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I never disliked an OS as much as I dislike what Apple is doing with MacOS (and iOS by extension). I've been with MacOS for 20 years, but I've switched at home

I never disliked an OS as much as I dislike what Apple is doing with MacOS (and iOS by extension). I've been with MacOS for 20 years, but I've switched at home to Linux full time 2 years ago and I don't regret it. At work I'm forced to be on MacOS. It's concerning how Apple doesn't care anymore about user needs, usability, design and consistency. Where it was the best OS in the past for me, it's not anymore. Other OSes are better suited for where I'm at in my life.

paulcole 9mo ago
I thought that was supposed to be Apple’s thing. “We decide how to make it and you decide to buy it or not.” It makes it seem like they’re designing for you until they’re not.
- delecti 9mo ago
  Importantly, that philosophy relies on the result having merit, and working cohesively on its own terms, even if it's not your preference. Like, if I go to a restaurant that refuses me sugar for my tea, it better be darn good tea.
  - paulcole 9mo ago
    > Like, if I go to a restaurant that refuses me sugar for my tea, it better be darn good tea. But if you demand sugar in your tea it doesn't matter how good the tea is, right? You are not going to like that restaurant. > Importantly, that philosophy relies on the result having merit, and working cohesively on its own terms, even if it's not your preference I am too dumb to understand what this means.
    - delecti 9mo ago
      I might prefer my tea with sugar, given the choice, but I'll still be satisfied if the tea is very good (this metaphor assumes I don't demand sugar, but merely prefer sugar). I might prefer that Apple products work differently, but if they work well, I'll tolerate that they don't work exactly how I want. In either case, I'm willing to adapt my preferences a bit to an expertly made product. > I thought that was supposed to be Apple’s thing. “We decide how to make it and you decide to buy it or not.” This was Apple; your customization options were limited, but things were well designed and cohesive. If you were willing to adapt to their design paradigms, you'd benefit from their expertise, and also have to put in less effort tweaking. Plus you could pick up any random new Apple product and be up to speed immediately. But to extend the metaphor, if the tea sucks, I'll stop going to that restaurant. If Apple makes their UIs both immutable and bad, I'll use something else.
      - bigyabai 9mo ago
        > but things were well designed and cohesive. This is an opinion, though. macOS did do certain things better than Windows, but it also did a lot of things markedly worse. The Mac market share never overtook the Windows market, on-merit it was considered a worse product. You or I might think it was a decent system at some point, but the evidence is really just anecdotal. I agree with the parent comment, Apple's "thing" was their financial skill and not their manufacturing or internal processes. Once the IIc left the mainstream, people stopped appreciating the craftsmanship that went into making the Apple computer. It was (smartly) coopted by flashy marketing and droves of meaningless press releases, documented as the "reality distortion field" even as far back as the 1980s.
- philistine 9mo ago
  How is that different with other companies? Like with Windows? Do you have a choice of UI when loading the OS? Are there ways to remove the taskbar and replace it with a third-party one? Can you change all the core OS shortcuts? The fact Apple makes and sells the only hardware to run macOS does not mean the software is fundamentally different from the rest of the industry. Apple has deprioritized backwards compatibility, not user choice.
  - kibwen 9mo ago
    > Apple has deprioritized backwards compatibility, not user choice. ¿Por qué no los dos?
  - bigyabai 9mo ago
    > does not mean the software is fundamentally different from the rest of the industry. I bet you wish that was the case. XServe existed though, and for all of Apple's confidence in the product it was (and is) treated like a second-class citizen that doesn't compete with free alternatives. There is literally nothing that stops macOS from falling into the same pit of irrelevance besides first-party hubris. How much do you trust Apple to make smart, responsive decisions?
x0x0 9mo ago
