux, and the fix itself was actually really trivial and didn't require a sample mask hack (it took a lot of debugging to figure out, though -- but that's how reverse engineering goes). To solve it, Apple would simply need to set a particular bit to disable triangle merging whenever the fragment shader uses derivatives. I reported this issue in December 2022, and Apple hasn't replied. - This one is not as egregious as some of the bugs I've reported, and the Xcode team has responded reliably in the past. This is the first Xcode bug report I've had where they didn't acknowledge the report within ~14 days or so. In the current Xcode beta, using the graphics debugger will suspend the app but hitting "resume" leaves the app stuck suspended. The normal application debugger path does not do this, just the graphics debugger. I reported this in mid-June 2023, but haven't heard anything yet.
prmph 3y ago
I'm on an MBA m1 running Ventura. MacOS is really horrible: - I've given up getting the permissions on my folder share (Samba) to stick. MacOS keeps reverting to defaults, with means everyone has full read/write permissions. Network files sharing should be a fundamental feature without hassle. Not I'm forced to read up on how to share using NFS. - I created a FAT32 partition to share files with Asahi. I also setup GDrive syncing on it. Unfortunately, MacOS keep creating these annoying files starting with ._xxx for each single folder and file (and there are hundreds of them). I'm not sure why. - I had to wipe the machine and do a re-install to enable third-party kernel extensions to load - The system volume (the primary SSD) on the system does not appear in finder. I keep dragging it to the finder side-bar, and it keeps disappearing under unclear circumstances. - I just now got a black screen of death after ejecting some mounted drives on my other Mac, an intel running Mojave. - When I maximize windows, they don't fill up the screen. Usually they increase in size by what seems a random amount. Most times I have to manually drag the edges to fill up the screen. Even after that, a lot of time there is some small margin below the window that cannot be fixed. it's a small issue, but very annoying. - And too many other weird stuff to list here.
NayamAmarshe 3y ago
I could live with it but the keyboard shortcuts are generally worse than Linux. https://gist.github.com/NayamAmarshe/c8dfabefc5a25df518edd34547b9fc3f https://gist.github.com/NayamAmarshe/c8dfabefc5a25df518edd34...
- thebitstick 3y ago
  I have the opposite opinion for macOS shortcuts vs Linux/Windows/IBM shortcuts. Practically everything is handled with Cmd, with Option/Shift/Control being modifiers. It's the exception if something is handled exclusively with Option/Shift/Control, example being web browsers and Finder for tabs. Text selection is superior in macOS, and anyone who argues PgUp/PgDn/Home/End being a better solution in combination with Shift and Ctrl is insane. Depending on the port of a 3rd-party application, it may adopt macOS shortcuts and be consistent with everything else, or keep IBM/Windows-style shortcuts and break compatibility with other apps.
- weikju 3y ago
  On the other hand, in a terminal, I can use Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V/etc for their intended (in-terminal) purposes and Cmd-C/Cmd-V/etc for their intended (macOS-wide) purposes...
  - NayamAmarshe 3y ago
    On Linux you don't need a separate key though. Ctrl + Shift is all you need.
    - kaba0 3y ago
      Which is much worse - why is it me, the user that have to care about whether I’m in a terminal or a browser window and switch the shortcuts I use for the same functionality? It should be the same, and macs actually got it right. The first time I had a mac (from an employer), I was annoyed by it, but it is the superior way. Especially that not all terminal emulators go with ctrl+shift either, so there is also the “let’s copy it with shift, nope, without shift, nope, again, oh I killed the process”.

> how awful macOS is just curious, but what parts are awful? customization? or just generally bugs?

tristan957 3y ago

No window snapping.

