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> The buggy experience of a person with an older Mac doesn't provide any useful information about the code quality of OSX for someone considering buying a new M

> The buggy experience of a person with an older Mac doesn't provide any useful information about the code quality of OSX for someone considering buying a new Mac. It absolutely does, because it shows how quickly you will run into trouble if you don't upgrade your hardware. Macs used to be something that the average user could buy every 4-5 years and it will just keep on running well. These users back then would probably never upgrade, but nowadays with free new OSX versions being in your face every time you launch the mac app store, most non technical users will at some point clicky on the button and run into the trap. Meaning that, unlike with earlier software, users have to watch out what they do more so than just a few simple rules like don't delete anything from the trash if you aren't absolutely sure. There's gotchas here and there, so it's not as safe anymore and thus not as empowering (because before, non technical users could be much more bold and try things out, it was harder to get things into a non working state).

derefr 12y ago
> because before, non technical users could be much more bold and try things out, it was harder to get things into a non working state I'm still wishing any major OS shipped with effective partitioning between storage of OS/application data and user data by default, such that you could hit the "restore to factory settings" button (Cmd+R on OSX boot) and have a guarantee that the only thing that will be blown away is the OS. It's kind of getting there via an orthogonal path—defaulting users to saving data to the cloud instead of the disk—but it's still not there all-the-way. If it was, I'd just teach my grandparents the "go back to the way it was" button and have much more calming holidays.
- m_mueller 12y ago
  Well, at least OSX so far has had a consistent method of resetting applications by deleting the ~/Library/ files, but I'm sure someone at Apple will manage to screw this up via some new iCloud feature sooner or later.

derefr 12y ago

> because before, non technical users could be much more bold and try things out, it was harder to get things into a non working state I'm still wishing any major OS shipped with effective partitioning between storage of OS/application data and user data by default, such that you could hit the "restore to factory settings" button (Cmd+R on OSX boot) and have a guarantee that the only thing that will be blown away is the OS. It's kind of getting there via an orthogonal path—defaulting users to saving data to the cloud instead of the disk—but it's still not there all-the-way. If it was, I'd just teach my grandparents the "go back to the way it was" button and have much more calming holidays.

m_mueller 12y ago
Well, at least OSX so far has had a consistent method of resetting applications by deleting the ~/Library/ files, but I'm sure someone at Apple will manage to screw this up via some new iCloud feature sooner or later.