The only real deal breaker for me is the package management system on Mac.
Impressions from a first-time Mac user
401–410 of 756 posts
Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user
#402Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's really abysmal. I had a similar situation: every time I'd pull a monorepo, my machine would be flooded with "mdworker" processes. The CPU would spin up and the machine would operate at 85c for a few hours before finally cooling down. The culprit was Spotlight, and the solution was to disable search indexing.
Spotlight is a really good search tool, and it's worth occasionally letting it build its index. You mostly only notice this when you've changes a whole bunch of files or setup the computer for the first time. It really is short-term pain for long-term gain, because Spotlight is phenomenal at finding anything on the Mac in a really short amount of time. That being said, if you're in the dev-space, I'd recommend using…
> Spotlight is a really good search tool
I loved Spotlight until I had to check out several project to my computer. Now with thousands of non-own files it’s really hard to find what I want. Even if I look for my own projects, Spotlight shows the same project as it appears in several node_modules as a dependency. Find out the right one means I have to hold alt on each item. Ludicrous.
Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user
#403Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ok, so you can actually do this but the keyboard sequence is a bit bonkers. * Hold down Command and press Tab until the application icon representing the minimised window is highlighted. * Release Tab but DONT let go of Command. * Now press Option too so you are holding down Command + Option * Now release Command so you are just holding down Option * Finally release Option Amazingly this will then maximise the window…
You can also tab to the application, hit the up arrow and use the arrow keys to select the minimized window then hit enter. In fact, my command-tab workflow is: command-tab to open the Switcher and then arrows to switch application/window
Thank you. That was super helpful!
Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user
#404There's a lot of people in comments defending macOS saying that the difference in switching between operating systems will lead to a bad experience no matter what and people just need to power through and learn the new system. I'll say that I've used Windows and macOS both personally and professionally for two decades now (longer for Windows). I'd consider myself a power user in both OSes, I know the keyboard shortcu…
It's interesting - I use all three major OS's (MacOS, Windows, various Linux distros) and I seem to have no problem switching between them at all. I don't even get bothered with the nonsensical UI problems such as some of finders limitations (with cutting and pasting folders I just never do that on MacOS, it makes you use a different flow or else you're fighting it). The only thing I dislike in a UI sense is alt-tab…
Cmd-Tab is annoying. There's multiple layers to why it's so annoying:
1. Cmd-Tab doesn't switch between windows, it switches between apps. This seems like not that big of a deal (you lose being able to quickly switch between windows of the same tab, you have to Cmd-` for that) until:
2. Apps can have multiple windows on multiple spaces, and Cmd-Tab preferences windows on your current space. Let's say you have apps A1 and A2, with windows A1W1 and A2W1 on space S1, and window A1W2 on space S2. Let's assume you're on window A2W1 and your goal is to get to A1W2. You have to switch to the app, then press Cmd-` to switch to A1W2!
3. Of course, this also means that the space you switched from has changed to have A1W1 on top! So if your spaces are actually monitors, this means you aren't looking at A2W1 and A1W2 together. So you finally give up and use mission control to arrange your windows, but now you're using the mouse.
The best solution I've found for this is using Hammerspoon's window switcher shortcuts, which work like Windows Alt-Tab. There's an open source app with just that functionality if you don't want to use Hammerspoon, but Hammerspoon's great so there's no reason not to go all the way.
Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user
#405This review is misses for me due to these two quotes: > I’m using this Macbook almost exclusively with the lid closed, with a USB-C adapter to connect my keyboard/mouse/monitor. > However, that keyboard doesn’t have the Option (⌥) or Command (⌘) keys like on my Macbook. The reviewer isn’t using the built in webcam, Touch ID, trackpad, or the Mac keyboard layout! Why even have a Mac with that setup? Opening the lid so…
For what it’s worth, I’ve alternated between mechanical keyboards with and without “true” Mac layouts, and it’s sort of a wash.
By “true” I mean: meta keys are in the right place by default, send the right signals by default (or provide a built in affordance for same), and the numeric keypad either has the same shape or doesn’t exist.
Pros of “true” Mac layouts:
- They really are what you expect if you’re a Mac user.
No really that’s it.
Cons:
- The only vendor actively making them is (last I checked) Matias.
- 100% of the Matias products I’ve bought have failed on me in the same way: switches get a spec of dust in them, then intermittently flip between no response and being stuck. This doesn’t matter if you’re using their custom switches or third party ones.
- They’re positioned and priced as vanity products. Which would be fine if they actually worked for a reasonable period of time. I’m a Mac user after all.
Pros of everything else that actually tries to support Mac users:
- They mostly work according to your expectations if you know which expectations to have.
- If you buy a quality keyboard and mind the reviews, you can reasonably expect it to last.
- These products increasingly offer more than a keycap swap and a shrug. It’s not uncommon to find a built in switch to use macOS defaults for meta key positions. They size (more on this) meta keys to be relatively comfortable for Mac and non-Mac layouts. This is huge if you’ve developed muscle memory for the cmd key.
