Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

char.gd

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 85 posts

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

#41

Post by lokedhs »

tyteen4a03 wrote: post #22

The only reason I'm staying with macOS is because it is the only UNIX distribution that doesn't look downright ugly. (Sorry Linux, none of your distros match up to Apple's offering) I've had lots of teething issues with High Sierra (especially with APFS) and I certainly don't like the new butterfly keyboard in the new MacBook Pros. But on the other hand, they've got the best gesture controls. With Windows 10 you can…

Since Apple has given up on keeping what really matters for a Unix, its tools, up to date the amount of time you have to spend installing the latest version of things like Bash is actually higher for OSX than Windows these days.

I am aware that at least one of the reasons for Apple to ship stone-age versions of everything from Emacs to GCC is that they hate GPL3. But the reasons don't matter when the latest version of their operating system is unable to run modern software without installing a set of packages that more or less replaces all of the Unix tools. When you have to do that, it doesn't really matter if you install those tools on top of Windows or OSX.

As for myself I find Windows to be absolutely unusable and I was using Linux up until around 2002 when I switched h to the Mac. Lately however, Apple's utter disregard for technical users that prefer the Unix experience has made me switch back to Linux, and while Linux has issues of its own, at least everything works out of the box without having to deal with an entire separate ecosystem of packages on top of what is provided by the operating system itself.

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

#42

Post by cmurf »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #4

Got a Macbook Pro in 2016. As of today, the E, R, and T keys have all stopped working. Apple wants $500 for a logic board replacement. It was fine when it was just the R key. Sort of. I set up bash scripts to copy-paste "r" to my clipboard, and just pressed command-V instead of "r". But then the T key went out.

Check your credit card, it might have an extended warranty that applies after the manufacturer warranty expires. Amex for sure does this automatically, doubles the warranty up to one additional year.

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

#43

Post by lz400 »

WalterGR wrote: post #28
lz400 wrote: post #17

I've recently switched from an old Mac Pro to a Lenovo x1 carbon (QHD, 16gb RAM, 512 SSD, i7). It was half the price of the equivalent current Mac Pro, with more ports and better battery life, no gimmicky touch bar BS and a much better keyboard imho (although the trackpad is worse). Software wise, I use Windows 10 with the linux subsystem + a Linux VM (Elementary OS). I must confess both Windows and Linux are still a…

although the trackpad is worse I haven't found a single Windows laptop whose trackpad can be pushed in (thus registering a mouse click) at the top of the trackpad. All I can think is that Apple is aggressively asserting some patent(s). Is there an alternate explanation? Have I just not come across Windows laptops with good trackpads?

The 2 finger scrolling is pretty bad too, frequently doesn't respond or makes the font bigger or other nonsense. Apple has the best trackpads no doubt.

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

#44

Post by arithmetization »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #4

Got a Macbook Pro in 2016. As of today, the E, R, and T keys have all stopped working. Apple wants $500 for a logic board replacement. It was fine when it was just the R key. Sort of. I set up bash scripts to copy-paste "r" to my clipboard, and just pressed command-V instead of "r". But then the T key went out.

I once had the same problem with an old Macbook Air and stubbornly used Ukulele to create a keyboard layout that let me chord around four dead keys with alt and the key directly below. It's not a long term solution, but it might help in a pinch.

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

#45

Post by cmurf »

gremlinsinc wrote: post #5

Yuck... Why not try arch linux? Much better... imho. Antergos is a good user friendly distro that I highly recommend. Why is it always windows vs apple..when linux -- esp for tech savvy folks/developers is so much better?

I think it's good advice to go with a remix of a solid distro that's emphasizing "out of the box" experience. I haven't tried Antergos myself, but sounds approximately like the target market for Korora which is a Fedora remix, and includes more obscure things like non-free (i.e. proprietary) software, browser plugins, and drivers.

There are some things I have to use Windows or macOS for because the proprietary software only exists on one of those platforms, but day to day I'm using Fedora. I'm sick of the entire macOS and Windows ecosystems. About the only thing making sense for sticking with macoS at least, is that it's the only way to develop macOS and iOS apps. Lock in.

