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The erosion of the Mac experience

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Re: The erosion of the Mac experience

#91

Post by drawingthesun »

runjake wrote: post #43

The key point in this Twitter rant is that the SWEs who understood the Mac (and NEXTSTEP, for that matter) have aged out. Most everyone has retired or moved onto other opportunities. There's very few of them left at Apple. And they're often overruled by younger managers. Apple is hiring tons of fresh new SWEs who have no understanding, nor desire to understand "The Mac Way". I'm not saying this is right or wrong, the…

Moved on to where?

Windows has adverts in the start menu!

Desktop Linux GUI is still painful and really only suitable for those who love to tinker.

Since I moved to Mac from Windows I’m thankful for macOS even if it could be better, it’s still much more usable than the alternatives.

I find myself spending more time on my professional work and less time fixing driver issues or fighting annoying in OS ads.

Re: The erosion of the Mac experience

#92

Post by labster »

threeseed wrote: post #46
hammyhavoc wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your parents, kids et cetera aren't power users though. Macs used to be for professionals, but Apple started seriously chasing the consumer demographic with the original iMac.

> Macs used to be for professionals Makes you wonder who is then buying these expensive MacBook Pros, Mac Studios and Mac Pros. I guess it's those grandmas needing 28 cores for their recipes.

That matches my experience with recipe websites lately. 4 cores for the ads, 3 for the author’s life story, 6 cores for the autoplay video showing an unrelated dish being cooked, 2 for the partner grocery delivery links, 3 for performance analytics, and of course 1% of a core to display the actual recipe. I have actually seen iPad Safari crash on trying to read a recipe.

Re: The erosion of the Mac experience

#93

Post by 1-6 »

Jensson wrote: post #83
1-6 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Apple has already sailed the seas of no return. Another company that puts users first will eventually arise and take its place. Life is a cycle of highs and lows. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

> Another company that puts users first will eventually arise and take its place. I doubt it, new companies spring up like mushrooms when fields gets disruptively innovated, but big companies tend to stay otherwise. Can see it here, lots of shifts in the biggest companies the first half, while the second half is dominated by Apple, Microsoft, Google, Alibaba, Facebook and Amazon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSulo…

I was taking apart my Dyson today to clean it out. I was thinking that it was elegant and useful. I sort of like the company because it doesn’t attempt to get in the way and just provides a nice experience for a tad higher price.

Then I thought vacuum cleaners have existed for a while now. There’s the Whirlwind, Bissel, Kirby, Electrolux, Hoover, Oreck, Dyson, and most recently iRobot. Each generation had their brand.

We’re living through cycles and computers with operating systems are no different. With all the Chromebooks floating around in schools today, I bet you’ll have a generation of kids who will do everything on a web browser in the cloud and won’t complain about not having an exposed filesystem.

Re: The erosion of the Mac experience

#94

Post by fragmede »

wizofaus wrote: post #74
jbc1 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if/when we get to the point where people with browser based workloads can just sit down at a desk and have the monitors and keyboard automatically connect to their phone, more hardware intensive software will quickly move to the cloud. You’ll be doing game development and CAD stuff with your phone acting as a thin client.

Yeah, I've tried doing cloud- based development. It's a no from me. I'd think that's further off being universally workable than the phone-docking idea. Though if you've already decided to get fully in bed with a particular cloud provider and totally tie yourself to their proprietary protocols etc. I can see the advantage.

Yeah I think that's a matter of software, plus optimization for a particular use case. Looking at Geforce Now/Stadia/Xcloud/Luna, the underlying technology exists, it's just a (not so small) matter of updating RDP's video stack to be seamless.

Re: The erosion of the Mac experience

#95

Post by kitsunesoba »

what-imright wrote: post #60
runjake wrote: post #43

The key point in this Twitter rant is that the SWEs who understood the Mac (and NEXTSTEP, for that matter) have aged out. Most everyone has retired or moved onto other opportunities. There's very few of them left at Apple. And they're often overruled by younger managers. Apple is hiring tons of fresh new SWEs who have no understanding, nor desire to understand "The Mac Way". I'm not saying this is right or wrong, the…

Jobs was against dogma. It’s a changing world and the perspective and input of the young is valuable. What exactly are you moving on to? Ubuntu? Windows? Behind macOS is the most valuable company in the world adding fixes, features and security patches. There isn’t any other computing solution today that can deliver what Apple does.

I can't see Linux (or other GNU-desktop-nixlike) becoming a full-time macOS replacement for me because no DE works the way I'd like it to. You've got KDE (Windowslike), GNOME (what if iPadOS were adapted into a desktop OS), XFCE (middle ground between Windows and Classic Mac OS), and Cinnamon (Classic Windowslike), and Pantheon (what if iPadOS looked like Mac OS X Mavericks). None that are an obvious choice for someone who prefers a Mac-like setup. RavynOS/airyx/etc has been posted here a few times but is a long way away from being usable.