- They don’t ship unmappable key signals like the context menu key by default.
- Even if you need to swap meta keys, that’s trivial in macOS.
Cons:
- If you care about a number keypad, it’s probably going to be wRoNg. It sucks. I hate it every day.
- No kidding the size of meta keys might throw you off. Otherwise nbd.
- If you do get one with a context menu key get ready to throw your entire computer in the nearest body of water.
Honorable mention: you can still get Apple Extended keyboards and ADB adapters. They’re a great middle ground! They’re much less likely to fail and much more likely to have a Mac keyboard layout you’ll benefit from. Support your local electronics recycling reseller!
Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user
#406Did not know about alttab.app for macOS. That really was the last gripe I had about macOS. alttab + rectangle gets you back to Windows/Linux style window management anyway.
Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user
#407As a lifetime windows user that just recently joined a macBook company, i have to say i am indifferent overall, but there have been many alternating moments of delightful surprises and annoyances of unmet expectations in my journey to learn the MacOS UX.
I'm a month in now and i have to say that attitude is everything when it comes to learning something new, and, especially when you know something "kind of like this", you have to be very careful not to let your unmet expectations of something similar sour the experience.
When i started with Windows as a kid i didn't have a "choice" in the matter, it's just what we had, and i had to learn all those tricks and tips along the way to improve my user experience. If i used that to temper the curve of getting a good user experience from my Mac i'd have to say that Mac got it closer to the target by a magnitude.
So, when you don't get the experience you need, instead of defaulting to "this is dumb", ask yourself why they did it this way, and why you expect it that way, and then if you still want it that way after considering a new perspective, chances are there's an app for that.
Stay curious, my friends.
Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user
#408There's a lot of people in comments defending macOS saying that the difference in switching between operating systems will lead to a bad experience no matter what and people just need to power through and learn the new system. I'll say that I've used Windows and macOS both personally and professionally for two decades now (longer for Windows). I'd consider myself a power user in both OSes, I know the keyboard shortcu…
This is my exact experience as well. I'd love to switch to Mac full time, since the integration with iCloud is extremely well done and the hardware is magnificent, but I feel so much more productive in Windows, although Microsoft is fighting hard to make its UX as bad as Mac's.
I should note that I pay for several MacOS apps to make the desktop experience better, but I don't pay for any third party app for Windows.
Never combine, show labels feels significantly better than anything the Dock can offer, including uBar. Multi monitor switching is better in Windows, even with third-party apps. Alt-Tab is better in Windows, as I can preview everything before switching, including individual instances of each app. Windows Explorer, although lacking tabs, is infinitely better than even Forklift, which I pay $30 for. Windows allows far more customizeability for most settings especially with Power Toys. Keyboard navigation is significantly better. Especially because DE hotkeys are clearly separated from application hotkeys -- if it's the DE, use the Windows key. If it's an app, ctrl. Mac mixes ctrl and command and makes setting global shortcuts difficult as they likely overlap with some random app. The Task Manager is light years ahead of Activity Monitor.
On the flip side, Autohotkeys and Karabiner are roughly equivalent in power, but Karabiner has the better UX. iTerm2 is not as good as Windows Terminal. Brew is better than Windows alternatives, and most importantly, Mac OS doesn't reboot whenever it feels like it to install updates.
With Apple diverging in CPU architecture, Windows supporting WSL2, and VSCode/IntelliJ supporting remote development I feel my Windows machine is closer to the hardware my applications end up running on.
I tried plenty of times to switch to Mac full time, but have always come back to Windows for these issues.
Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user
#409This is a story as old as time. When you’re used to something else the change hurts. I have found it far better to not bring your mental baggage with you and meet the new platform as its level rather than try and make it the same as the old one. I have gone MOS > RiscOS > WinNT -> Solaris -> Linux -> Win7 -> macOS and it hurt every time.
Indeed, and the change that hurts me when I try to use a Mac is the fact that there are things that I can't change. I prefer focus-follows-mouse and no-raise on-focus, and those are apparently structurally impossible in macOS. "I can't change it to work the way I like it" is a totally legitimate complaint and Linux has a strong advantage in this regard.
FFM is completely possible on macOS (unless you mean something completely different). I use yabai for it: https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai
Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user
#410Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see why you can't like a mouse if you like MACs. Also if you like a mouse that you have to turn upside down and can't use while charging you are just a glutton for punishment. USB-C mice are not really a thing, so you have to use a Bluetooth mouse instead of using a mouse you may have had for the last 10 years and replaced the omron switches in several times. All this for what arrogance?
Mac is not an acronym, it's short for Macintosh. MAC stands for Mandatory Access Control or Media Access Control (as in ethernet hwaddr).
I wish I had a MACRO to ignore this completely unhelpful correction