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Is macOS Becoming Unmaintainable?

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Re: Is macOS Becoming Unmaintainable?

#71

Post by metabagel »

“ The most intransigent problem with failed EFI firmware updates has been with the iMac Retina 5K 27-inch Late 2015, or iMac17,1. Some have sailed through updates bringing them to version 428.0.0.0.0, others remain firmly stuck at 170.0.0.0.0, which was current for macOS Mojave 10.14.6 in July 2019.”

The first time I tried to update my late 2015 27” iMac, it bricked the system, and I had to reinstall from Time Machine backup. I gave up on updating for quite some time, every day having to dismiss the reminder to update. Recently, I was able to update to Catalina. It was painful and took multiple tries, but eventually it got there.

Re: Is macOS Becoming Unmaintainable?

#72

Post by gtf21 »

ikt wrote: post #39
brundolf wrote: post #6

> We are heading rapidly towards the corollary to “it just works” being “and if it doesn’t, just wipe everything and re-install”. Is this really all that bad? In the era of everything living in the cloud, it generally takes me only a couple hours to setup a system again from scratch. Not that I've ever had to do this on macOS personally (though I did once on iOS), but if I had, I wouldn't be terribly upset about it.…

> or boot up Linux and have to fight to get a core function like system updates or audio working How are these issues? Ubuntu has had these sorts of problems sorted for a while now?

I was very pleasantly surprised when I switched from macOS -> PopOS -> Arch how easy everything was. Have zero problems with drivers, updates, etc.. I'd even say I have fewer mysterious issues than I had on macOS because at least I can see how everything works.

Re: Is macOS Becoming Unmaintainable?

#73

Post by randomsearch »

AnonHP wrote: post #14

It used to be a long running joke as well as practical wisdom on the Windows side to always wait for SP1 (Service Pack 1) for better stability and never to install the X.0 version. For all the “doubling down on Mac” that Apple’s senior employees harp about in interviews, macOS itself has been focusing more on eye candy and iOS parity than on stability. For my machines, I switch to Linux once macOS updates are no long…

Just in case you ever consider it for some reason, under no circumstances should you upgrade to Catalina. Worst OS I’ve used since I left windows nearly 20 years ago.

Re: Is macOS Becoming Unmaintainable?

#74

Post by randomsearch »

apatheticonion wrote: post #38

It's been fun, MacOS, but it looks like our time is drawing to a close. With competitive, affordable AMD hardware and better GPU support, both WSL and Linux (KDE Plasma) offer compelling competition. The only rebuttal from Apple being extra padding on the UI, so it seems like I am no longer your target audience. Fair well, it was a beautiful, cohesive experience while it lasted.

Was thinking about jumping ship but:

- MacBook Air is still lovely (once ahem I had keyboard fixed)

- Basic productivity tools on Linux - eg email or word processing - still suck and I want native apps for such things.

Any solution?

Re: Is macOS Becoming Unmaintainable?

#75

Post by IndySun »

sneak wrote: post #31
brundolf wrote: post #6

> We are heading rapidly towards the corollary to “it just works” being “and if it doesn’t, just wipe everything and re-install”. Is this really all that bad? In the era of everything living in the cloud, it generally takes me only a couple hours to setup a system again from scratch. Not that I've ever had to do this on macOS personally (though I did once on iOS), but if I had, I wouldn't be terribly upset about it.…

Not everyone wishes to submit all of their data to the warrantless government surveillance that cloud storage necessarily entails in the Five Eyes countries. Much of the data in iCloud is not end-to-end encrypted, giving Apple (and the FBI and US military intelligence by extension) full access to a lot of your data, such as photos or notes. I don’t use iCloud at all for this reason. Additionally, media production, es…

"... of the data in iCloud is not end-to-end encrypted, giving Apple (and the FBI and US military intelligence by extension) full access to a lot of your data, such as photos or notes. I don’t use iCloud at all for this reason..."

Is all of this true? Apple claim it is not accessible.

Re: Is macOS Becoming Unmaintainable?

#76

Post by PostThisTooFast »

marmaduke wrote: post #48
bgorman wrote: post #41

I recently switched to macOS after using Linux pretty much exclusively for personal use over the last 5 years. (2020 MacBook Air) For me the most infuriating thing is that Apple completely hides what is actually going on from the user. Want to manually scale your display to an exact resolution? Go to Displays, Hold down the option key and then click on the text next to a radio button. WTF!!! Who designed this, this i…

> this is completely non nondiscoverable I also don’t find this discoverable, but option clicking was best analogy to right clicking on Apple since the mouse used to have one button. Your complaint is like saying that having to copy and paste with ctrl c and ctrl v is non discoverable in Windows with a two button mouse because in Linux it’s just select text and middle click somewhere else.

