7 ms·

Sixteen years ago, John Gruber wrote: > Hardware and software both matter, and Apple’s history shows that there’s a good argument to be made for developing int

Sixteen years ago, John Gruber wrote: > Hardware and software both matter, and Apple’s history shows that there’s a good argument to be made for developing integrated hardware and software. But if you asked me which matters more, I wouldn’t hesitate to say software. All things considered I’d much prefer a PC running Mac OS X to a Mac running Windows. https://daringfireball.net/2009/11/the_os_opportunity https://daringfireball.net/2009/11/the_os_opportunity At the time I'd only been a Mac user for a few years and I would have strongly agreed. But definitely things have shifted— I've been back on Windows/WSL for a number of years, and it's software quality/compatibility issues that are a lot of what keeps me from trying another Mac. Certainly I'm far more tempted by the hardware experience than I am the software, and it's not even really close.

KeplerBoy 1y ago
I bet most people around here would prefer fully supported linux over mac os on their apple silicon.
- Romario77 1y ago
  Linux UI is crap compared to Mac. It's a server or developer box first and a non-technical user second.
  - timschmidt 1y ago
    I've felt the opposite for more than a decade. On Linux, it's relatively easy for me to choose a set of applications which all use the same UI toolkit. Additionally, the web browser is often called "Web Browser" in the application launcher, LibreOffice Writer "Word Processor", and so on. In general there is far less branding and advertisement and more focus on function. Linux was the first OS with an "app store" (the package manager). CLI utilities available tend to be the full fat versions with all the useful options, rather than minimalist versions there to satisfy posix compatibility. I could go on. On Linux there is variety and choice, which some folks dislike. But on the Mac I get whatever Apple gives me, and that is often subject to the limitations of corporate attention spans and development budgets.
    - MichealCodes 1y ago
      > limitations of corporate attention spans and development budgets And arbitrary turf wars like their war against web apis/apps causing more friction for devs and end users.
      - ahartmetz 1y ago
        I'm a Linux fan and I like that Apple isn't rubber-stamping the two new web APIs a week that Google comes up with. There are hundreds of them, most of them quite small fortunately.
    - robenkleene 1y ago
      > The web browser is often called "Web Browser" in the application launcher, LibreOffice Writer "Word Processor", and so on. In general there is far less branding and advertisement and more focus on function. Should Emacs and Vim both be called "Editor" then? To me, this is actually a great example of the problems with Linux as a community, that GUI applications seem to just be treated as placeholders (e.g., all word processors are the same?), but then its inconsistent by celebrating the unique differences between editors like Vim and Emacs. Photoshop, Excel, Logic Pro, Final Cut Pro are, in my opinion, crown jewels of what we've accomplished in computing, and by extension some of the greatest creations of the human race, democratizing tasks that in some cases would have cost millions of dollars before (e.g., a recording studio in your home). Relegating these to generic names like "spreadsheet", makes them sound interchangeable, when in my opinion they're each individual creations of great beauty that should wear their names with pride. They've helped improve the trajectory of the human race by facilitating many individuals to perform actions they never would have had the resources to do otherwise.
      - timschmidt 1y ago
        > Should Emacs and Vim both be called "Editor" then? I've used some distributions in which they were. Tooltips and icons were provided to disambiguate. Worked for me. Other distributions name applications explicitly, some place them in a folder together named "Editors". None of the distributions I've used place either in a corporate branded subfolder as is typical on Windows and Mac. Freedom of choice is wonderful.
  - gedy 1y ago
    That was maybe the case 10+ years ago but honestly have been using Fedora with Gnome on my M1, it's pretty polished and nice now.
  - markus_zhang 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - jll29 1y ago
      You are right in saying that discoverability has suffered much, by hiding scrollbar and similar changes. Also, you need to move the mouse precisely to a particular spot to re-enable the scrollbars, there is little wiggle room, which may may things harder for handicapped people, older users, or people on the move (e.g. me on a train).
