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Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth

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Re: Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth

#181

Post by arvinsim »

deanclatworthy wrote: post #172
lostgame wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> it's still randomly losing files. Whoa, no. That is a huge code red for me as a creative. Especially in the music folder. I work at all crazy times of day and night, inspiration hits, and is often impossible to replace. Not alright.

That’s why as a creative you should be using a backup solution. With modern internet connections backing up is quick and efficient. File loss should be expected on the FS. Many things can and will go wrong one day.

Having a backup still doesn't excuse Catalina for that bug.

Re: Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth

#182

Post by yyyk »

kevingadd wrote: post #108
ridiculous_fish wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at Apple during the 64 bit transition. The answer is that 32 bit was quite painful to maintain. The 64 bit transition was a compatibility break that enabled shedding technical debt, like NeXT-isms that no longer applied. In particular it added the ObjC 2 runtime, which allowed features like adding a variable to a class without needing to recompile subclasses. So long as 32 bit is supported, it is difficult f…

Would you say this is due to architectural limitations in how 32/64-bit are implemented in OS X, vs the way compatibility works on say Windows or Linux? I know people have claimed that part of this is due to the need for system binaries/etc to all include full 32/64-bit versions.

Windows 64bit mostly uses 32bit shims which call the 'real' 64bit API. This means that 32bit support is almost no-cost to maintain - I am certain MS will support 32bit for the next decade at the very least - but at the cost of having the 64bit API itself slightly less breaking compatibility so shims are easier to make (e.g. "long" is still 32bit). Arguably MS would have made the same API compromises anyway just to make porting easier.

Linux has some 32bit shims in the kernel and a few separate syscalls, but userland does the separate libraries approach where all 32bit libs are separate than 64bit libraries. So the kernel pays a small cost, while userland needs to maintain separate versions of the libraries - which often costs very little (many can simply be recompiled, this is open source after all), but can bite the maintainer sometimes.

MacOS uses the fat binaries approach, where every binary carries all the arch versions. I don't think the system supports a different method - so Mac pays a bigger cost than Windows or Linux in order to maintain 32 bit. Also Mac kernel API is unstable by design, and I guess Apple would like to drop some older stuff. For better or worse that's the Apple Way - they don't maintain anywhere as much backward compat as other platforms.

Re: Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth

#183

Post by Pokepokalypse »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #150
Razengan wrote: post #50

I still love macOS but Catalina has been the buggiest beta and release that I can recall. When we saw betas of x.1 before there were even GMs/release candidates of x.0 we knew it was going to be rushed out the door. Even after release it's still randomly losing files. Just yesterday my purchased music downloads just disappeared. No explanation (unless I trashed and emptied them in a fugue state). They were still show…

I got to say, my Windows 10 PC at work, with an 8 year old CPU, has been rock fucking solid . So has my 2013 MBPr at home.

Seems to me 2013 was the real sweet-spot for MBP.

I still use mine almost every single day. It's a beast, and has been very reliable. Keyboard is WAY nicer to type on than the current generation. It's a little thicker and heavier, and lacks USB-c ports, but it's still damn fine.

Re: Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth

#184

Post by jwr »

I fully agree with the author, and I am also worried about how Apple treats its users. And I am also an abandoned Aperture user, with huge libraries full of organized albums with non-destructive edits. I still do not know what to do about that.

Having read most of the comments, I got the impression that you could correlate them with age. Younger people are all "Catalina works for me! Progress! Change is necessary! What are you whining about?!". Perhaps I can relate because I've been using computers for >25 years now, and I'd like to see a division between rapidly changing things (like my applications) and foundation-type stuff that I need to get work done (like computers and operating systems).

Re: Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth

#185

Post by woutr_be »

kranner wrote: post #180
woutr_be wrote: post #167

I've upgraded to Catalina on my 2015 MacBook Pro the day it released (didn't run the betas), and I haven't experienced any problems. I mostly use it for development, everything still works. My only annoyance so far has been SideCar, it just never works the first time, I have to switch from second display to mirror, then back to second display to make it work.

Sidecar is officially supported only on 2016 and later MacBook Pros. https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT210380#systemrequirements I use a 2015 MBP too, so I'm glad to hear it does work and thanks for the workaround.

Oh that's strange, pretty sure mine is a 2015 model. (Although I would need to check).

