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My main OS is macOS but I use Windows for gaming. The reliance on crusty old ass applications like those on Windows is actually kinda depressing. Everything new

My main OS is macOS but I use Windows for gaming. The reliance on crusty old ass applications like those on Windows is actually kinda depressing. Everything newer is garbage for various reasons, and everything old is ugly as hell. Macs have Pixelmator and Preview for images, Apple Notes is actually very decent for actual notes, Zed for nerdy text files, QuickTime/IINA for video (or hell even VLC looks much nicer than on Windows). All of them are modern, beautiful, and work well

tmpz22 2y ago
Apple Notes on MacOS have been crashing for me constantly since shortly after Apple Intelligence beta started rolling out. Even though I'm not even on the beta.
kylebenzle 2y ago
Mentioning all these programs and seeing the trouble people have I will never really understand why there are any men at all that still use Windows and Mac.
- DCH3416 2y ago
  I mean Haiku is the best OS in my opinion. But nobody really uses it because it lacks the software support. Sometimes you got to put up with the BS to get what you want done.
yazantapuz 2y ago
The ugliness is a nice feature.
mikae1 2y ago
> The reliance on crusty old ass applications like those on Windows is actually kinda depressing. macOS is the most consistent OS and Windows the least [1]. With the exception of IrfanView I find neither of those apps particularly crusty though. There's https://imageglass.org https://imageglass.org I personally moved from macOS to KDE Plasma and I'm a happy camper as long as I stay with Plasma/Qt apps. [1] https://ntdev.blog/2021/02/06/state-of-the-windows-how-many-layers-of-ui-inconsistencies-are-in-windows-10/ https://ntdev.blog/2021/02/06/state-of-the-windows-how-many-...
- BobaFloutist 2y ago
  VLC is pretty damn crusty, especially to anyone not familiar with that particular....design ethos. Don't get me wrong, it's an incredible endeavor and the developers deserve endless praise, but for people that aren't already familiar with navigating things like GIMP, KDE, Open/LibreOffice, it's not especially welcoming.
  - DCH3416 2y ago
    You critics stay away from VLC. I swear if I have to deal with another "modern" UI implementation.
  - JohnFen 2y ago
    > for people that aren't already familiar with navigating things like GIMP, KDE, Open/LibreOffice, it's not especially welcoming. This is true for all complex software, though. People who have never used Apple's software also struggle with it until they become more familiar.
    - dmurray 2y ago
      Is VLC really "complex software" if you just want to use it as a media player? Double click your media file, it plays. Play, pause, volume controls are where you'd guess they are. There's plenty of complexity underneath, but the happy path is simple. By contrast, "open this image and draw a single red circle in it" in GIMP is as challenging to a newbie as quitting vi. Even for an intermediate user - I use GIMP a handful of times per year and I absolutely could not tell you from memory how to do that.
      - noch 2y ago
        > Is VLC really "complex software" The moment you criticize an app, someone on the Internet will jump in to tut-tut and insist to you that it's "complex software" and you can't possibly understand how complex it is. Case in point: Just a few years ago the Windows Terminal team chastised[^1] users by claiming that fast font rendering would literally require several PhDs of research and can't be solved otherwise[^0]. At some point we have to realize that claiming something is complex doesn't prove that it's inherently complex nor justify any complexity in how it was built. [^0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28743687 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28743687 [^1]: https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/10362#issuecomment-862844333 https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/10362#issuecomm...
jpalomaki 2y ago
I have always thought the decision to keep Notepad and Paint as they are is a nod towards the developer community. Thanks to this, there's a large market for affordable and better alternatives.
couscouspie 2y ago
What is depressing about old tools? I love the GNU coreutils and am really passionate about them. They are old, but near perfect.
- fragmede 2y ago
  I don't know about depressing, but eg grep is slow and lacks some quality of life features working with modern toolchains (aka git, but also codebase size). ag and rg both read .gitignore if there is one (disable with rg -uuu); for today's multi-language repos, ag can look inside a specific language's files eg ag --go or ag --js.
  - jraph 2y ago
    I need to try ag. I usually use rg, which is way faster than grep for searching many repositories at once. But one of my tasks involves searching things in a single XML file of hundreds megabytes, or even several gigabytes, and for this, grep is way faster than rg apparently. So under the right conditions, grep is actually quite fast and you may be missing out if you never try using it.
goosedragons 2y ago
Pixelmator is over 15 years old, Preview predates OS X as it was a part of NeXTStep.
- iknowstuff 2y ago
  To be clear, i’m not saying they’re new, but rather that they are beautiful because they have been continuously modernized to match the look and functionality of the OS.
makeitdouble 2y ago
If you care about beautiful interfaces macos and linux will always be way ahead, for sure. The choice to go for windows as main OS kinda includes prioritizing advanced features and versatility over the UX. Even firefox is not as nice on windows than on mac.
_smfg 2y ago
the lack of consistent UI experiences in windows was a thing that really bugged me and why I've never looked back after switching to MacOS

tmpz22 2y ago

Apple Notes on MacOS have been crashing for me constantly since shortly after Apple Intelligence beta started rolling out. Even though I'm not even on the beta.

kylebenzle 2y ago

Mentioning all these programs and seeing the trouble people have I will never really understand why there are any men at all that still use Windows and Mac.