      - markus_zhang 1y ago
        Yeah, e.g. when you have a very short scrollbar and had to guess where it is for more than 5 seconds...I'm kinda grow past that hype, nada, going back to Winux. It is SUCH a pity that they have extraordinary hardware (even with the price point I'd still consider it a bargin, especially for the air/mini)...
    - MichealCodes 1y ago
      Or just the way the menus are on apps. Some app implement their own file/edit/view menus at the top of the app, then some will use the apple version at the top of the OS. If you plug in a TV to use as a monitor and cannot adjust the aspect ratio you're forced to blindly activate these menus as they're clipped from the screen. MacOS folder navigation is a complete pain too, sometimes you see the list of OS folders, sometimes you see only the folder you opened in finder. If the menu is clipped due to the above aspect ratio problem, good luck getting to your home folder... No functionality to easily open a folder in terminal. Lots of basics just counter-intuitive.
      - markus_zhang 1y ago
        Yeah, I found it not easy to go up one level in finder. Actually I had to Google when I tried first time. The way that MacOS wants to conceal information from the users is just insane. I don't know how it is justified. Nevertheless it has a good number of ardent fans.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- pxc 1y ago
  Fully supported Linux + proper suspend-to-RAM are the two things I want out of Apple Silicon and may never quite get. Better online low power states are fine, but I want suspend-to-RAM and suspend-then-hibernate. If I close my laptop for a few days, I don't want significant battery drain. If I don't use it for two weeks, I want it to still have life left. And I don't want to write tens of gigabytes to disk every time I close the lid, either!
  - zozbot234 1y ago
    What happens if you enable airplane mode before closing the laptop? That should power down all radios so battery drain should be approximately equivalent to S3 standby.
  - ValdikSS 1y ago
    Sleep states are not trivial from the security perspective, and they've eliminated the issue by just not allowing it :)
    - astrange 1y ago
      It does hibernate. It just takes a long time to do it because the experience of waking up from it is bad.
- vuggamie 1y ago
  The best part of MacOS for me is the unix tools. The command line is a real unix command line. And the rest just works. If I need a linux environment I ssh into a VPS.
  - epistasis 1y ago
    Or even just containers on the Mac. Unless you need a GPU with specific hardware, or to connect to a cluster, there's ever decreasing need to use remote boxes.
  - Daneel_ 1y ago
    Well, kind of.. the commands on Mac OS all just a little bit different and a little bit janky. I still had to relearn all the common commands I use in order to function. I survived 6 months before I went back to a Windows/WSL combo.
    - epistasis 1y ago
      If you want the GNU versions of tools rather than the Mac POSIX versions, then brew can help replace your bin directory with all the GNU niceties. If you're talking about hardware interaction from the command line, that's very different and I don't think there's a fix.
    - MobiusHorizons 1y ago
      Notice the op said Unix not Linux. Gnu made a lot of incompatible changes from the Unix tools it was cloning. Many people in the Linux community prefer the GNU quirks (they are definitely more performance optimized for example). But if you are talking about Unix, the FreeBSD derived userland on a Mac has real Unix lineage.
  - ghaff 1y ago
    It doesn't matter for everyone/most. But, yes, having a Unix command line within MacOS is a pretty big win for some of us. Not something I use on a daily basis certainly. And I'd probably set up a Linux box (or ssh into one) if I really needed that routinely. But it's a nice bonus.
- geodel 1y ago
  "Fully supported by whom" is the issue and important one. Apple won't do it and going by support from "most people around here" Hector Martin et al got crumbs for years, nowhere near to support the development. One can just hand wave "Apple must support Linux and all" but that is not going to get anything done.
- 7e 1y ago
  Linux is a vanity and the illusion is only skin-deep. The overall UX truly sucks.
  - KeplerBoy 1y ago
    Which illusion? It's a computer, no more, no less and Linux is a perfectly fine interface to that computer.
  - rowanG077 1y ago
    I don't understand. From a pure visual standpoint OSX beats. Linux is not particularly known for looking good or cohesive. But in basically all matters it beats the pants of OSX.
  - artisin 1y ago