if they're going to just crap on their software, I'd be far happier with just neglect. They did desperately need a distraction from the complete bedshitting mess they've made of AI though. Regardless of whether you think AI is good or wildly overpromised, getting on stage and lying through your teeth about what your AI does is what C-tier companies do, not Apple. Except they do now.
ramon156 9mo ago
what distro are you running at home? ive had the most success with fedora x11 / xwayland but lately wayland has been pretty solid
- E39M5S62 9mo ago
  XWayland runs on top of Wayland, and is a way for X11-only applications to still work. It does not run inside a native X11 session.
- robinhood 9mo ago
  I've used Mint for a long time. Extremely solid, stable and simple. In the last three months I've been on Arch (through Omarchy) and it's also very stable and so powerful. Everything just works. I have a pretty beefy computer and even my favorite game of all times (Path of Exile 1) runs fantastically on it.
juancn 9mo ago
Seriously? UX in Linux is awful, there's no single desktop metaphor. You have hundreds of distros each with their quirks. There is no "Linux" other than the kernel. There's a lot more consistency in the Apple ecosystem. Don't get me started on the other crap with Linux distros: power management doesn't work, audio barely works, heck even though both Linux and MacOS use CUPS for printing, in MacOS it works way better.
- hyperbovine 9mo ago
  I don't understand why this comment is downvoted, it is undeniably true.
  - ImPostingOnHN 9mo ago
    Often, when we don't understand something, asking questions helps us learn. Happy to answer any you might have, to help you understand.
  - throwaway173738 9mo ago
    Whereas on my laptop and my distro it works. And a lot of other people probably feel the same way. I use Linux at work and have never had issues with it in the last 6 years. Prior to that, yes.
  - gessha 9mo ago
    GNOME and KDE have stepped up with their design and user experience. I recommend you give them another try.
  - robinhood 9mo ago
    Because for most of us, it's simply not true. It's as stable, if more, than MacOS, by far.
    - hyperbovine 9mo ago
      The word "stable" literally does not appear in the comment to which I was responding. Maybe I'm just scarred from laboring much too hard in the 90s and aughts to get desktop and laptop Linux working, but here is my current take: - Yes there is fragmentation. Perhaps there are not hundreds of Linux distros but, off the top of my head: Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, RHEL, CentOS, Rocky, Alma, Arch, Manjaro, openSUSE, Kali, PopOS, elementary OS, Zorin, Gentoo, Alpine, NixOS are all viable options. Next, pick a desktop: GNOME, KDE Plasma, Xfce, LXQt, Cinnamon, MATE, Budgie, Pantheon, Deepin, Enlightenment. Each has different UX conventions, configuration systems, and integration quality. There is no single Linux desktop and its bewildering. - Power management now "works" in the sense that, when you close your laptop lid and re-open it, yay! the machine (mostly) comes back to life instead of just crashing. It took us at least 15 years to get to that point. However, PM does not work in the sense that battery like on my M4 Macbook Air is literally 2x what I would get from a comparably priced Linux laptop. Part of that is better hardware, but _a lot_ of that is better power management. - Audio now mostly works without glitching, just like it did in OS X circa 2002. But God help you if you're not using a well-supported setup and find yourself manually having to dick around with kernel drivers, ALSA, Pulseaudio. (Just typing these words gives me PTSD.) Here is a typical "solution" from *within the past year* for audio troubles in Linux: https://www.linux.org/threads/troubleshooting-audio-problems-in-linux.55508/ https://www.linux.org/threads/troubleshooting-audio-problems.... There are thousands more threads like this to be found online. For typical, 99%-of-the-time use cases, experiences of this sort are rarely if ever encountered on Mac. - Printing is arguably the closest because, as previously noted, they are both using the same underlying system. But printing, thanks to AirPrint, is still smoother and more pain-free on Mac than on Linux. - Don't even get me started on Bluetooth. It's not that I'm anti-Linux, I wanted sooo bad for Linux on the desktop and laptop to succeed, for a variety of reasons. But Steve J came along 25-30 years and completely pulled that rug out from under us.
dominicrose 9mo ago
Nowadays AI can help with Linux. For example AI helped setup my bluetooth mouse and set up an action for each of the extra buttons.
touristtam 9mo ago
Consider yourself lucky to have been on that side of the fence instead of suffering the vagaries of Windows since ME.

