Am I the only one who wants to call it MacOS 11 Big Bottom? Any Spinal Tap devotees here? Oh never mind.
You can have one chuckle for that.
The End of OS X
251–260 of 589 posts
Re: The End of OS X
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
I keep reading these types of comments on HN but I just can't relate. I consider myself a power user, and precisely because MacOS feels like the best of Unix combined with customer focus is why I'm wholly invested in the Apple ecosystem. I simply can't relate to the statement that Mac is a "platform that contends with me every step of the way" and I'm curious to know more specifically why you feel this way?
I just "use linux" and I get all the benefits with much better hardware (more memory, disk storage, speed for compilation), better drivers (important especially for GPU support for either graphics/rendering work or machine learning) and my downsides are... what exactly? Itunes, Mail, etc, none of the software shipping with MacOS is actually any good. I don't use Safari. From your perspective, what aspect of the "cust…
I use Safari as my main browser now due to the password generation/sharing with my iPhone. It's a killer feature for me.
Re: The End of OS X
#253I 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…
> The main thing I miss is Spotlight search, but there are third party replacements for that.
Such as?
I've been looking for a decent launcher for Windows but all the options are pretty mediocre compared to Spotlight (or Alfred which is what I use).
Re: The End of OS X
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Been running Manjaro Linux for 2 years now on 2 desktop workstations and 1 laptop. No fiddling needed. Everything just works. (I had to install one utility called libinput-gestures to use multi-touch gestures on the laptop.) Matter of fact, my life is easier with this setup than it ever was with macOS or Windows since every piece of software I need is in the package manager including official Chrome, Slack, Thunderbi…
Buying a laptop to run manjaro is a minefield. I have had some Just Work. Those were generally older laptops without dedicated graphics. I have had newer laptops fail to properly switch between graphics, rip through my battery, not reconnect to wifi after waking up forcing me to shut down and boot up every time I wanted it to sleep, have middling to poor touchpad drivers, not have the webcam work out of the box. For those who get lucky, great. For those that want to fix that stuff, which is sometimes easy, sometimes hard, other times nearly impossible without writing drivers yourself, good for them too. I don't want any of that.
Re: The End of OS X
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
I keep reading these types of comments on HN but I just can't relate. I consider myself a power user, and precisely because MacOS feels like the best of Unix combined with customer focus is why I'm wholly invested in the Apple ecosystem. I simply can't relate to the statement that Mac is a "platform that contends with me every step of the way" and I'm curious to know more specifically why you feel this way?
I recently ran into some trouble with some tools installed in /usr/bin a while ago, and wanted to try making some changes. Even with root, you can't touch /usr/bin. It took me way too long to try to figure out what was going on, and all the fixes were hacks.
I may be missing something here, but why would you need to change the stock installed tools in /usr/bin? Seems like an easy way to screw up your OS installation. And it's not like a VM where you can rollback to a snapshot or relaunch.
If there really was an issue there then you either need to file a bug and have them mainline a fix, or yes hack/shim a fix on top for your needs. Perhaps leveraging PATH precedence.
Re: The End of OS X
#256Mac OS 11 feels like it might end up being the Windows 8 of Mac OS. A company is taking/took a well-loved and highly productive desktop/laptop optimized operating system (OS X for Apple, Windows 7 for Microsoft) and is making/made it more like a tablet/phone operating system. Unfortunately, that made it less optimized for the desktop/laptop use case.
I don’t see anything that makes it less optimized for desktop. Yes, the styling joins the family look of the iPad, but this doesn’t mean that it becomes a focus on touch. Mac is still very committed to a mouse/trackpad/keyboard interaction model. I think that 11 looks good and brings in some useful features from iPad and lends some good UI elements like sidebars to the iPad. It’s a good marriage but not a merging.
Re: The End of OS X
#257I'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 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.
> I am a developer and power user ... Sure I can't disassemble my laptop and change the hardware. I have no desire at all to do that.