    The UX only sucks if you're unwilling to put in a minimal amount of time and effort. After that, it has no equal; it is, by definition, the opposite of vanity.
  - seattle_spring 1y ago
    Absolutely ironic, coming from someone who claimed that thinking Bazel is overcomplex is "failing an IQ test."
selectodude 1y ago
That’s so wild to me - my personal laptop is still a Mac but I’m in windows all day for work. Some of the new direction of macOS isn’t awesome but the basics are still rock solid. Touchpad is perfect, sleep works 100% of the time for days on end, still has UNIX underneath.
- MichealCodes 1y ago
  The basics are not rock solid. Even a core feature such as remote management crashes and freezes every 5 minutes when you connect from a non-apple machine, many have reported this over years but Apple just does Apple. Safari is still atrocious when it comes to web api supports. The worst part is, with Apple, we do not know if these are intentional anti-competitive barriers or actual software bugs. I purchased a mac mini simply to compile apps via xcode and can say the core experience is MUCH more buggy than a fresh Windows or Ubuntu install. Edit: Hard to call intentionally preventing support for web apis a power user thing. This creates more friction for basic users trying to use any web app. Edit2: lol Apple PR must be all over this, went from +5 to -1 in a single refresh. Flagged for even criticizing what they intentionally break.
  - butlike 1y ago
    They said the basics are rock solid (to which I agree). What you're describing, I'd consider a "power user."
  - foldr 1y ago
    Are those basics? You don’t have to use Safari, and I’ve never used remote management over the 20 years or so that I’ve been a Mac user.
    - MichealCodes 1y ago
      If we dismiss remote management as a non-core feature shouldn't we consider installing a new browser to be advanced usage as well? I understand that this post is about MacOS, but yes, we are forced to support Safari for iOS. Many of these corporate decisions to prevent web apps from functioning properly spill over from MacOS Safari to iOS Safari.
qwertytyyuu 1y ago
these days i'd rather have macbook running windows than macos running on standard windows laptop of the same form factor, purely for the efficiency of apple silicon.
- floam 1y ago
  It wouldn’t be so power efficient anymore.
lenkite 1y ago
Windows would have beat MacOS only if Microsoft had just done one small, teeny-weeny thing - just left the OS alone after Win 10.
- xedrac 1y ago
  I haven't been able to stomach Windows since Vista, and I can barely stomach MacOS. Linux has spoiled me.
- leptons 1y ago
  It depends on what you mean by "beat". Windows has a vastly larger market share than Apple ever has, or ever will.
- dysoco 1y ago
  Oh but they absolutely did beat MacOS. The amount of people who give a damn about UI polish, response times, etc. is insignificant to them. They got away with pushing ads, online and enterprise services, Copilot, etc. to every desktop user.
- NetMageSCW 1y ago
  I think you meant to say Windows 7…
lotsofpulp 1y ago
Seeing my wife have to deal with BSOD and tedious restarts for Windows updates and myriad just to use Teams/Excel makes me think the software issues are far worse on the Windows side. Not once in 10 years have I had ti troubleshoot while she uses her personal macOS, but a Dell Latitude laptop in 2025 still can’t just “open lid, work, close lid”. And it’s slower. And eats more battery.
klooney 1y ago
Advertisements in Windows seem like a deal breaker to me, but I've been gone for a while.
foobarian 1y ago
To me it's not a MacOS vs Windows thing. It's a hardware build quality thing for sure; but even more importantly it's the integration with the OS. Now, you could say we could get a team together and integrate Windows too, but the problem is this is vastly more effective when the hardware and software are co-designed in the same house with strong feedback loops. As a result Apple's product will inevitably be better than those without such an organizational backbone. Quoth the Tao of Programming: 8.4 Hardware met Software on the road to Changtse. Software said: "You are Yin and I am Yang. If we travel together, we will become famous and earn vast sums of money." And so they set forth together, thinking to conquer the world. Presently, they met Firmware, who was dressed in tattered rags and hobbled along propped on a thorny stick. Firmware said to them: "The Tao lies beyond Yin and Yang. It is silent and still as a pool of water. It does not seek fame; therefore, nobody knows its presence. It does not seek fortune, for it is complete within itself. It exists beyond space and time." Software and Hardware, ashamed, returned to their homes.

