The erosion of the Mac experience • Hacker News Board

Re: The erosion of the Mac experience

#131

Post by geysersam » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 6:42 AM UTC

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.

Used Ubuntu for almost a decade now. Wouldn't call myself a tinkerer with respect to the OS, the defaults are totally fine. Drivers are rarely an issue ime. Maybe things have become better since last you tried?

Re: The erosion of the Mac experience

#132

Post by pjmlp » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 6:43 AM UTC

jen20 wrote: post #69

hammyhavoc wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's OSX got to do with anything? OSX started out great (UNIX!), but they just kept bolting on more and more consumer-oriented rubbish to it.

The start of macs being viable for IT professionals was OSX, which was well after the iMac.

IT professionals were using Mac before that, or do you think DTP, 2D, Excel, Illustration,... sprungs out of thin air?

Re: The erosion of the Mac experience

#133

Post by lastangryman » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 6:43 AM UTC

I feel like I may be the only developer that prefers Windows to MacOs. I really, really just do not get the "Mac Experience". It feels so clunky and counter intuitive.

- Why does the alt tab equivalent cycle through applications first, and I need another shortcut to cycle through the windows of that application? When I have an IDE with 5x instances, hosting different projects, it's a pain switching back to the project I want from another application

- I attach a non Mac external monitor to a new MacBook Pro from work and the text is super blurry. Much googling later and I need to use something called Better Display to create a virtual display, and project that to my monitor. It's so confusing and sometimes break when I wake up from sleep and need to configure it again.

- Why is there 2 modes of "full-size" windows? Regular style "fill the window", then another wierd one that sort of takes over the whole screen

- Why does finder sometimes open in a sub folder as the "top level", then it's a total pain to move up to where you want.

- Why are 3rd party applications distributed as Disk Images? Then some as package installers? It's weird and nonsensical.

Mac hardware feels great, but I just cannot understand why it's the preferred developer platform.

Re: The erosion of the Mac experience

#134

Post by biztos » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 6:44 AM UTC

anonymouse008 wrote: post #2

This guy has no idea what he’s talking about. One language, one gui framework, and one API paradigm - unified across all contextual devices - is exactly what Apple should do. SwiftUI is not it by any means, but to say that the idea of SwiftUI tries to achieve is a bad aim is completely wrong. The aim of UIKit on all Apple devices is 100% correct; and allows developers to go deep into the API forest to create mystical…

> one gui framework

Every time I try to copy a fragment of text on my iPhone, I am reminded that "one GUI framework" is very far from a solved problem.

Re: The erosion of the Mac experience

#135

Post by pjmlp » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 6:46 AM UTC

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.

It used to be the only way to do UNIX development, many moons ago, via thin terminals.

Re: The erosion of the Mac experience

#136

Post by Lio » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 6:46 AM UTC

chongli wrote: post #110

lbwtaylor wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I’m paying like $4/mo for iCloud storage. All my files are backed up there. I don’t get any ads. Is there an option like that on Windows?

The point is not that paying $4 a month rent isn’t useful to some people. It’s that another group of people want to own a computer that doesn’t beg for rent at all.

The old macOS provided that the new Mac, not so much.

Re: The erosion of the Mac experience

#137

Post by pjmlp » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 6:47 AM UTC

stephen_g wrote: post #10

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…

That seems exactly the opposite direction they’ve always gone though. Microsoft tried to have a completely unified PC/tablet experience, where their desktop OS basically became completely tabled focused in Windows 8. Whereas Apple has always made a strong distinction between e.g. the iPad and the Mac, refusing to build a convertible Mac or any Mac with a touch screen…

Only partially, it gave birth to the Surface and all those hybrid laptops that are quite common and a nuisance to Android tablets.

Re: The erosion of the Mac experience

#138

Post by pram » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 6:49 AM UTC

rc_kas wrote: post #14

Windows sucks MacOS is headed towards suck If you want a glimpse of the future of desktops : r/unixporn

The future, hilarious. The stuff on unixporn is exactly what I was into when I was 15 years old. I had the sickest fluxbox setup, transparent terminal, all kinds of neat widgets, completely customized Irssi themes. It owned.

That was also 20 years ago.

Re: The erosion of the Mac experience

#139

Post by imron » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 6:50 AM UTC

LtWorf wrote: post #109

drawingthesun wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Desktop Linux GUI is still painful and really only suitable for those who love to tinker. Nah it works completely fine. There is no photoshop, yes, but stuff does work.

Except for power management, screen sharing under Wayland and certain Bluetooth headsets

Re: The erosion of the Mac experience

#140

Post by what-imright » Sat, Aug 20, 2022, 6:51 AM UTC

Bud wrote: post #118

what-imright wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did you just didn’t like the answer.

No, you failed to answer, then doubled down and hoped nobody would notice. We noticed.

my answer was everything - you miss the entire computing experience if you use windows or linux on desktop today or android on mobile. In 2022, if you aren’t using Apple you’re in the red. You might as well not have bothered. Windows is worse than nothing. Android is worse than nothing. Linux is awesome for servers, but the desktop experience isn’t quite there.

I’ve used all the platforms. Windows and android are incompetent, poorly designed, serve the user LAST, poorly updated, insecure, spying on you, and annoying AF to use. Worse than nothing. Worse than no computer or phone at all.