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OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

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Re: OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

#71

Post by pier25 »

jgh wrote: post #2

I'm not sure why the article is speculating about a "seismic" change. Apple (and Microsoft and Google have followed) has established a pattern for their OS evolution: yearly incremental updates.

Incremental updates only work up to a certain point.

I imagine Apple is working on its universal OS for all its devices, but maybe waiting for the switch to ARM on desktop.

Google is working on Fuchsia to apply all it has learned from Android and Chrome OS. I think it will be a hit. Google has got really good at making products for users and devs alike, but Android is a mess because it was never written from scratch.

Re: OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

#72

Post by grzm »

bhnmmhmd wrote: post #68
pier25 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If not, Google is coming down the road with Fuschia. I'm also hoping Fuchsia will save us.

How is Fuchsia pronounced? Is it like "f*ck+sia"? Or more like "fushia"? Edit: looking up in dictionay, it's actually /fjuːʃə/.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fuchsia

\ ˈfyü-shə \

Re: OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

#73

Post by elcritch »

FPGAhacker wrote: post #42

I see a lot of posts about updating / innovating the OS that mainly have to do with the GUI and app frameworks. Fair enough. Personally, I wish they would just quit innovating for a while and FIX THE DAMN BUGS. I am far more upset by a feature that doesn't work right, than I am an absent feature.

Agreed on that. A few daily bugs have crept up on my MacBook, nowhere near what I’m getting on KDD/Plasma but not nearly as stable as OS X of the past. Especially data syncing, that kills the battery.

I wish they’d drop the whole Swift thing too and work on fixing all the frameworks to make them solid and not splintering the dev communities.

Re: OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

#74

Post by _bxg1 »

virmundi wrote: post #41
_bxg1 wrote: post #8

I would honestly love to see a ground-up rebuild, but not the kind that would probably happen. OSX is getting creaky; it seems like it's had an increasing number of integral bugs lately, and the "redesign" that came with Yosemite felt more like a rushed coat of paint than a substantial rethink of the UX. Here's what I'd like to see: a fresh desktop OS that actually innovates in the space. Desktop UX innovation has sl…

Fix the terrible memory subsystem. There is no need to swap on a 16 GB laptop! Especially when Apple solders the drive to board! That leads to premature ware on the board and me having to spend 600$! My Linux machine is perfectly fine running 2 Eclipse IDEs, 3 docker containers and four Spring Boot Services. No swapping. Since macOS disabled overriding the memory configuration, my laptop swaps merely running Safari (…

I've read that there are reasons to use swap other than just as "RAM overflow"

Re: OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

#75

Post by qop »

That took a moment to parse, but what a neat observation.

I've always admired apple from afar. I wish they cared More about lower rung use cases. If apple came out with something to compete with chromebooks, maybe $500-600 range, I'd be the first in those ridiculous lines.

Tangent: what's the outlook for swift on the server? Is that work group doing any work lately? Hell I heard swift was investigating memory safety as a future feature, is that still a thing?

I think with some of their software talent, swift could really make a strong case for swift>rust in learnability if it could make the same claims about safety and correctness.

Why do the coolest things always get so fucked up? The swift website is absolutely littered with old code that doesn't work, or at least it was the last time I bothered to investigate it.

They're sitting on such an absurd amount of cash, they oughtta do that Think Different thing and shake the scene up a bit more. The wait-for-google-and-then-fix-whatever-they-fuckup is getting stale.

I guess they don't care what I think since I'm not really an apple customer. But still.

Oh apple. Someday.

Re: OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

#76

Post by gnl »

drb91 wrote: post #11
_bxg1 wrote: post #8

I would honestly love to see a ground-up rebuild, but not the kind that would probably happen. OSX is getting creaky; it seems like it's had an increasing number of integral bugs lately, and the "redesign" that came with Yosemite felt more like a rushed coat of paint than a substantial rethink of the UX. Here's what I'd like to see: a fresh desktop OS that actually innovates in the space. Desktop UX innovation has sl…

I don't think that the obvious problems with OS X (macOS, whatever) are with the UX, though. Sure, there are problems on that front, but I don't think they're the major pain points people deal with on a daily basis. Meanwhile, user-controllable per-process (or per-app) sandboxing would provide tangible benefit to all of us. This means, easy controls for accessing filesystem, network, cpu, gpu, memory, peripherals, an…

Yup. While I do need to use a number of third-party tools to get the UX like I want it (Hammerspoon, Hyperswitch, Spectacle and Quicksilver), they do exist, they work fine and I think this has more to do with my specific requirements than with any fundamental issues or missing features in the UX.

Going forward, advanced sandboxing is indeed one of the most important things that I would love to see Apple focus on. Ever since I first considered the possibility that apps can have individual access controls, probably around the time I first encountered SELinux/RSBAC and later AppArmor, I've been wondering why vendors aren't pushing this as an absolute top priority on the security front.

Meanwhile I'm using this:

https://beta.f-secure.com/key/XFence

It's Jonathan Zdziarski's Little Flocker rebranded after he sold it to F-Secure. It works great, but it does admittedly require an upfront investment.

2 caveats:

- Current version only works on Sierra (I'm not touching High Sierra until just before the next one comes out)

- Creating "any via" rules can lead to noticeable slowdowns, while "ancestor" rules, even though they are theoretically more expensive, don't (unless one overuses them, I suppose). It's probably a bug.

Other than this, I've been using it for over a year and have no complaints whatsoever.

Re: OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

#78

Post by gnl »

I would love to have some sort of L(onger)TS release. I'm perfectly happy with how my system is set up, everything just works, I don't need new features and I'm dreading the next upgrade forced on me by the loosely defined (or not at all really) and rather short EOL cycles.

Re: OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

#79

Post by theSpaceOctopus »

pier25 wrote: post #55
_bxg1 wrote: post #8

I would honestly love to see a ground-up rebuild, but not the kind that would probably happen. OSX is getting creaky; it seems like it's had an increasing number of integral bugs lately, and the "redesign" that came with Yosemite felt more like a rushed coat of paint than a substantial rethink of the UX. Here's what I'd like to see: a fresh desktop OS that actually innovates in the space. Desktop UX innovation has sl…

A huge point in favor of macOS is the quality of its ecosystem. I only noticed this a couple of years ago when I tried to switch to Windows. When trying to find replacements for apps I use daily either there was nothing that had the functionality I wanted or what I found was just terrible. I found tons of win32 crap, or apps that didn't support scaling properly. Even software from Adobe... Some examples: Alfred, iSta…

I feel the same way. Also, the integration between Apple hardware is great. I have Macs, an iPhone and an iPad and everything works ridiculously well together.

I’ve contemplated switching to Linux for a while, and keep a laptop with Fedora installed, but every time I seriously consider it I picture losing those key applications and the tight integration with my other devices and I can’t justify it.

Re: OS X is as old as the classic Mac OS was when it came out

#80

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

pier25 wrote: post #58
drb91 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that the obvious problems with OS X (macOS, whatever) are with the UX, though. Sure, there are problems on that front, but I don't think they're the major pain points people deal with on a daily basis. Meanwhile, user-controllable per-process (or per-app) sandboxing would provide tangible benefit to all of us. This means, easy controls for accessing filesystem, network, cpu, gpu, memory, peripherals, an…

> If not, Google is coming down the road with Fuschia. I'm also hoping Fuchsia will save us.

I wouldn't count on it. Google doesn't seem particularly interested in the desktop at all. And if they were, then my worry is that it'll be seen like Windows 10 is now seen by Microsoft: as an "experience" (aka advertising platform), not a tool people use to get things done that should spend most of its time staying the hell out of the way.
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