KeplerBoy 1y ago

I bet most people around here would prefer fully supported linux over mac os on their apple silicon.

Romario77 1y ago
Linux UI is crap compared to Mac. It's a server or developer box first and a non-technical user second.
- timschmidt 1y ago
  I've felt the opposite for more than a decade. On Linux, it's relatively easy for me to choose a set of applications which all use the same UI toolkit. Additionally, the web browser is often called "Web Browser" in the application launcher, LibreOffice Writer "Word Processor", and so on. In general there is far less branding and advertisement and more focus on function. Linux was the first OS with an "app store" (the package manager). CLI utilities available tend to be the full fat versions with all the useful options, rather than minimalist versions there to satisfy posix compatibility. I could go on. On Linux there is variety and choice, which some folks dislike. But on the Mac I get whatever Apple gives me, and that is often subject to the limitations of corporate attention spans and development budgets.
  - MichealCodes 1y ago
    > limitations of corporate attention spans and development budgets And arbitrary turf wars like their war against web apis/apps causing more friction for devs and end users.
    - ahartmetz 1y ago
      I'm a Linux fan and I like that Apple isn't rubber-stamping the two new web APIs a week that Google comes up with. There are hundreds of them, most of them quite small fortunately.
  - robenkleene 1y ago
    > The web browser is often called "Web Browser" in the application launcher, LibreOffice Writer "Word Processor", and so on. In general there is far less branding and advertisement and more focus on function. Should Emacs and Vim both be called "Editor" then? To me, this is actually a great example of the problems with Linux as a community, that GUI applications seem to just be treated as placeholders (e.g., all word processors are the same?), but then its inconsistent by celebrating the unique differences between editors like Vim and Emacs. Photoshop, Excel, Logic Pro, Final Cut Pro are, in my opinion, crown jewels of what we've accomplished in computing, and by extension some of the greatest creations of the human race, democratizing tasks that in some cases would have cost millions of dollars before (e.g., a recording studio in your home). Relegating these to generic names like "spreadsheet", makes them sound interchangeable, when in my opinion they're each individual creations of great beauty that should wear their names with pride. They've helped improve the trajectory of the human race by facilitating many individuals to perform actions they never would have had the resources to do otherwise.
    - timschmidt 1y ago
      > Should Emacs and Vim both be called "Editor" then? I've used some distributions in which they were. Tooltips and icons were provided to disambiguate. Worked for me. Other distributions name applications explicitly, some place them in a folder together named "Editors". None of the distributions I've used place either in a corporate branded subfolder as is typical on Windows and Mac. Freedom of choice is wonderful.
- gedy 1y ago
  That was maybe the case 10+ years ago but honestly have been using Fedora with Gnome on my M1, it's pretty polished and nice now.
- markus_zhang 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - jll29 1y ago
    You are right in saying that discoverability has suffered much, by hiding scrollbar and similar changes. Also, you need to move the mouse precisely to a particular spot to re-enable the scrollbars, there is little wiggle room, which may may things harder for handicapped people, older users, or people on the move (e.g. me on a train).
    - markus_zhang 1y ago
      Yeah, e.g. when you have a very short scrollbar and had to guess where it is for more than 5 seconds...I'm kinda grow past that hype, nada, going back to Winux. It is SUCH a pity that they have extraordinary hardware (even with the price point I'd still consider it a bargin, especially for the air/mini)...
  - MichealCodes 1y ago
