The End of OS X • Hacker News Board

Re: The End of OS X

#391

Post by ChrisMarshallNY » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 9:15 PM UTC

duskwuff wrote: post #176

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know Apple fairly well. They have...control issues. They want as much control as they can get, over every aspect of the experience. It can get stifling, but I actually support it, and it's one of the reasons that I have always had faith in the company. The HIG (Human Interface Group) used to be nicknamed "The Blue Meanies" in the 1980s.

IIRC, the Blue Meanies were simply the System 7 core developers, not a HIG-specific group.

I recall them as the HIG group. I first encountered it at MacHack, in 1987, or so. There were a couple of HIG engineers, there, and they referred to themselves that way.

The reason was, because they insisted that app developers follow HIG guidelines.

Re: The End of OS X

#392

Post by mullingitover » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 9:16 PM UTC

oneplane wrote: post #112

brightball wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every time there’s a new Apple announcement, I’m happier and happier that I switched to Linux a couple of years ago. Power users want freedom and control of their own machines and hardware. The moment that Apple started soldering parts into place, I started looking elsewhere because it was a signal of the thought process.

On the flip side: does anyone still buy a low-specced machine and upgrade it mid-lifecycle? I've seen it less and less over the last 6 years and the last 2 years it hasn't happened in any work setting. I know people like to have the feeling of control (do you really control your laptop if you can't replace your EC, CSME, AGESA, SSD FW, NIC FW, VBIOS) and the concept of shuffling parts around, but the need for that (a…

> On the flip side: does anyone still buy a low-specced machine and upgrade it mid-lifecycle?

I've upgraded hard drives and RAM on very single Mac I've ever owned, except the last Mac I purchased, a 2015 MBP, where it wasn't an option.

It's looking like this one will be literally the last Mac I purchase. Apple's practice of charging premium, bespoke prices for commodity hardware was insulting, but at least there was a reasonable workaround before they started the soldering crap. Soldering things down is just a brazen money grab.

Can't believe I'm looking at going back to Windows but here we are.

Re: The End of OS X

#393

Post by HappyDreamer » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 9:16 PM UTC

BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #241

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…

This somewhat echoes some of Steve Job's own complaints about the Apple he was kicked out of: https://youtu.be/Gk-9Fd2mEnI?t=2078 Also note that at the time he was creating a NeXT, a Unix company.

Thanks for linking the video. Interesting to listen to Jobs -- seems to me too that he argues against what Apple is doing nowadays.

I actually 10 minutes ago had a look at how much a 32 GB Mac costs nowadays -- and it's like 2x more than a 32 GB PC. That's less than some years ago, then a Mac was more like 3x more expensive, if I remember correctly. Looks like the trend Jobs mentions in the video, about lower and lower ASP. (ASP = average selling price, right.)

Re: The End of OS X

#394

Post by Aperocky » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 9:17 PM UTC

banachtarski wrote: post #243

mstade wrote: post #148

Earlier 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…

Does your benefit comes with battery power and portability? I couldn't care less about speed when I have a 64 vCPU box at 10ms delay.

Re: The End of OS X

#395

Post by ChrisMarshallNY » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 9:17 PM UTC

hn_check wrote: post #168

hn_check wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 ass…

I can't speak for anyone else, but I have been writing Apple software since 1986. I have stuck with them through a lot of abuse.

They just turned 1.5 trillion. I don't think they are losing a whole lot of sleep over it.

Re: The End of OS X

#396

Post by asah » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 9:19 PM UTC

saghm wrote: post #359

y7 wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Applications and hardware drivers on Mac just work. Even Homebrew works pretty nicely. The visuals of Mac are vastly superior to any flavor of Linux I've tried: smooth graphics, font rendering, HiDPI support, etc. Some aspects of Mac hardware (screen, touchpad) are very hard to come by with other manufacturers. At this point I'll probably switch to Linux as soon as my 2015 Macbook stops working, but I would've really…

> Even Homebrew works pretty nicely It always surprises me when people cite homebrew as a plus rather than a minus in these discussions. Compared to the experience I have with Linux package managers, I've found homebrew to be extraordinarily slow even at the best of times. A simple "brew update" will generally take at least 30 seconds; in that time on something like pacman, I'll usually not only have already finished…

Yeah sigh, homebrew had definitely slowed down in recent years.

