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Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

char.gd

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Re: Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

#391
post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give a reason why Enter to open a file is ideal, other than just because it's how Windows does it? The Windows Explorer uses Alt+Enter to show the properties of something, and in games and other apps that shortcut means Full Screen. Also, why does Alt+F4 quit an app? What does F4 stand for? Compared to Cmd+Q to Quit or Cmd+W to close it's a lot less intuitive. And so on and so forth.

Really, it doesn't make sense to you that enter would correspond to the most common, least destructive action? Alt-F4 makes little sense, true, but in almost all windows apps control-q or control-w does exactly the same thing as on osx. Also, having sane defaults for keys people are likely to press is much more important than /not/ having obscure keyboard shortcuts that users never have to know even exist.

I want to say ctrl+q is an exit command from within the application (graceful shutdown) whereas alt+f4 is more of a system level halt for whatever is in focus (hard reset).

Re: Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

#392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm a professional developer, I don't want a new toy language. First, there's nothing "toy: about Swift. It's a full featured language on par with Rust, Go, etc. Second, whether some random web dev or embedded C dev or Java dev wants Swift or not is irrelevant to its intended audience and utility. It's not for "professional developers" in general, it's for Mac/iOS application developers, and thus, for Mac/iOS users…

> You can still format the rest of the hard disk on another fs to dual boot, and you can still share drives with other systems in NTFS, xFAT, etc. Until that other OS has support for the new proprietary filesystem, it won't be able to read it. Since Apple and Microsoft categorically refuse to implement any of the many featureful existing filesystems, one is stuck with archaic NTFS (with no file permissions) or FAT (w…

>Since Apple and Microsoft categorically refuse to implement any of the many featureful existing filesystems, one is stuck with archaic NTFS (with no file permissions) or FAT (with less than 4gb files) to keep data.

xFAT which I already mentioned is supported and doesn't have a 4GB limitation. You can have up to 128 pebibytes (which should be enough for everybody: that's ~144 petabytes).

Re: Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

#393
post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too have become annoyed recently at really basic stuff not working in macOS, like I can't drag and drop a picture out of Photos app into Pixelmator to edit. In fact, dragging and dropping a picture out of Photos into any application is completely broken and doesn't work. Its as-if the Apple QA team no longer tests to make sure their applications play nice with each other in a way that has been fundamental to deskto…

You can't copy and paste an image out of Photos, either. It's really quite ridiculous.

1. Open Photos.

2. Select Photo.

3. Edit Menu -> Copy.

4. Open TextEdit.

5. Edit Menu -> Paste.

It is ridiculous. Ridiculously simple.

Re: Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

#394

Oh please. Not this again. I recently had the pleasure of checking in on Windows for the second time in 7 years. I had been a PC user since the DOS days, starting on a 286, and going all the way to Windows 8 when I switched to Macs around 2010. I've only ever needed Windows for games since then, and decided to install Boot Camp on the 15" 2016 MacBook Pro that I just got (which happens to be a pretty good machine [1]…

The UI is a mess of old and new in Windows 10. Generally "advanced" options means switching to and old menu style (win 7 and older).

"win 7 and older"? There are still plenty of configuration dialogues that have only seen the slightest of changes since Windows NT 4.0; I'm not exaggregating.

Windows is easily the most visually inconsistent OS out there -- even in comparison to a Linux desktop. That has it reasons of course, many features are in there that didn't need any kind of update in the last 15+ years, therefore their UI was never updated to conform to updated guidelines and so on.

Re: Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

#395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm a professional developer, I don't want a new toy language. First, there's nothing "toy: about Swift. It's a full featured language on par with Rust, Go, etc. Second, whether some random web dev or embedded C dev or Java dev wants Swift or not is irrelevant to its intended audience and utility. It's not for "professional developers" in general, it's for Mac/iOS application developers, and thus, for Mac/iOS users…

As a Linux/Windows developer, Swift remains a toy language as it cannot be used to do develop useful applications for Linux and Windows, where I make all of my money.

>As a Linux/Windows developer

As a Linux/Windows developer you are not the target audience (which I already addressed).

Besides, just because you can't use it, it doesn't make it a toy language, just a language that doesn't have support (or full support) for Linux.

A toy language has a specific meaning, it's not a generic work for "language I can't use professionally on my platform/industry".

I can't use Forth to make web apps either, which is were I make all of my money, but it's not a toy language by any means.