DCH3416 2y ago
I mean Haiku is the best OS in my opinion. But nobody really uses it because it lacks the software support. Sometimes you got to put up with the BS to get what you want done.

yazantapuz 2y ago

The ugliness is a nice feature.

mikae1 2y ago

> The reliance on crusty old ass applications like those on Windows is actually kinda depressing. macOS is the most consistent OS and Windows the least [1]. With the exception of IrfanView I find neither of those apps particularly crusty though. There's https://imageglass.org https://imageglass.org I personally moved from macOS to KDE Plasma and I'm a happy camper as long as I stay with Plasma/Qt apps. [1] https://ntdev.blog/2021/02/06/state-of-the-windows-how-many-layers-of-ui-inconsistencies-are-in-windows-10/ https://ntdev.blog/2021/02/06/state-of-the-windows-how-many-...

BobaFloutist 2y ago
VLC is pretty damn crusty, especially to anyone not familiar with that particular....design ethos. Don't get me wrong, it's an incredible endeavor and the developers deserve endless praise, but for people that aren't already familiar with navigating things like GIMP, KDE, Open/LibreOffice, it's not especially welcoming.
- DCH3416 2y ago
  You critics stay away from VLC. I swear if I have to deal with another "modern" UI implementation.
- JohnFen 2y ago
  > for people that aren't already familiar with navigating things like GIMP, KDE, Open/LibreOffice, it's not especially welcoming. This is true for all complex software, though. People who have never used Apple's software also struggle with it until they become more familiar.
  - dmurray 2y ago
    Is VLC really "complex software" if you just want to use it as a media player? Double click your media file, it plays. Play, pause, volume controls are where you'd guess they are. There's plenty of complexity underneath, but the happy path is simple. By contrast, "open this image and draw a single red circle in it" in GIMP is as challenging to a newbie as quitting vi. Even for an intermediate user - I use GIMP a handful of times per year and I absolutely could not tell you from memory how to do that.
    - noch 2y ago
      > Is VLC really "complex software" The moment you criticize an app, someone on the Internet will jump in to tut-tut and insist to you that it's "complex software" and you can't possibly understand how complex it is. Case in point: Just a few years ago the Windows Terminal team chastised[^1] users by claiming that fast font rendering would literally require several PhDs of research and can't be solved otherwise[^0]. At some point we have to realize that claiming something is complex doesn't prove that it's inherently complex nor justify any complexity in how it was built. [^0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28743687 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28743687 [^1]: https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/10362#issuecomment-862844333 https://github.com/microsoft/terminal/issues/10362#issuecomm...

jpalomaki 2y ago

I have always thought the decision to keep Notepad and Paint as they are is a nod towards the developer community. Thanks to this, there's a large market for affordable and better alternatives.

couscouspie 2y ago

What is depressing about old tools? I love the GNU coreutils and am really passionate about them. They are old, but near perfect.

fragmede 2y ago
I don't know about depressing, but eg grep is slow and lacks some quality of life features working with modern toolchains (aka git, but also codebase size). ag and rg both read .gitignore if there is one (disable with rg -uuu); for today's multi-language repos, ag can look inside a specific language's files eg ag --go or ag --js.
- jraph 2y ago
  I need to try ag. I usually use rg, which is way faster than grep for searching many repositories at once. But one of my tasks involves searching things in a single XML file of hundreds megabytes, or even several gigabytes, and for this, grep is way faster than rg apparently. So under the right conditions, grep is actually quite fast and you may be missing out if you never try using it.

goosedragons 2y ago

Pixelmator is over 15 years old, Preview predates OS X as it was a part of NeXTStep.

iknowstuff 2y ago
To be clear, i’m not saying they’re new, but rather that they are beautiful because they have been continuously modernized to match the look and functionality of the OS.

makeitdouble 2y ago

If you care about beautiful interfaces macos and linux will always be way ahead, for sure. The choice to go for windows as main OS kinda includes prioritizing advanced features and versatility over the UX. Even firefox is not as nice on windows than on mac.

_smfg 2y ago

the lack of consistent UI experiences in windows was a thing that really bugged me and why I've never looked back after switching to MacOS