aidos 3y ago
Is…that it? There are apps that let you do that. If you were feeling sadistic you could write some AppleScript to do it for you.
- howinteresting 3y ago
  Ah yes, then you download an app for that. And that app has its own updater. Then you realize you want your mouse and trackpad to scroll in reverse directions. So you download an app for that, which comes with its own updater. And then you want a flat acceleration profile for your mouse, and you download an app for that. That, too, comes with its own updater. Next, you realize that the Mac app-based cmd-tab sucks and you'd much rather have Windows-like behavior. So you download an app for that, which also comes with its own updater. (Yes, yes, I know the arguments Apple users bring out, it's always been done this way on Mac etc etc. Still really bad.) Then you get a taste of auto-tiling on Linux and spend a couple hours setting up yabai and skhd (thankfully updated via homebrew), before realizing that you'll need to turn off SIP [1] for a semi-usable experience. Then you do go and turn off SIP, and you realize that your iOS apps no longer work because macOS has DRM built into its hardware that detects if you've turned off SIP. And then, one of those apps prompts you for an update, and in doing so it steals your keyboard focus while you're typing. And you say "is this what I spent $2500 to experience", and cry. [1] https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai#requirements-and-caveats https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai#requirements-and-caveat...
  - Tao3300 3y ago
    What's an "update"? Don't you mean a helper? I come back from lunch and my MacBook sounds like a jet turbine and is nearly on fire. Something needs a whole CPU just to show me a freaking dialog.
  - dealuromanet 3y ago
    > Then you realize you want your mouse and trackpad to scroll in reverse directions. No, I don't. I want it to be like pushing or dragging a virtual piece of paper. That's what it is and how it feels the most natural to me. That being said I'm pretty sure you can already configure this without an app, in the system preferences. > Next, you realize that the Mac app-based cmd-tab sucks and you'd much rather have Windows-like behavior. No way. I love the cmd + tab and pairing that with keyboard shortcuts for navigating browser tabs is super powerful and doesn't require compromising the beautiful giant amount of screen real estate by inducing multitasking with multiple windows open. It's okay if it comes as a configuration but I would hope the default behavior stays this way.
    - howinteresting 3y ago
      > No, I don't. I want it to be like pushing or dragging a virtual piece of paper. That's what it is and how it feels the most natural to me. Yes, that's what makes sense for a trackpad. Many people want that behavior for their trackpad, and also for their mice to scroll in the traditional direction, which is the opposite that of a trackpad. > That being said I'm pretty sure you can already configure this without an app, in the system preferences. Have you actually tried it out? > No way. I love the cmd + tab and pairing that with keyboard shortcuts for navigating browser tabs is super powerful and doesn't require compromising the beautiful giant amount of screen real estate by inducing multitasking with multiple windows open. I really don't know how macOS-style application vs Windows-style window switchers have any bearing on this. Why should two Firefox windows next to each other be treated differently from a Firefox window next to Safari window? A browser window is a browser window.
      - kaba0 3y ago
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
red2awn 3y ago
Just use the Rectangle app, problem solved. It would be nice to have it built in, but it is not a big deal.
throwawayai2 3y ago
There are multiple apps for this. I've had window management on my macs for a decade+.
chezelenkoooo 3y ago
Everyone mentioning multiple apps such as "rectangle" or "amethyst" doesn't really understand how restrictive they are compared to tools like i3 or sway. Window snapping, tiling and screen navigation is a HUGE deal. I basically don't use my mouse when programming in Linux and it's really difficult to do the same on Mac.
- russelg 3y ago
  Then you want "yabai".
  - zer0-c00l 3y ago
    which, while better than the native macos experience, is really clunky compared to i3.
- hibbelig 3y ago
  I used to love tiling window managers. But I found out that UI heavy applications (those with a lot of extra things around the data itself, eg an IDE with toolbars and stuff around the actual editor) don’t seem to fit well into half a screen, so I prefer to use a predictable arrangement where for instance the left and bottom bit of my terminal is visible even though part of it is obstructed by the web browser. (Then I can click the web app and see if the log message I was waiting for appears in the terminal.) I use Hammerspoon for this and I have keyboard shortcuts that will move the window and resize it to a predefined position. And I have shortcuts to select certain apps quickly. Hammerspoon is scripted in lua so I don’t feel very constrained in what I can do. There is also Phoenix, it uses JS.
dealuromanet 3y ago
I haven't missed window snapping since going full Apple a couple years ago. Whenever I need to see another tab or window, like if writing code and wanting documentation at the same time, command + tab and browser tab shortcuts are really fast and responsive and seamless. I prefer the larger amount of screen real estate in use without snapping plus the keyboard shortcuts over reducing the screen real estate to multitask via snapped windows, because windows side by side affect my focus more than just tabbing when needed.

alphanullmeric 3y ago

The window management and workspaces are horrible compared to gnome. nothing you expect to work actually works. Basic things like putting more than 2 windows in the same workspace are impossible. The animations are also worse than gnome, which is very surprising considering how macOS is known for its animations.