That's a lie. Every power user tries to get the most out of their machine, and so desires an upgradeable system. No power user likes to throw away a system because s/he can't replace its battery or upgrade its ram or hdd / ssd. At some point, everyone likes to upgrade their existing system without spending a gazillion bucks for it.
Yes, it is true that with phones and tablets, corporates like Apple and Samsung have managed to convince the general mass that not being able to upgrade your phone or tablet is a NORMAL thing, and soldered RAM and soldered SSD are the only option, but we power users know that's a lie that Apple and Samsung (and others) would like us to believe.
And that is why their marketing is heavily based to push the exact message you are parroting:
> I imagine there are a tiny fraction of users who would and you may be among them.
I can bet that even if someone is not a poweruser, and an ordinary consumer / user, they too would appreciate the option to upgrade their phones / systems and reuse it. That is why we have efforts like the PuzzlePhone in europe.
Re: The End of OS X
#258Earlier quoted context omitted.
You assume that people have to throw away millions of laptops, but his comment (and mine) refer to the fact that a recent laptop works fine for 6+ years as-is. The lifecycle doesn't shorten but the need to toy with the innards has gone away for a lot of people.
> You assume that people have to throw away millions of laptops Hmm yes I do: https://twitter.com/RDKLInc/status/1275100376350384132 Have you also never had anyone you know spilling liquid on their keyboard after the warranty expired? Or dropped it? So in the end yes, I am pretty sure that there are literal millions of devices being thrown away because repairing them is too expensive. Edit: I'll also add that in 6 ye…
Those are not laptops, those are iPads, which weren't modular to begin with. Also, not broken, but locked, because the previous owner didn't unlock them before discarding them. Are there millions of devices that get thrown away in general? Sure. But I doubt it's only devices with RAM that was soldered down and branded Apple.
Regarding spilling on keyboards: I don't know anyone personally who does that, in my local area people don't eat or drink next to their devices. I do have plenty of people I don't personally know that did ruin their computers that way and I have replaced plenty of Apple keyboards and entire topcases to solve it. Works fine as a side-business.
Repairing is not the same as upgrading, and recycling is not the same as throwing away, and neither is reusing. The difference is important, as the solution changes with the case.
Overall, this would be more fitting in a general discussion on environmental impact and not as much one about software, the hardware it runs on, and human behaviour. If you want to solve a big problem you need to generify instead of brand it as far as I know.
To dive in a little deeper: to 'fix' this, people need to spend less time on how beautiful their stuff is, or how cool they look, and go a more utilitarian route. But since the American economy is built around the opposite and the western European one has the tendency to follow it in some aspects that's unlikely to happy any time soon. Changing people is hard, it's also the best way to solve or fix or change anything.
Re: The End of OS X
#259The idea that the Unix philosophy of "small programs that can share" is idealized in the shell "pipeline" capability. To imply that this has successfully made it into any GUI programs is flat out wrong. We're still saddled with vertical apps everywhere including within the same ecosystem.
The "Unix" on Mac is so woefully out of date that it qualifies only as a marketing label. In fact Windows is now more Unix than Mac, by far.
Round it out with a confusing disingenuous nod to "see what the hackers are using" since yeah, it's all about the "i" devices.
Obviously Apple is a consumer commercial device maker and the Mac will follow. Push 3rd party developers through the app store and a lot will leave. Look at the music industry, soon, it will be Logic alone on Mac and everyone will have to migrate.
Linux will be the last non consumer oriented OS and look for desktop/laptop versions to expand their footprint.
Right now, all these big company OSes look like ad delivery platforms and turn you into a sysadmin for their profits.
Re: The End of OS X
#260Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just "use linux" and I get all the benefits with much better hardware (more memory, disk storage, speed for compilation), better drivers (important especially for GPU support for either graphics/rendering work or machine learning) and my downsides are... what exactly? Itunes, Mail, etc, none of the software shipping with MacOS is actually any good. I don't use Safari. From your perspective, what aspect of the "cust…
I use Safari as my main browser now due to the password generation/sharing with my iPhone. It's a killer feature for me.
Firefox does this too FYI