paulcole 9mo ago

I thought that was supposed to be Apple’s thing. “We decide how to make it and you decide to buy it or not.” It makes it seem like they’re designing for you until they’re not.

delecti 9mo ago
Importantly, that philosophy relies on the result having merit, and working cohesively on its own terms, even if it's not your preference. Like, if I go to a restaurant that refuses me sugar for my tea, it better be darn good tea.
- paulcole 9mo ago
  > Like, if I go to a restaurant that refuses me sugar for my tea, it better be darn good tea. But if you demand sugar in your tea it doesn't matter how good the tea is, right? You are not going to like that restaurant. > Importantly, that philosophy relies on the result having merit, and working cohesively on its own terms, even if it's not your preference I am too dumb to understand what this means.
  - delecti 9mo ago
    I might prefer my tea with sugar, given the choice, but I'll still be satisfied if the tea is very good (this metaphor assumes I don't demand sugar, but merely prefer sugar). I might prefer that Apple products work differently, but if they work well, I'll tolerate that they don't work exactly how I want. In either case, I'm willing to adapt my preferences a bit to an expertly made product. > I thought that was supposed to be Apple’s thing. “We decide how to make it and you decide to buy it or not.” This was Apple; your customization options were limited, but things were well designed and cohesive. If you were willing to adapt to their design paradigms, you'd benefit from their expertise, and also have to put in less effort tweaking. Plus you could pick up any random new Apple product and be up to speed immediately. But to extend the metaphor, if the tea sucks, I'll stop going to that restaurant. If Apple makes their UIs both immutable and bad, I'll use something else.
    - bigyabai 9mo ago
      > but things were well designed and cohesive. This is an opinion, though. macOS did do certain things better than Windows, but it also did a lot of things markedly worse. The Mac market share never overtook the Windows market, on-merit it was considered a worse product. You or I might think it was a decent system at some point, but the evidence is really just anecdotal. I agree with the parent comment, Apple's "thing" was their financial skill and not their manufacturing or internal processes. Once the IIc left the mainstream, people stopped appreciating the craftsmanship that went into making the Apple computer. It was (smartly) coopted by flashy marketing and droves of meaningless press releases, documented as the "reality distortion field" even as far back as the 1980s.
philistine 9mo ago
How is that different with other companies? Like with Windows? Do you have a choice of UI when loading the OS? Are there ways to remove the taskbar and replace it with a third-party one? Can you change all the core OS shortcuts? The fact Apple makes and sells the only hardware to run macOS does not mean the software is fundamentally different from the rest of the industry. Apple has deprioritized backwards compatibility, not user choice.
- kibwen 9mo ago
  > Apple has deprioritized backwards compatibility, not user choice. ¿Por qué no los dos?
- bigyabai 9mo ago
  > does not mean the software is fundamentally different from the rest of the industry. I bet you wish that was the case. XServe existed though, and for all of Apple's confidence in the product it was (and is) treated like a second-class citizen that doesn't compete with free alternatives. There is literally nothing that stops macOS from falling into the same pit of irrelevance besides first-party hubris. How much do you trust Apple to make smart, responsive decisions?

x0x0 9mo ago

if they're going to just crap on their software, I'd be far happier with just neglect. They did desperately need a distraction from the complete bedshitting mess they've made of AI though. Regardless of whether you think AI is good or wildly overpromised, getting on stage and lying through your teeth about what your AI does is what C-tier companies do, not Apple. Except they do now.

ramon156 9mo ago

what distro are you running at home? ive had the most success with fedora x11 / xwayland but lately wayland has been pretty solid