Once it works, it's actually really great, I mainly use it for my terminal and browser debug tools. It's nice to have some extra space.

Re: Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth

#186

Post by FireBeyond »

chrischen wrote: post #160
johnisgood wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is evidently NOT opposed to changes, read these quotes from him: > I don't like change when it unnecessarily breaks things that used to work just fine. > I used to like change more when it actually made me work better, when the advantages clearly outweighed the downsides, when progress and improvements were noticeable and thoughtfully implemented. He is opposed to changes that 1) break things that used to work fin…

> I don't like change when it unnecessarily breaks things that used to work just fine. This is by definition what change is. It's an improvement, and if changes didn't break things there'd never be progress and nothing would get changed.

Change is absolutely not, "by definition", an improvement. It can be. And it can be entirely the opposite.

Re: Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth

#187

Post by austhrow743 »

lilyball wrote: post #162
amiantos wrote: post #21

Author hasn't tried Catalina, and their biggest complaint appears to be that the email app allegedly has a new UI--but I don't think it does. Mail app looks the same in Catalina, doesn't it? I can't say I noticed any differences. Either way, this is an extremely long blog post to say basically just "I don't like change, and I'm not willing to see change as a potential improvement to try to accept it".

I read a few paragraphs, got the same impression, and closed it, because the author admitted they're using practically none of the Apple ecosystem and therefore have already discounted the overwhelming majority of the improvements in Catalina. It's certainly disingenuous to have a clickbait headline "Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it's worth" when it's missing "as explained by someone who doesn't use music, photo…

I don't think it's disingenuous when it's a personal blog, which comes with an inherent "for my particular use case".

The problem is when that context is stripped away by aggregation sites like this one where tons of articles we read are from publishers and the expectation might be that the author did some research, tried different things, and was trying to write from a more objective or all encompassing view point.

I have the same problem with articles where the title will read like it's going to be a regular news article but instead it's a 6000 word story on the authors journey to uncover the information and how it made them feel yadda yadda. Not really the publishers fault, I'm sure their reader base knows what to expect (I know I've learned to stop clicking links to The Atlantic), but ends up misleading the potential reader from elsewhere a bit.

When this happens I think the fault is with the aggregator not allowing or enforcing proper information labelling. Not the author being disingenuous.

Re: Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth

#188

Post by markmark »

renaudg wrote: post #125
ridiculous_fish wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked at Apple during the 64 bit transition. The answer is that 32 bit was quite painful to maintain. The 64 bit transition was a compatibility break that enabled shedding technical debt, like NeXT-isms that no longer applied. In particular it added the ObjC 2 runtime, which allowed features like adding a variable to a class without needing to recompile subclasses. So long as 32 bit is supported, it is difficult f…

Thanks. This should be the top comment for every Catalina rant posted here.

As a user, why would I care how inconvenient it is for a trillion dollar company to support their software?

Re: Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth

#189

Post by arvinsim »

whalesalad wrote: post #42

> my desktop workhorse, a 2017 4K retina iMac > 5400 rpm hard drive as its main internal volume Regardless of OS, the author _really_ needs to bail on the 5400rpm HDD and get a solid state disk in there... especially if you're gonna call it a workhorse!

> Regardless of OS, the author _really_ needs to bail on the 5400rpm HDD and get a solid state disk in there... especially if you're gonna call it a workhorse!

Apple themselves needs to bail on the 5400rpm HDD

Re: Mac OS Catalina: more trouble than it’s worth

#190

Post by Nursie »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #150
Razengan wrote: post #50

I still love macOS but Catalina has been the buggiest beta and release that I can recall. When we saw betas of x.1 before there were even GMs/release candidates of x.0 we knew it was going to be rushed out the door. Even after release it's still randomly losing files. Just yesterday my purchased music downloads just disappeared. No explanation (unless I trashed and emptied them in a fugue state). They were still show…

I got to say, my Windows 10 PC at work, with an 8 year old CPU, has been rock fucking solid . So has my 2013 MBPr at home.

I am typing this from a late-2013 MBPr. It has been rock solid until Catalina. Now it occasionally reboots while its closed and there's something going on in the system settings that tells me I need to re-log in to some services, then errors out when I click on the button to proceed and do that.

Not up to quite the usual quality, definitely.

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