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The End of OS X

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Re: The End of OS X

#261

Post by saagarjha »

_bxg1 wrote: post #115
0x0 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, what a modern desktop is sorely lacking right now is protecting users and developers from themselves. Whenever I run "npm install" I have to close my eyes and ignore the chills down my spine thinking about how a thousand random npmjs.org account holders just ran their postinstall scripts on my computer with full access to ~/Documents/. The traditional multi-user Unix permission system is no longer…

Maybe what we need is a granular permissions model for all executables, including those in the terminal. Instead of the binary choice between "this code is allowed to rewrite my operating system if it wants to" and "this code can 'only' read and write all of my user files", what if we had to explicitly give binaries access to specific directories? Network access? The desktop environment? Drawing to the screen anywher…

> Imagine if you ran all those NPM install scripts and they only had write permissions to their subdirectory of node_modules, only had read permissions to your path, and would dynamically prompt you if they had a reason to request something beyond that

This sounds entirely possible to do within the existing macOS sandboxing framework.

Re: The End of OS X

#262

Post by viklove »

davedx wrote: post #252
banachtarski wrote: post #243

Earlier 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.

Almost every browser has this feature...

Re: The End of OS X

#263

Post by ARandomerDude »

askafriend wrote: post #247
ARandomerDude wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, the React Native experience has been instructive. Android is quick and easy to develop, debug, and deploy. The iOS side includes multiple hoops, constant frustration stemming from XCode, long app release times, and minutes-long builds for production-size apps. Our team, without any policy dictating daily development habits, has coalesced around Linux/Android development with iOS testing before release.

As a consumer, I've never used a React Native app that I liked using. It's always janky and commpromises UX in ways that made me simply use the app less or had the effect of teaching me to "get in and out of the app as quickly as possible".

As with everything, it depends on the implementation. There are some things I'd like to clean up about our app, but overall feedback has been very positive.

Re: The End of OS X

#264

Post by pier25 »

jmull wrote: post #236
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #17

> what the company perceives as a weakness: the paucity of apps in the Mac App Store. I think that the issue with the Mac App store, is that it imposes restrictions on a once-free-for-all development environment. I know many app developers that have abandoned it, after giving it a damn fair shake. Mac developers just got used to being able to wander all over the house, poking their noses into whatever they liked. iOS…

> I suspect that non-App Store apps for the Mac may be seeing the twilight. I doubt it. There's literally no reason at all to transition macOS to be like iPadOS... since iPadOS already exists. If they wanted to do that they could literally simply discontinue macOS and only sell devices with iPadOS. Boom, done. Of course, there are a million reasons to not do that, which is why macOS will continue to exist.

I agree.

I just can't see Adobe, Autodesk, etc, distributing their desktop apps via the Mac App Store.

Re: The End of OS X

#265

Post by AlexandrB »

crystaln wrote: post #123
lordleft wrote: post #64

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 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.

For me the problem can be summed up as: "Every new MacOS release has less Unix and poorer (for a power user) design".

Apple has been slowly whittling away at the MacOS value proposition for developers.

Re: The End of OS X

#266

Post by FillardMillmore »

mstade wrote: post #148
lordleft wrote: post #64

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 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 can't speak for why the OP feels this way, but I think one of the main gripes I've seen from "power users" of the latest MBPs are the touchbar and Apple's continued insistence on it and the larger trackpad that some find obtrusive (these features are generally embraced by end-users). Then of course there's the lack of USB ports that some take issue with and the fairly disappointing built-in webcam on the latest models. These are not problems for everyone and most have workarounds, but some "power users" are turned off by this. The abandonment of the butterfly keyboard is definitely a step in the right direction.

Re: The End of OS X

#267

Post by jnwatson »

davedx wrote: post #252
banachtarski wrote: post #243

Earlier 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.

That's a commodity feature at this point.

Re: The End of OS X

#268

Post by mikenew »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #105
PeterCorless wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I suspect that non-App Store apps for the Mac may be seeing the twilight." Obv someone doesn't shop on Steam.

I do, and being a Mac user on Steam sucks. Epic is even worse. Apple doesn't seem to be particularly worried about it. For all the hate dumped on Mac as being a "toy" computer, it is a terrible gaming computer. I use it to do work .

I tried so hard to be a gamer on macOS, and I kept telling myself it would eventually get better. But I had to give up. You can't even turn off mouse acceleration, which is a bare-level requirement for RTS games like StarCraft.

There's something about an OS that won't let me decide how my mouse works that just irked me to no end. For a while there was some sketchy kernel extension you could pay $20 for to kill the acceleration, but even that stopped working.

Re: The End of OS X

#269

Post by warent »

mstade wrote: post #148
lordleft wrote: post #64

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 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 would also consider myself to be a power user. However, one huge annoying problem I've encountered is sharing homebrew between multiple users. It seems like it's not possible for homebrew and all of it's libraries/binaries to be owned/usable by more than one user at a time.

Apple should roll their own package management tool or officially support homebrew.

Re: The End of OS X

#270

Post by piyh »

lghh wrote: post #254
wayneftw wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I tried manjaro after living on debian based distros for most of my life. I somehow ended up in dependency hell after only a month.
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