    Or just the way the menus are on apps. Some app implement their own file/edit/view menus at the top of the app, then some will use the apple version at the top of the OS. If you plug in a TV to use as a monitor and cannot adjust the aspect ratio you're forced to blindly activate these menus as they're clipped from the screen. MacOS folder navigation is a complete pain too, sometimes you see the list of OS folders, sometimes you see only the folder you opened in finder. If the menu is clipped due to the above aspect ratio problem, good luck getting to your home folder... No functionality to easily open a folder in terminal. Lots of basics just counter-intuitive.
    - markus_zhang 1y ago
      Yeah, I found it not easy to go up one level in finder. Actually I had to Google when I tried first time. The way that MacOS wants to conceal information from the users is just insane. I don't know how it is justified. Nevertheless it has a good number of ardent fans.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
pxc 1y ago
Fully supported Linux + proper suspend-to-RAM are the two things I want out of Apple Silicon and may never quite get. Better online low power states are fine, but I want suspend-to-RAM and suspend-then-hibernate. If I close my laptop for a few days, I don't want significant battery drain. If I don't use it for two weeks, I want it to still have life left. And I don't want to write tens of gigabytes to disk every time I close the lid, either!
- zozbot234 1y ago
  What happens if you enable airplane mode before closing the laptop? That should power down all radios so battery drain should be approximately equivalent to S3 standby.
- ValdikSS 1y ago
  Sleep states are not trivial from the security perspective, and they've eliminated the issue by just not allowing it :)
  - astrange 1y ago
    It does hibernate. It just takes a long time to do it because the experience of waking up from it is bad.
vuggamie 1y ago
The best part of MacOS for me is the unix tools. The command line is a real unix command line. And the rest just works. If I need a linux environment I ssh into a VPS.
- epistasis 1y ago
  Or even just containers on the Mac. Unless you need a GPU with specific hardware, or to connect to a cluster, there's ever decreasing need to use remote boxes.
- Daneel_ 1y ago
  Well, kind of.. the commands on Mac OS all just a little bit different and a little bit janky. I still had to relearn all the common commands I use in order to function. I survived 6 months before I went back to a Windows/WSL combo.
  - epistasis 1y ago
    If you want the GNU versions of tools rather than the Mac POSIX versions, then brew can help replace your bin directory with all the GNU niceties. If you're talking about hardware interaction from the command line, that's very different and I don't think there's a fix.
  - MobiusHorizons 1y ago
    Notice the op said Unix not Linux. Gnu made a lot of incompatible changes from the Unix tools it was cloning. Many people in the Linux community prefer the GNU quirks (they are definitely more performance optimized for example). But if you are talking about Unix, the FreeBSD derived userland on a Mac has real Unix lineage.
- ghaff 1y ago
  It doesn't matter for everyone/most. But, yes, having a Unix command line within MacOS is a pretty big win for some of us. Not something I use on a daily basis certainly. And I'd probably set up a Linux box (or ssh into one) if I really needed that routinely. But it's a nice bonus.
geodel 1y ago
"Fully supported by whom" is the issue and important one. Apple won't do it and going by support from "most people around here" Hector Martin et al got crumbs for years, nowhere near to support the development. One can just hand wave "Apple must support Linux and all" but that is not going to get anything done.
7e 1y ago
Linux is a vanity and the illusion is only skin-deep. The overall UX truly sucks.
- KeplerBoy 1y ago
  Which illusion? It's a computer, no more, no less and Linux is a perfectly fine interface to that computer.
- rowanG077 1y ago
  I don't understand. From a pure visual standpoint OSX beats. Linux is not particularly known for looking good or cohesive. But in basically all matters it beats the pants of OSX.
- artisin 1y ago
  The UX only sucks if you're unwilling to put in a minimal amount of time and effort. After that, it has no equal; it is, by definition, the opposite of vanity.
- seattle_spring 1y ago
  Absolutely ironic, coming from someone who claimed that thinking Bazel is overcomplex is "failing an IQ test."