Re: Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

#396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Linux/Windows developer, you probably are not the primary target audience of Swift. As a developer for Apple platforms, am I right to consider C# or Java toy languages, too?

There are thousands of Apple and Android C# apps (see Xamarin).

Which, again, is besides the point. The parent was mocking the idea that just because a language doesn't support a platform it can be called a "toy language".

C# that he mentioned wouldn't be toy languages even if there were 0 Apple and Android C# apps. It would just be a totally professional Windows language with no Android/iOS support.

C# was professional even when it only supported Windows (and partially FreeBSD), before Mono came along...

Re: Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

#397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a lot to not like about Windows's UI, but Explorer is worlds better than Finder, there's absolutely no comparison. Every day I still struggle to remember how to go up a level. Option+Up? Nope that selects the next folder up. Control+Up? No, that made all of my windows do something weird that I don't know what that is. Ah, it's Command+Up. As far as I can tell, there's no non-keyboard way to do it. I can't cli…

> Option+Up? Nope that selects the next folder up. Control+Up? No, that made all of my windows do something weird that I don't know what that is. Ah, it's Command+Up. In macOS, generally: ⌘ Command = App-specific shortcuts. The primary modifier key. ⌃ Control = Global shortcuts. App-specific shortcuts will not generally have Control as the sole modifier. ⌥ Option/Alt = Something to with the keyboard, selection, or se…

In macOS, generally:

Back when I used it, 5 years ago, it was a solid mess IMO:

Jump one word forward or backwards?

Windows/Linux: ctrl + arrow

Mac: depends on which program you are currently using

IIRC our resident Mac enthusiast explained that it was because some was written in carbon and some in cocoa or something but I don't care.

Opening a file upload dialog box in one browser window would block other windows from the same browser forcing me to use two different browsers: one for docs and one for the task at hand.

This went on for 3 years and in the end I looked as much forward to leave as I had once looked forward to get a Mac.

To each their own but Mac users talking about consistency and ease of use still baffles me.

Re: Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

#398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Option+Up? Nope that selects the next folder up. Control+Up? No, that made all of my windows do something weird that I don't know what that is. Ah, it's Command+Up. In macOS, generally: ⌘ Command = App-specific shortcuts. The primary modifier key. ⌃ Control = Global shortcuts. App-specific shortcuts will not generally have Control as the sole modifier. ⌥ Option/Alt = Something to with the keyboard, selection, or se…

In macOS, generally: Back when I used it, 5 years ago, it was a solid mess IMO: Jump one word forward or backwards? Windows/Linux: ctrl + arrow Mac: depends on which program you are currently using IIRC our resident Mac enthusiast explained that it was because some was written in carbon and some in cocoa or something but I don't care. Opening a file upload dialog box in one browser window would block other windows fr…

These are the things that bug me the most about macOS. See also: page up / page down, home / end. For an OS that seems to want to care about consistency, to have pretty much every app interpreting the most common keyboard navigation differently is incredibly annoying.

Re: Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

#399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> I am sorry if it sounded harsh, but constantly reading about novice problems I haven't had in a decade also doesn't "sound good reading". It's not a novice problem. I know what a fsck is and I know you're not supposed to unmount filesystems improperly. But you shouldn't be presented with an error that you can't recover without a rescue USB because your system lost power. And the video configuration issues are just…

I am not saying this didn't happen to you, but it looks like a fluke or a distro specific bug, since I specifically had power outages while running my Arch home server and haven't had to recover from USB.

Usually this happens when the system crashes/otherwise terminates during system upgrades. Kinda hard to boot if /sbin/init is a link to an empty file.

Re: Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

#400
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Byproduct of mobile" doesn't really say much -- if anything. They support all three on Desktop systems, and they have features and APIs for both that only make sense on desktop systems too.

It says a lot. The desktop isnt a phone. Forcing phone features into a desktop and slowly turning the desktop into iOS is not a good thing. We were just fine without an app store. Just fine. I cant think of any of the "use this mobile feature on your desktop" that provides any real value...

> We were just fine without an app store

You were just fine. Don't speak for everyone.

Finding applications on the internet is a dangerous endeavour if you are inexperienced. Many people get tricked by popups suggesting their computer is broken and they need to download a "cleaner app". Many people get tricked by the fake Download buttons. Many people just use whatever the first link on Google.

And then once they are tricked they then proliferate their passwords, email addresses, credit cards etc all over the internet.

App Stores IMHO are a must have for most people.

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