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“I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft” (2004)

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Re: “I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft” (2004)

#131

Post by gundmc »

filoleg wrote: post #96
ydnaclementine wrote: post #61

Naive question, today can you work at microsoft as use a mac for development on the job? (non windows specific development of course) I think about how if you work at apple, you're probably strongly pushed to not use an android phone (I'm sure some exist). Compared to google, you could probably use either android or ios (even with google "owning" android), or mac, windows, or their own flavor of ubuntu for developmen…

Yep. Currently working there as a dev on a team completely unrelated to Apple (i.e., i am not working on iOS apps or anything else that even remotely requires a macbook), using a company-issued macbook pro. And of course, you are always welcome to bring your own machine of any kind, as long as it allows you to do things you are doing for work (e.g., if you are working on something super-windows-specific that just str…

Microsoft allows you to do corporate work and development on personal devices? That is incredibly surprising to me.

Re: “I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft” (2004)

#132

Post by johnebgd »

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #108
Imnimo wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes my work-issued Macbook decides that it no longer wants to display an escape key on the touch bar (and there is no physical escape key). People joke about not knowing how to exit vi, but it turns out the game is even harder when your machine takes away your escape key!

Oh god yes. There's nothing more embarrassing than being unable to exit fullscreen powerpoint because the touch bar just won't show the ESC option because you once changed a setting about the touchbar. ESC should never permanently disappear!

This is part of why I like the MacBook Air M1 computer so much. Great keyboard with an esc key.

Re: “I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft” (2004)

#133

Post by btgeekboy »

johnebgd wrote: post #132
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh god yes. There's nothing more embarrassing than being unable to exit fullscreen powerpoint because the touch bar just won't show the ESC option because you once changed a setting about the touchbar. ESC should never permanently disappear!

This is part of why I like the MacBook Air M1 computer so much. Great keyboard with an esc key.

The last of the Intel macs have real Esc keys too (eg the 16” Pro)

Re: “I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft” (2004)

#134

Post by andrew_ »

basisword wrote: post #4

I think the context of this occurring during Longhorn (LH) development is important. For anyone that doesn't know Longhorn[1] was the precursor to Vista. They tried to do a lot of big things but it dragged on for years before they had to recalibrate, abandon a lot of ideas, and ship Vista. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_Windows_Vista

Nostalgia. I remember in the skinning communities there was A LOT of buzz about Longhorn and the promise it had. I got my hands on a copy of it and the changes to the UX over XP were awesome (I wish I could find screenshots, very sorry that I cannot post some links to support this). Then when Vista was released, it looked nothing like those early builds we saw. Coupled with the performance and stability issues, it really let the air out of the balloon.

Re: “I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft” (2004)

#135

Post by andrew_ »

wk_end wrote: post #82
basisword wrote: post #4

I think the context of this occurring during Longhorn (LH) development is important. For anyone that doesn't know Longhorn[1] was the precursor to Vista. They tried to do a lot of big things but it dragged on for years before they had to recalibrate, abandon a lot of ideas, and ship Vista. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_Windows_Vista

Interesting how basically the same thing happened to Apple in the 90s: the original, more radical successor to System 7 was in development for years under the name Copland, before they ended up scrapping most of it and releasing the much more conservative MacOS 8. Although I guess the only real takeaway might be that OS development is hard.

I had a WindowBlinds theme that mimicked the Copland look back in the day.

Re: “I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft” (2004)

#136

Post by NoblePublius »

drcongo wrote: post #42

Back around Vista time I went to watch a talk by one of MS's UI designers about all the time and effort they'd put into designing the Vista interface. He gave a demo showing a walk-through of some set-up "wizard" and talked about all the details he thought were important. At no point did he mention the fact that depending on which screen you were on the "next" and "previous" buttons would swap places with the "cancel…

Steve Jobs would have never let the TouchBar come to market, if not outright fire the inventor of it. I’m on my second MacBook Air because of how bad is touchbar.

Re: “I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft” (2004)

#137

Post by coolaliasbro »

johnebgd wrote: post #132
AnotherGoodName wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh god yes. There's nothing more embarrassing than being unable to exit fullscreen powerpoint because the touch bar just won't show the ESC option because you once changed a setting about the touchbar. ESC should never permanently disappear!

This is part of why I like the MacBook Air M1 computer so much. Great keyboard with an esc key.

Agreed. When my wife was looking to replace her 2013ish Air and comparing M1 Air vs Pro, I told her I'd pay $300 not to have the touch bar.

Re: “I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft” (2004)

#138

Post by vkou »

NoblePublius wrote: post #136
drcongo wrote: post #42

Back around Vista time I went to watch a talk by one of MS's UI designers about all the time and effort they'd put into designing the Vista interface. He gave a demo showing a walk-through of some set-up "wizard" and talked about all the details he thought were important. At no point did he mention the fact that depending on which screen you were on the "next" and "previous" buttons would swap places with the "cancel…

Steve Jobs would have never let the TouchBar come to market, if not outright fire the inventor of it. I’m on my second MacBook Air because of how bad is touchbar.

Steve Jobs championed the abomination that was the hockey puck mouse, and did not think that mice, in general, needed more than one button.

Re: “I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft” (2004)

#139

Post by phist_mcgee »

dexterhaslem wrote: post #121
plainnoodles wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IME device/os choice is usually more around IT security than weird cultish things. I.e. my current job, we only use iOS/mac because then IT only has to worry about keeping a fleet of iOS/macs patched and secured. Instead of Windows and a million different linux distros. I also personally think they picked osx because devs using windows probably won't care (since windows is already not great for dev), mac people are h…

windows is already not great for dev? I'll bite, what were you doing, ios apps? lol

Getting a functional semi-ok, posix sorta vaguely compliant terminal is not a fun or easy task in windows. The web runs linux, and unfortunately, windows doesn't really want to do linux (WSL is a tiny concession)
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