selectodude 1y ago

That’s so wild to me - my personal laptop is still a Mac but I’m in windows all day for work. Some of the new direction of macOS isn’t awesome but the basics are still rock solid. Touchpad is perfect, sleep works 100% of the time for days on end, still has UNIX underneath.

MichealCodes 1y ago
The basics are not rock solid. Even a core feature such as remote management crashes and freezes every 5 minutes when you connect from a non-apple machine, many have reported this over years but Apple just does Apple. Safari is still atrocious when it comes to web api supports. The worst part is, with Apple, we do not know if these are intentional anti-competitive barriers or actual software bugs. I purchased a mac mini simply to compile apps via xcode and can say the core experience is MUCH more buggy than a fresh Windows or Ubuntu install. Edit: Hard to call intentionally preventing support for web apis a power user thing. This creates more friction for basic users trying to use any web app. Edit2: lol Apple PR must be all over this, went from +5 to -1 in a single refresh. Flagged for even criticizing what they intentionally break.
- butlike 1y ago
  They said the basics are rock solid (to which I agree). What you're describing, I'd consider a "power user."
- foldr 1y ago
  Are those basics? You don’t have to use Safari, and I’ve never used remote management over the 20 years or so that I’ve been a Mac user.
  - MichealCodes 1y ago
    If we dismiss remote management as a non-core feature shouldn't we consider installing a new browser to be advanced usage as well? I understand that this post is about MacOS, but yes, we are forced to support Safari for iOS. Many of these corporate decisions to prevent web apps from functioning properly spill over from MacOS Safari to iOS Safari.

qwertytyyuu 1y ago

these days i'd rather have macbook running windows than macos running on standard windows laptop of the same form factor, purely for the efficiency of apple silicon.

floam 1y ago
It wouldn’t be so power efficient anymore.

lenkite 1y ago

Windows would have beat MacOS only if Microsoft had just done one small, teeny-weeny thing - just left the OS alone after Win 10.

xedrac 1y ago
I haven't been able to stomach Windows since Vista, and I can barely stomach MacOS. Linux has spoiled me.
leptons 1y ago
It depends on what you mean by "beat". Windows has a vastly larger market share than Apple ever has, or ever will.
dysoco 1y ago
Oh but they absolutely did beat MacOS. The amount of people who give a damn about UI polish, response times, etc. is insignificant to them. They got away with pushing ads, online and enterprise services, Copilot, etc. to every desktop user.
NetMageSCW 1y ago
I think you meant to say Windows 7…

lotsofpulp 1y ago

Seeing my wife have to deal with BSOD and tedious restarts for Windows updates and myriad just to use Teams/Excel makes me think the software issues are far worse on the Windows side. Not once in 10 years have I had ti troubleshoot while she uses her personal macOS, but a Dell Latitude laptop in 2025 still can’t just “open lid, work, close lid”. And it’s slower. And eats more battery.

klooney 1y ago

Advertisements in Windows seem like a deal breaker to me, but I've been gone for a while.

foobarian 1y ago

To me it's not a MacOS vs Windows thing. It's a hardware build quality thing for sure; but even more importantly it's the integration with the OS. Now, you could say we could get a team together and integrate Windows too, but the problem is this is vastly more effective when the hardware and software are co-designed in the same house with strong feedback loops. As a result Apple's product will inevitably be better than those without such an organizational backbone. Quoth the Tao of Programming: 8.4 Hardware met Software on the road to Changtse. Software said: "You are Yin and I am Yang. If we travel together, we will become famous and earn vast sums of money." And so they set forth together, thinking to conquer the world. Presently, they met Firmware, who was dressed in tattered rags and hobbled along propped on a thorny stick. Firmware said to them: "The Tao lies beyond Yin and Yang. It is silent and still as a pool of water. It does not seek fame; therefore, nobody knows its presence. It does not seek fortune, for it is complete within itself. It exists beyond space and time." Software and Hardware, ashamed, returned to their homes.