"Your complaint is like saying that having to copy and paste with ctrl c and ctrl v is non discoverable in Windows with a two button mouse because in Linux it’s just select text and middle click somewhere else."

No it isn't, because those functions have equivalent menu items.

Easter-egg controls in a GUI are a different (and inexcusable) story.

Re: Is macOS Becoming Unmaintainable?

#77

Post by simonklitj »

randomsearch wrote: post #73
AnonHP wrote: post #14

It used to be a long running joke as well as practical wisdom on the Windows side to always wait for SP1 (Service Pack 1) for better stability and never to install the X.0 version. For all the “doubling down on Mac” that Apple’s senior employees harp about in interviews, macOS itself has been focusing more on eye candy and iOS parity than on stability. For my machines, I switch to Linux once macOS updates are no long…

Just in case you ever consider it for some reason, under no circumstances should you upgrade to Catalina. Worst OS I’ve used since I left windows nearly 20 years ago.

Could you elaborate on the issues you’ve been having? Been using Catalina since the beta and haven’t really had any major problems..

Re: Is macOS Becoming Unmaintainable?

#78

Post by sneak »

IndySun wrote: post #75
sneak wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone wishes to submit all of their data to the warrantless government surveillance that cloud storage necessarily entails in the Five Eyes countries. Much of the data in iCloud is not end-to-end encrypted, giving Apple (and the FBI and US military intelligence by extension) full access to a lot of your data, such as photos or notes. I don’t use iCloud at all for this reason. Additionally, media production, es…

"... of the data in iCloud is not end-to-end encrypted, giving Apple (and the FBI and US military intelligence by extension) full access to a lot of your data, such as photos or notes. I don’t use iCloud at all for this reason..." Is all of this true? Apple claim it is not accessible.

No, they do not. They claim it is encrypted, but nowhere do they claim those types of files are end-to-end encrypted.

Some iCloud data is e2e (keychain, health) but not most of it. Critically, device backups, containing all of your chat history for all time, are not e2e. Cryptographically, you would not be incorrect in describing this as a backdoor in iMessage’s end to end encryption.

It’s encrypted in transit with Apple keys and it’s encrypted at rest with Apple keys. Apple can always decrypt it without you, and you would have no way of knowing if they had done so.

They are vulnerable to subpoena or search warrant, but due to Apple’s participation in PRISM, they often turn over the data to military intelligence without a warrant at all.

https://sneak.berlin/20200604/if-zoom-is-wrong-so-is-apple/

Apparently they were going to fix it, but decided to leave it the way it is because the FBI was complaining.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-fbi-icloud-exclusiv...

Re: Is macOS Becoming Unmaintainable?

#79

Post by chewz »

perryizgr8 wrote: post #18
AnonHP wrote: post #14

It used to be a long running joke as well as practical wisdom on the Windows side to always wait for SP1 (Service Pack 1) for better stability and never to install the X.0 version. For all the “doubling down on Mac” that Apple’s senior employees harp about in interviews, macOS itself has been focusing more on eye candy and iOS parity than on stability. For my machines, I switch to Linux once macOS updates are no long…

> For my machines, I switch to Linux once macOS updates are no longer available What's the best way to use Linux on an old MacBook air? Should I be running it in a VM? Is there a way to dula boot? The laptop is quite old, it has 4GB of RAM. So I'm worried nothing will run well on it. Macos definitely feels sluggish on it now.

For good, stable GUI install ChromeOS and then for CLI crostini or crosh/crouton do decent job as they are really just debian.. Neverware builds should work out of the box for MacAir.

I am using this for more then 3 years on Macs now and never considered going back to MacOS disaster.

Re: Is macOS Becoming Unmaintainable?

#80

Post by IshKebab »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #57
iansinnott wrote: post #33

> Apple has long taken pride that “it just works”, but seems to have convinced itself that is inviolate fact This. Apple's inability to admit fault coupled with decreasing software stability makes life difficult in many ways. For instance, aside from the obvious detrimental effects of OS bugs, it's often quite difficult to find specific solutions without a specific error message. "$APP silently fails" or "Why is my f…

I'm not sure software stability is decreasing, these sort of problems have existed for as long as I can remember.

It definitely is. I just got a new 16" MacBook Pro and have had several ridiculous bugs. I frequently have to delete the keyboard layout preferences file in order to set it to ISO.

The most annoying one is that the whole thing crashes if you unplug it from a dock while it is asleep. You can get around it by setting it to never sleep while plugged in, but guess what? That setting magically resets itself if it crashes.

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