AbacusAvenger 3y ago

Personally I have two major issues with macOS: CPU usage and bugs. There are a ton of background services that periodically spin up for no obvious reason, consuming a ton of CPU for a few minutes at a time, then go back to idle. I don't know what they're doing or why. Luckily since they're background services, they're bound to the efficiency cores on Apple Silicon, so they don't hurt battery life or thermals too much most of the time. And as far as bugs go, the worst part is that bug reports through the Feedback app go largely ignored and bugs seem to keep accumulating. Even for bugs with clear and well-documented repro cases, Apple doesn't seem to pay any attention. I'm a game developer, so the majority of my bug reports come from issues I've experienced with the graphics drivers or with Xcode. Here's a few examples: - On macOS devices with > 60Hz displays, there is some awful stuttering with Metal apps in full screen mode. For some reason, CAMetalLayer nextDrawable sometimes just takes a very long time whenever it uses direct-to-display mode for presentation. That mode is implicitly enabled for full screen Metal apps, in order to bypass the display compositor and theoretically reduce latency. This bug also applies to MacBooks with the built in "ProMotion" (120Hz) displays. I'd be perfectly happy if there was just some flag to say "don't use direct-to-display", but if there is one, it's not documented anywhere. I haven't found a workaround yet. I originally reported this in August 2022. Apple replied once in October 2022 to say "we can't reproduce this, please provide a demo app". I provided the app that reliably reproduces the problem within an hour of their reply, but they've been silent since. - Metal and OpenGL (the latter is emulated via Metal on Apple Silicon Macs) both exhibit a bug with triangle merging that causes partial derivatives to go very wrong along primitive edges. There's a usable workaround for this on the Metal side (just enable a [[sample_mask]] even if you're not doing multisampling). There's no such workaround for the OpenGL side, unfortunately. I was able to work with Asahi Lina to fix this for Mesa on Asahi Linux, and the fix itself was actually really trivial and didn't require a sample mask hack (it took a lot of debugging to figure out, though -- but that's how reverse engineering goes). To solve it, Apple would simply need to set a particular bit to disable triangle merging whenever the fragment shader uses derivatives. I reported this issue in December 2022, and Apple hasn't replied. - This one is not as egregious as some of the bugs I've reported, and the Xcode team has responded reliably in the past. This is the first Xcode bug report I've had where they didn't acknowledge the report within ~14 days or so. In the current Xcode beta, using the graphics debugger will suspend the app but hitting "resume" leaves the app stuck suspended. The normal application debugger path does not do this, just the graphics debugger. I reported this in mid-June 2023, but haven't heard anything yet.

prmph 3y ago

I'm on an MBA m1 running Ventura. MacOS is really horrible: - I've given up getting the permissions on my folder share (Samba) to stick. MacOS keeps reverting to defaults, with means everyone has full read/write permissions. Network files sharing should be a fundamental feature without hassle. Not I'm forced to read up on how to share using NFS. - I created a FAT32 partition to share files with Asahi. I also setup GDrive syncing on it. Unfortunately, MacOS keep creating these annoying files starting with ._xxx for each single folder and file (and there are hundreds of them). I'm not sure why. - I had to wipe the machine and do a re-install to enable third-party kernel extensions to load - The system volume (the primary SSD) on the system does not appear in finder. I keep dragging it to the finder side-bar, and it keeps disappearing under unclear circumstances. - I just now got a black screen of death after ejecting some mounted drives on my other Mac, an intel running Mojave. - When I maximize windows, they don't fill up the screen. Usually they increase in size by what seems a random amount. Most times I have to manually drag the edges to fill up the screen. Even after that, a lot of time there is some small margin below the window that cannot be fixed. it's a small issue, but very annoying. - And too many other weird stuff to list here.

NayamAmarshe 3y ago

I could live with it but the keyboard shortcuts are generally worse than Linux. https://gist.github.com/NayamAmarshe/c8dfabefc5a25df518edd34547b9fc3f https://gist.github.com/NayamAmarshe/c8dfabefc5a25df518edd34...

thebitstick 3y ago
I have the opposite opinion for macOS shortcuts vs Linux/Windows/IBM shortcuts. Practically everything is handled with Cmd, with Option/Shift/Control being modifiers. It's the exception if something is handled exclusively with Option/Shift/Control, example being web browsers and Finder for tabs. Text selection is superior in macOS, and anyone who argues PgUp/PgDn/Home/End being a better solution in combination with Shift and Ctrl is insane. Depending on the port of a 3rd-party application, it may adopt macOS shortcuts and be consistent with everything else, or keep IBM/Windows-style shortcuts and break compatibility with other apps.
weikju 3y ago
On the other hand, in a terminal, I can use Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V/etc for their intended (in-terminal) purposes and Cmd-C/Cmd-V/etc for their intended (macOS-wide) purposes...
- NayamAmarshe 3y ago
  On Linux you don't need a separate key though. Ctrl + Shift is all you need.
  - kaba0 3y ago
    Which is much worse - why is it me, the user that have to care about whether I’m in a terminal or a browser window and switch the shortcuts I use for the same functionality? It should be the same, and macs actually got it right. The first time I had a mac (from an employer), I was annoyed by it, but it is the superior way. Especially that not all terminal emulators go with ctrl+shift either, so there is also the “let’s copy it with shift, nope, without shift, nope, again, oh I killed the process”.