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

#46

Post by cmurf »

api_or_ipa wrote: post #12

Nothing more than bitching, moaning, complaining and fanboying about ecosystems. Sure, there are issues in the mac ecosystem that frustrate me but the mac ecosystem, on the whole, is an excellent system that works great for most people. Plus, there are a large number of 3rd party solutions to tailor the experience to your needs. Since we're allowing fanboying, Windows is still by far the biggest pile of shit to work…

I thought the Windows Subsystem for Linux was kinda funny, but actually it's so well integrated and useful for all the reasons people like using Linux (more correctly, their shell of choice). Where Apple is so neurotically anti-GPLv3 that they've allowed the GPLv2 stuff in macOS to get extremely old. And I see no evidence those ancient tools like rsync 2.1.9 are even getting security updates. That is the platform I see sinking, at least that part of it.

It also sucks to VM, it's not even legal to VM it if not on Apple hardware. It sucks when running other OS's in a VM. Seriously, XNU just does not like being host or guest, it becomes a CPU and memory pig like no other OS.

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

#47

Post by berberous »

lz400 wrote: post #17

I've recently switched from an old Mac Pro to a Lenovo x1 carbon (QHD, 16gb RAM, 512 SSD, i7). It was half the price of the equivalent current Mac Pro, with more ports and better battery life, no gimmicky touch bar BS and a much better keyboard imho (although the trackpad is worse). Software wise, I use Windows 10 with the linux subsystem + a Linux VM (Elementary OS). I must confess both Windows and Linux are still a…

To each their own, but FWIW, I have a MBP and an X1 and I _greatly_ prefer the former. I think the new touch bars were a mistake, and I think Apple is expensive and the QA going downhill, but the overall quality and customer service are still miles and miles beyond the X1.

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

#48

Post by flukus »

dtech wrote: post #27
flukus wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All that being said, I'd agree that Microsoft is (if you can stomach all of this) at least trying to maintain a desktop operating system. I disagree there, MS is trying to maintain a tablet/phone OS that just happens to include some of their older desktop stuff, but they're deprecating that as quickly as possible. Windows 7 was their last desktop OS. Seems like KDE and Gnome are the only ones that care about the de…

They nixed their phone software development a few weeks ago...

A few weeks ago is several years after they merged the phone and desktop codebases.

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

#49

Post by lz400 »

berberous wrote: post #47
lz400 wrote: post #17

I've recently switched from an old Mac Pro to a Lenovo x1 carbon (QHD, 16gb RAM, 512 SSD, i7). It was half the price of the equivalent current Mac Pro, with more ports and better battery life, no gimmicky touch bar BS and a much better keyboard imho (although the trackpad is worse). Software wise, I use Windows 10 with the linux subsystem + a Linux VM (Elementary OS). I must confess both Windows and Linux are still a…

To each their own, but FWIW, I have a MBP and an X1 and I _greatly_ prefer the former. I think the new touch bars were a mistake, and I think Apple is expensive and the QA going downhill, but the overall quality and customer service are still miles and miles beyond the X1.

Yes, Apple customer service is worlds beyond Lenovo, I had to return a defective laptop and it took months and painful calls. But still, the hardware is just more competitive in Lenovo. And YMMV but I can't deal with the new MBPs' keyboard, touch bar and lack of ports. It's just a show stopper for me.

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

#50

Post by nachosgalore »

jshaqaw wrote: post #34

The Mac platform is comatose and we all know it. The author is dead right with his points. I switched to Mac about 10 years ago and was blown away by how amazing it was. A year ago I got a Windows machine at work. At first I was horrified by the idea but Windows has come so far in the last few years. It’s a perfectly fine platform now and has largely caught up.

The issue with Windows is the telemetry. You simply cannot disable it. Yes, you can waste time ticking everything off, but with the next update, it's back again. No, thank you.

I want to use an operating system that respects my privacy. For me, this is OpenBSD, FreeBSD, or Fedora/Debian Linux.

I use Windows at work, too, and am horrified daily by how utterly difficult it is to use compared to Linux or FreeBSD.

Post reply on HN