E39M5S62 9mo ago
XWayland runs on top of Wayland, and is a way for X11-only applications to still work. It does not run inside a native X11 session.
robinhood 9mo ago
I've used Mint for a long time. Extremely solid, stable and simple. In the last three months I've been on Arch (through Omarchy) and it's also very stable and so powerful. Everything just works. I have a pretty beefy computer and even my favorite game of all times (Path of Exile 1) runs fantastically on it.

juancn 9mo ago

Seriously? UX in Linux is awful, there's no single desktop metaphor. You have hundreds of distros each with their quirks. There is no "Linux" other than the kernel. There's a lot more consistency in the Apple ecosystem. Don't get me started on the other crap with Linux distros: power management doesn't work, audio barely works, heck even though both Linux and MacOS use CUPS for printing, in MacOS it works way better.

hyperbovine 9mo ago
I don't understand why this comment is downvoted, it is undeniably true.
- ImPostingOnHN 9mo ago
  Often, when we don't understand something, asking questions helps us learn. Happy to answer any you might have, to help you understand.
- throwaway173738 9mo ago
  Whereas on my laptop and my distro it works. And a lot of other people probably feel the same way. I use Linux at work and have never had issues with it in the last 6 years. Prior to that, yes.
- gessha 9mo ago
  GNOME and KDE have stepped up with their design and user experience. I recommend you give them another try.
- robinhood 9mo ago
  Because for most of us, it's simply not true. It's as stable, if more, than MacOS, by far.
  - hyperbovine 9mo ago
    The word "stable" literally does not appear in the comment to which I was responding. Maybe I'm just scarred from laboring much too hard in the 90s and aughts to get desktop and laptop Linux working, but here is my current take: - Yes there is fragmentation. Perhaps there are not hundreds of Linux distros but, off the top of my head: Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, RHEL, CentOS, Rocky, Alma, Arch, Manjaro, openSUSE, Kali, PopOS, elementary OS, Zorin, Gentoo, Alpine, NixOS are all viable options. Next, pick a desktop: GNOME, KDE Plasma, Xfce, LXQt, Cinnamon, MATE, Budgie, Pantheon, Deepin, Enlightenment. Each has different UX conventions, configuration systems, and integration quality. There is no single Linux desktop and its bewildering. - Power management now "works" in the sense that, when you close your laptop lid and re-open it, yay! the machine (mostly) comes back to life instead of just crashing. It took us at least 15 years to get to that point. However, PM does not work in the sense that battery like on my M4 Macbook Air is literally 2x what I would get from a comparably priced Linux laptop. Part of that is better hardware, but _a lot_ of that is better power management. - Audio now mostly works without glitching, just like it did in OS X circa 2002. But God help you if you're not using a well-supported setup and find yourself manually having to dick around with kernel drivers, ALSA, Pulseaudio. (Just typing these words gives me PTSD.) Here is a typical "solution" from *within the past year* for audio troubles in Linux: https://www.linux.org/threads/troubleshooting-audio-problems-in-linux.55508/ https://www.linux.org/threads/troubleshooting-audio-problems.... There are thousands more threads like this to be found online. For typical, 99%-of-the-time use cases, experiences of this sort are rarely if ever encountered on Mac. - Printing is arguably the closest because, as previously noted, they are both using the same underlying system. But printing, thanks to AirPrint, is still smoother and more pain-free on Mac than on Linux. - Don't even get me started on Bluetooth. It's not that I'm anti-Linux, I wanted sooo bad for Linux on the desktop and laptop to succeed, for a variety of reasons. But Steve J came along 25-30 years and completely pulled that rug out from under us.

dominicrose 9mo ago

Nowadays AI can help with Linux. For example AI helped setup my bluetooth mouse and set up an action for each of the extra buttons.

touristtam 9mo ago

Consider yourself lucky to have been on that side of the fence instead of suffering the vagaries of Windows since ME.