Re: The End of OS X

#397

Post by fluffything » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 9:19 PM UTC

This blog post is 90 prelude/buildup toward these two claims:

* MacOS X was a very good OS for developers,

* MacOS X 11 is not.

The first claim is discussed in the prelude, but irrelevant for the conclusion. Three arguments are given for the second claim:

* macOS11 runs on ARM

* macOS11 UI supports touch

* macOS11 is not open and good [like macOSX] but easy and good enough

That's it. This leaves me quite disappointed.

macOS 11 running on ARM, RISCV, x86 or powerpc has little to do whether it is good for developers. I have an intel mac and do a substantial amount of ARM development on it: qemu works just fine. I expect qemu to work as good on arm for developing for x86.

macOS11 supporting touch does not say anything either about whether it is good for developers. Windows UI supports touch, and that's quite good, even for developers. I also have a Lenovo Yoga, and I can fold it, and sketch on it, which is great for web meetings. All thanks to having a good touch screen and good OS touch support. So IMO this change could make macOS11 better for devs than macOS10.

I haven't heard any information suggesting that macOS11 is less open and less good than macOS10. macOS10 was never great. It has quite old BSD utilities that are often subtly incompatible with their Linux or modern BSD variants for apparently no reason. macOS11 does not make this better or worse. macOS10 requires pretty much every process to grant permissions for everything nowadays, which makes it a bit of a pain to do something in the terminal without granting all permissions to the terminal, but that's only one click away, already "prepared" by apple, and you only have to do this once, etc. Each release of macOS 10 has made it more painful to use for development in some ways, and also better in other ways (zsh as default shell, C++17, C++ modules, dropping CUDA support, no native Vulkan support...). It was never great, it was always kind of a mixed bag.

Re: The End of OS X

#398

Post by francoisp » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 9:21 PM UTC

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 second this. My MBPs 2015 are the best machine ever. The only things that could make them better is upgradeable RAM (16GB can be tight with VMs) and an nvidia gpu for faster DL prototyping offline. Apple Unix has a long history (AIX) but MacOSX was most def the best OS ever. As Apple is moving away from this unix power users's paradise, MS seems to be moving in, with tighter and tighter integration, now offering easy GPU passthrough to the unix subsystem... Open sourcing the rest of 10.14 would be really awesome by Apple. (one can only dream)

Re: The End of OS X

#399

Post by danaris » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 9:22 PM UTC

webmobdev wrote: post #272

davedx wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use Safari as my main browser now due to the password generation/sharing with my iPhone. It's a killer feature for me.

Use a password manager. It's safer than trusting Apple or Google who are after your personal data.

Apple never gets your saved login credentials. iCloud Keychain is end-to-end encrypted, and Apple hasn't been shy about advertising that fact.

Re: The End of OS X

#400

Post by kelnos » Tue, Jun 23, 2020, 9:22 PM UTC

oneplane wrote: post #178

sudosysgen wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Your scenario definitely exists, but it also doesn't hit the likes of the user you respond to as much as you might expect. SSD's don't fail the way they used to, RAM requirements don't change as much as it used to and while batteries do die, at this time I've seen more people switch machines before any of that happens. The last time I wanted or needed to replace memory or storage in a laptop must have been 7 years ag…

> I've seen more people switch machines before any of that happens.

My opinion is that people switch machines more often precisely because they're not upgradable/repairable. I think if most people could go to their local computer repair shop to get RAM/storage/etc. replaced or upgraded, we'd have a lot less electronics waste, and consumer computers would last a lot longer.

At this point, software CPU and GPU needs aren't increasing all that much year by year, unless you're a gamer or do HPC. For the rest of everyone -- the majority -- a CPU and GPU made 5-10 years ago is still just fine for what they want to do. These old machines just need more RAM and sometimes more storage.

I get that it's hard to fit sockets for replaceable modules when everyone wants a super thin laptop, but overall this is a source of so much economic and physical waste.