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The End of OS X

stratechery.com

161–170 of 589 posts

Re: The End of OS X

#161

I personally think that the MacBook Pro 16 inch is the world’s best laptop, and look forward to see what the next generations can do. But the whole point has been MacOS. I’m not sure what to think of the changes. If they stabilize the mess that was Catalina, then they’re doing the right things, even with the increased iOS-ification of the Mac. If they just slap more Windows 8 style touch gloss on deep and unresolvabl…

I don't think that (most) Linux users see "free" as the main reason for using Linux. Personally if Linux had a price tag, and Windows were free I would still be a Linux user.

Sure they do, otherwise selling desktop software to Linux users would actually be profitable.

Re: The End of OS X

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a developer and power user. I am incredibly happy with every update from Apple. Unix with good design is exactly what I want from my OS. Sure I can't disassemble my laptop and change the hardware. I have no desire at all to do that. I literally can think of no reason I personally would want to do this, although I imagine there are a tiny fraction of users who would and you may be among them.

Changing the hardware or software yourself is not the point. The point is the monopoly of the manufacturer to repair and modify with huge negative consequences. The lack of right to modify the software leads to unjust power over users [0,1], while the lack of ability to repair hardware leads to unreasonable repair prices, monopoly and environmental damage [2]. [0] https://www.defectivebydesign.org/ [1] https://www.gn…

No, that isn't the point either. The point is happy users, and there will always be some unhappy users because they wanted to do something that isn't supported or actively barred.

Throwing in words like 'right' and 'unjust' helps in movements and call to action etc, but in this context it's about someone turning on their device, doing some work, and turning it off again.

Re: The End of OS X

#163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple never got sued for slowing down the iPad.

True. «Fined« and it was Iphones https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-51413724 but the exact same thing happened to my Ipad. After the upgrade it was slow

Again, that's not true either. It was specifically about iPhones and specifically about older batteries. Apple still doesn't have the type of battery management for iPads.

The article you cited specifically lists the devices affected.

Re: The End of OS X

#164

What I think a lot of us programmers miss is the experience of the end-users who are likely to buy a Mac. The fact of the matter is, 99.9% of people who buy a Mac are not going to know what subpixel hinting is. Or care too much that they can't delete Chess.app. To them, the Mac is nicer looking and easier to use than ever. Will iOS devs care? Not at all - developing for the Mac has become easier with Catalyst. It's e…

And I’ll continue to buy them. Why? Because I have better things to do with my time than fiddle with my OS, and because it’s still Unix like without having an awful user experience. And my employers will continue to buy macs for me for largely similar reasons. My last colleague who tried to use Linux literally never got their laptop to work with the WiFi authentication, so they had to wire in.

Meh, I just load up manjaro with XFCE and call it a day. Not much fiddling involved, very little about the user experience that I don't like.

Only thing I ever really tweaked was running a more up-to-date kernel for an old soundcard I used to use. Which took a couple of clicks.

Sorry for your colleague who had trouble with wifi, but. /shrug

Re: The End of OS X

#165

I've looked at the trajectory of Apple these past few years with mounting bitter-sweetness. At its best, MacOS really felt like the best of Unix combined with the consumer focus alluded to in the article. I still adore the craftsmanship of the latest Macbooks, but my 2015 Macbook felt like the apex of Mac's design. It was the kind of device that was such a pleasure to develop on. You could leverage the power of Unix…

I've always used Apple products because they just work. UNIX compatibility has been great and I've run docker, run virtual machines, given presentations and I love the hardware. Most of the restrictions are tradeoffs for security and the real problem is that I have tried having workflows on other systems and tried to switch off of it (I had linux on my MacBook Pro 2017. Below are my most frustrating situations 1. My…

Interesting you mention Emacs. The Mac port of Emacs runs noticeably slower than Linux depending on operation (magit especially is very slow). This is due to the much slower fork call on OS X I believe. I found Emacs so painfully slow on a MBP 16” I gave up on OS X completely. It might just be you are used to it and it’s good enough. For me OS X feels like a laggy mess.

Re: The End of OS X

#166

I personally think that the MacBook Pro 16 inch is the world’s best laptop, and look forward to see what the next generations can do. But the whole point has been MacOS. I’m not sure what to think of the changes. If they stabilize the mess that was Catalina, then they’re doing the right things, even with the increased iOS-ification of the Mac. If they just slap more Windows 8 style touch gloss on deep and unresolvabl…

­>inux is only free if your time has no value. I use it as a server OS plenty, but don’t really need it on my desktop.

To me this means "I don't know how to get Ubuntu working". Even Arch Linux requires less maintenance for me than my 2013 Macbook Pro did. As soon as you get the setup over with correctly you never have an issue, unless you can't get set it up correctly.

Windows is nice when everything works, and if you don't do anything too advanced for your setup and never have an issue it's good. But fixing issues is much easier in Linux than Windows as long as you know what you are doing.

Re: The End of OS X

#167
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the iOS model is the one that needs to be followed, if security and privacy are the goals How so? Why should a centralized store be the zenith of these goals? Even if you assume the only way to be protected is for Apple to anoint binaries as good and pure, you would still gain privacy through decentralized distribution and secure signatures even if Apple controls the whitelist.

I don’t think that part of their comment was referring to the App Store, but rather to the way that apps on iOS are sandboxed preventing them from accessing system wide settings and files outside of their sandbox. That’s the way I read that part of their comment anyway.

Yup.

Re: The End of OS X

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The move towards "iOSing" the OS. It won't be GateKeeper. It will be policies. They won't make it obvious at all, because they know how unpopular it will be. Let's see what the future brings. I'm not thrilled with it (for example, I have one app that I've written, that uses ffmpeg[0], and ffmpeg no likee sandbox). [0] https://github.com/RiftValleySoftware/RVS_MediaServer

"The move towards "iOSing" the OS." People have been claiming this for literally a decade+ now. The death of macOS is perpetually imminent.

It's remarkable how overwhelmingly negative the comments on HN are to everything Apple does. The top comment is always some "this is the final straw...I'm leaving the platform" screed (if you look back, those people have usually made that declaration a dozen times), and everyone who claims anything contrary is pushed to transparent.

HN needs to go out and take a walk and get some perspective. What a bunch of sour assholes.

Re: The End of OS X

#169
post #134

So Apple changed their OS numbering system. Is there any more significance to this event?

why exactly did they change the version number? i dont get it

I don't think Apple has explicitly said anything, but the fact that this version will support a new CPU architecture seems like a pretty good reason.

Re: The End of OS X

#170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a developer and power user. I am incredibly happy with every update from Apple. Unix with good design is exactly what I want from my OS. Sure I can't disassemble my laptop and change the hardware. I have no desire at all to do that. I literally can think of no reason I personally would want to do this, although I imagine there are a tiny fraction of users who would and you may be among them.

Easy. A new application you have needs more RAM. Your battery is not holding up very well and you want to replace it. Your SSD will fail soon and you want to replace it. I had every single one of those issues on a laptop, and fixing them cost me from 25$ to 100$, about a fifth of what the Apple Store or OEM was quoting me. Instead of being without my laptop for a week or two, I got all of them over in an hour and a h…

All that, and also -- Apple sets prices about once a year. Meanwhile, the price of CPUs, RAM and graphics cards drops. For any price level that Apple establishes, I can afford a Hackintosh desktop of much greater power or I can save a lot of money and get equivalent power.

Though, to be honest, I don't bother unless there's a particular application which isn't available on Linux.

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