I've considered just building a true maclike DE myself but the process of getting a garden variety traditional floating window manager for Wayland set up makes my head spin, even with things like wl-roots existing. It doesn't feel the least bit accessible to someone used to building consumer-facing native desktop/mobile apps.

Re: The erosion of the Mac experience

#96

Post by lbwtaylor »

drawingthesun wrote: post #91
runjake wrote: post #43

The key point in this Twitter rant is that the SWEs who understood the Mac (and NEXTSTEP, for that matter) have aged out. Most everyone has retired or moved onto other opportunities. There's very few of them left at Apple. And they're often overruled by younger managers. Apple is hiring tons of fresh new SWEs who have no understanding, nor desire to understand "The Mac Way". I'm not saying this is right or wrong, the…

Moved on to where? Windows has adverts in the start menu! Desktop Linux GUI is still painful and really only suitable for those who love to tinker. Since I moved to Mac from Windows I’m thankful for macOS even if it could be better, it’s still much more usable than the alternatives. I find myself spending more time on my professional work and less time fixing driver issues or fighting annoying in OS ads.

Apple constantly spams you with popup ads for their cloud services, far worse IMHO than any start menu nonsense. To each their own.

Re: The erosion of the Mac experience

#97

Post by arvinsim »

drawingthesun wrote: post #91
runjake wrote: post #43

The key point in this Twitter rant is that the SWEs who understood the Mac (and NEXTSTEP, for that matter) have aged out. Most everyone has retired or moved onto other opportunities. There's very few of them left at Apple. And they're often overruled by younger managers. Apple is hiring tons of fresh new SWEs who have no understanding, nor desire to understand "The Mac Way". I'm not saying this is right or wrong, the…

Moved on to where? Windows has adverts in the start menu! Desktop Linux GUI is still painful and really only suitable for those who love to tinker. Since I moved to Mac from Windows I’m thankful for macOS even if it could be better, it’s still much more usable than the alternatives. I find myself spending more time on my professional work and less time fixing driver issues or fighting annoying in OS ads.

Rumor has it that Mac will soon have ads on the AppStore

Re: The erosion of the Mac experience

#98

Post by alwillis »

aluminussoma wrote: post #39
dleslie wrote: post #6

I believe that Apple is strategically choosing to coast on their desktop software while they work to harmonize their mobile, desktop, and entertainment software stacks. Why? Because based on rumors, patents, and the decisions they've made and the actions they've taken (or not taken), it appears as though that Apple believes that in the not so distant future the concept of having a separate mobile device and a computi…

iPhone+ iPad revenues compose ~65% of revenues. Mac revenues are ~10%. They are allocating people to where they expect to make the most money. I don't characterize that as coasting, just business sense. Overall, I still agree that Apple needs to do better with Macs.

Mac revenues are ~10%

This is a little misleading.

The Mac has had several record quarters since Apple Silicon Macs started shipping nearly two years ago. Let me repeat: a nearly 40 year-old computer has never sold better than it does now.

On a revenue basis, the Mac generates more revenue than the iPad; that's been the case for quite a while now.

Apple's latest quarterly report shows for the first 9 months of the fiscal year, Mac revenue is about $6 billion ahead of the iPad [1].

I get it; there are all kinds of different UI/UX paradigms that didn't exist back in the day and some of them are out of place.

But I've been using the Mac long enough to remember how fragile System 7 was and how INITs could crash your machine because everything lived in the same address space. On a 25 Mhz 68030-based Mac with 2 Mb of RAM.

The Mac is in much better shape now than it was a few years ago, when Apple couldn't ship stuff because they were beholden to Intel's processor roadmap, that was often late.

I don't mean to echo something we hear at each Apple presentation but these are the best Macs they've ever made. Old timers will remember the multiple times the Mac (and Apple) were doomed. I don't expect that to be the case; I guess we'll revisit when the Apple Silicon Mac Pro ships later this year or early 2023.

[1]: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/FY22_Q3_Consolidated_Fin...

Re: The erosion of the Mac experience

#99

Post by hef19898 »

hammyhavoc wrote: post #72
mfcl wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the professional C-suite executives who want to look sharp when meeting potential clients or inventors.

Most C-suite execs don't even seem to use a Mac in 2022. All seem to be about the iPad Pro, Surface Pro, or ThinkPad. I also don't think a $2000 laptop is making anybody look "sharp" in 2022 when financing is readily available for anything Apple. What car you drive or what watch you have says more, but there's so many counterfeit watches out there that it's also fairly meaningless. Even cars, easily financed or lease…

A sure way to identify C-suites at my current place is by MacBooks. Their close assistants, sorry, their chief of staffs are the same.

Re: The erosion of the Mac experience

#100

Post by arvinsim »

hammyhavoc wrote: post #57
doctor_eval wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has always chased that demographic. It started life as “the computer for the rest of us”.

There was one point where it seemed like everybody in Hollywood, music, and the visual arts were using Macs. Logic and Final Cut used to be serious programs.

Apple themselves are to blame for that
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