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I'm learning that while Windows has a bad rap in some tech circles, its surprisingly still pretty well regarded. This past school year my daughter and niece bo

I'm learning that while Windows has a bad rap in some tech circles, its surprisingly still pretty well regarded. This past school year my daughter and niece both moved from Windows to Macs. A couple of weekends ago I asked them both how they liked it -- they seemed to transition well to the Mac. They both said the same thing -- Windows was better at basically everything except the Message app and iPhone mirroring, but those two things made the Mac totally worth it since, as they put it, phone beats laptop. But I found it interesting how, for non-technical users, they both really found the Mac still unintuitive and buggy compared to Windows.

stouset 5mo ago
Of course people are going to generally prefer the thing they’ve already been using and are comfortable with, especially if they are forced to use something else entirely. On the flip side, I run a Windows gaming laptop alongside my Mac. It is a constant source of rage to the point that I am genuinely shocked at how bad things are and regularly suspect that the people who choose to use it are the victims of some sort of Stockholm syndrome.
thewebguyd 5mo ago
I think Windows (and some, but not all, Linux window managers/DEs) are really kings of "general productivity" type work that macOS is really unintuitive about. I daily drive a MBP now, and have since the M1 air released, but even this many years later I still think the more windows-y desktop metaphor is superior for any type of work that requires heavy multi-tasking (which I do as a sysadmin type role). Apple tends to assume you are working inside one app at a time, on one workspace at a time. This is evident from the get go with how the OS treats apps & windows/documents as separate, and how Cmd+Tab only switches between apps, not app windows. Without third party tools, it's a terrible OS for actually managing multiple windows and contexts and that throws people off because nearly everything else outside of mobile doesn't use that paradigm. Context switching is expensive on macOS, by design, but most general user's and office workers work involves heavy context switching, and frequently.
- vikingerik 5mo ago
  On MacOS (at least my older version on a 2015 MBP), Cmd-~ switches between app windows. Totally undiscoverable but knowing that restores a lot of usability.
  - thewebguyd 5mo ago
    It helps, but is still fundamentally different behavior. It's now two key strokes Cmd-Tab to Chrome, then Cmd-~ to switch between chrome windows (with no switcher UI). The windows-y alt-tab at least shows a preview of all windows, and so its one key stroke to tab through everything.
- marysol5 5mo ago
  When I had my Mac I'd ALT+TAB to switch between windows, and then everything would disappear. I used to do support for a "Marketing Agency" so was a 100% Mac shop, and it was interesting to get calls to say they couldn't recover documents. Or a shared document was locked, because OSX had it open perpetually in the taskbar...
marysol5 5mo ago
OSX works well if you're in the Apple eco-system, just because it's all built to interop. But as a Linux user, who had a stint on OSX because it's closer to Unix, I hated it. Simple things like keyboard shortcuts doing the entirely opposite of what I expected (which is my fault in reality) but doing stupid things themselves

stouset 5mo ago

Of course people are going to generally prefer the thing they’ve already been using and are comfortable with, especially if they are forced to use something else entirely. On the flip side, I run a Windows gaming laptop alongside my Mac. It is a constant source of rage to the point that I am genuinely shocked at how bad things are and regularly suspect that the people who choose to use it are the victims of some sort of Stockholm syndrome.

thewebguyd 5mo ago

I think Windows (and some, but not all, Linux window managers/DEs) are really kings of "general productivity" type work that macOS is really unintuitive about. I daily drive a MBP now, and have since the M1 air released, but even this many years later I still think the more windows-y desktop metaphor is superior for any type of work that requires heavy multi-tasking (which I do as a sysadmin type role). Apple tends to assume you are working inside one app at a time, on one workspace at a time. This is evident from the get go with how the OS treats apps & windows/documents as separate, and how Cmd+Tab only switches between apps, not app windows. Without third party tools, it's a terrible OS for actually managing multiple windows and contexts and that throws people off because nearly everything else outside of mobile doesn't use that paradigm. Context switching is expensive on macOS, by design, but most general user's and office workers work involves heavy context switching, and frequently.

vikingerik 5mo ago
On MacOS (at least my older version on a 2015 MBP), Cmd-~ switches between app windows. Totally undiscoverable but knowing that restores a lot of usability.
- thewebguyd 5mo ago
  It helps, but is still fundamentally different behavior. It's now two key strokes Cmd-Tab to Chrome, then Cmd-~ to switch between chrome windows (with no switcher UI). The windows-y alt-tab at least shows a preview of all windows, and so its one key stroke to tab through everything.
marysol5 5mo ago
When I had my Mac I'd ALT+TAB to switch between windows, and then everything would disappear. I used to do support for a "Marketing Agency" so was a 100% Mac shop, and it was interesting to get calls to say they couldn't recover documents. Or a shared document was locked, because OSX had it open perpetually in the taskbar...

marysol5 5mo ago

OSX works well if you're in the Apple eco-system, just because it's all built to interop. But as a Linux user, who had a stint on OSX because it's closer to Unix, I hated it. Simple things like keyboard shortcuts doing the entirely opposite of what I expected (which is my fault in reality) but doing stupid things themselves