UI Performance Decline – OS X Tiger to Yosemite [video] • Hacker News Board

Re: UI Performance Decline – OS X Tiger to Yosemite [video]

#211

Post by Encosia » Wed, Dec 24, 2014, 8:45 PM UTC

blkhp19 wrote: post #28

fiatpandas wrote: post #20

You would think with all the smart, detail oriented, outgoing people at apple, SOMEONE would have pulled the person responsible for shifting to a yearly cycle and tell them: "look, this accelerated release cycle, it's not resulting in quality software. It's hurting our reputation. It's not performing on 2 year old hardware. People are losing faith in our ability to release stable bug-free builds. Users shouldn't have…

I don't even understand who they're competing with by doing yearly updates. It's probably a big scramble to get features released and for what? To beat Windows 8? To beat linux? They don't have any threats when it comes to desktop operating systems, so they should slow down and make some quality updates.

Wait, what?

In terms of market share, OS X is to Windows as Windows Phone is to iOS. Sometime about a year ago, Windows 8 alone already had higher market share than all versions of OS X combined, and has only been increasing the lead since.

Windows 10 is looking to be the spiritual successor to Windows 7, combining the improvements that came in 8 with a UI that's more palatable for many. And, now there are ample PC hardware options that rival or surpass Apple's in many aspects, which is a lot of what sold MacBooks to average consumers in the past.

I would guess that Apple is taking Windows 10 very seriously.

Re: UI Performance Decline – OS X Tiger to Yosemite [video]

#212

Post by coldtea » Wed, Dec 24, 2014, 9:02 PM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #201

coldtea wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Yosemite, iOS 8 and other recent changes have shown anything, it is that that problems are not consistent across the user base -- some users are plagued by bugs, while others are somehow, inexplicably completely problem-free. Not really inexplicably: different graphics and airport cards (in different Mac models), different wi-fi routers, some have installed BS haxies while others have not, some have updated thei…

It's true that there are plenty of possible explanations, but whether those explanations should still be possible as we head into 2015 is a different question. Wintel boxes through the 1990s and 2000s coped with a much more diverse range of hardware and related drivers than the Mac ecosystem has ever had, and while certainly there was the occasional glitch, the track record was dramatically better for a very long tim…

>Wintel boxes through the 1990s and 2000s coped with a much more diverse range of hardware and related drivers than the Mac ecosystem has ever had, and while certainly there was the occasional glitch, the track record was dramatically better for a very long time than what we see today.

Perhaps rose colored glasses? I've used those Wintel systems and dealing with new and unexpected issues, with drivers, software, peripherals etc, was a day to day occurence.

It still is now, judging from Wintel friends I have, including my parents and siblings. It's just that in Wintel world there so many vendors and combinations of components, that no PC system has a multi-million units production run that a Mac has. Even for a company that pushes lots of units, like Dell, they offer 40+ different configurations at any point in time...

Re: UI Performance Decline – OS X Tiger to Yosemite [video]

#213

Post by Silhouette » Wed, Dec 24, 2014, 9:10 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #212

Silhouette wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true that there are plenty of possible explanations, but whether those explanations should still be possible as we head into 2015 is a different question. Wintel boxes through the 1990s and 2000s coped with a much more diverse range of hardware and related drivers than the Mac ecosystem has ever had, and while certainly there was the occasional glitch, the track record was dramatically better for a very long tim…

> Wintel boxes through the 1990s and 2000s coped with a much more diverse range of hardware and related drivers than the Mac ecosystem has ever had, and while certainly there was the occasional glitch, the track record was dramatically better for a very long time than what we see today. Perhaps rose colored glasses? I've used those Wintel systems and dealing with new and unexpected issues, with drivers, software, per…

I honestly don't think it was ever as bad in those days as what we're seeing now, though, with the possible exception of high-end games where poor quality graphics drivers were notorious for causing crashes for a while (and still are, to some extent).

The only other big drop in compatibility that I can remember from recent years was when MS effectively moved to a different model for handling device drivers with Windows 7, which broke backward compatibility with some older devices whose vendors didn't always issue new Windows 7 drivers to replace the broken ones.

Still, considering that this was the first such change for many years and it's hardly reasonable to expect an OS developer to support the drivers for every hardware peripheral ever used on that OS, I don't think that's a bad track record.

Re: UI Performance Decline – OS X Tiger to Yosemite [video]

#214

Post by r00fus » Wed, Dec 24, 2014, 10:14 PM UTC

basch wrote: post #191

ntSean wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can, its actually easier than in Windows since theres no licensing issues to handle.

Windows doesnt really have licensing issues. You call a phone number, tell them you want to activate windows, read them a number, and a machine reads you a number. It takes about 6 minutes of your life, and Microsoft always activates when you ask. For example, if you buy Windows 8.1 you have downgrade rights to every earlier version. All you do is speak with a person, say "I would like to activate windows" and they s…

It's a hassle if you have to call the vendor at all. Not all Windows versions have downgrade rights (see Vista, certain editions of 7).

Also pricing is an issue: all recent desktop versions of MacOSX are either free or very inexpensive ($30 or less).

You could likewise say that filing an insurance claim is easy... sure, but for some folks even knowing to make the call is an undue burden - exactly how the vendor wants it.

Re: UI Performance Decline – OS X Tiger to Yosemite [video]

#215

Post by kenferry » Wed, Dec 24, 2014, 10:14 PM UTC

blkhp19 wrote: post #207

JohnBooty wrote: post #102

I hadn't noticed any perceptible performance differences in Yosemite on my 2011 MBP. After reading this article, I opened up System Preferences on an external WQHD monitor and... yes, indeed. That transition is not very smooth. Informally, it doesn't seem slower ...it's just not as smooth as the old effect. As another poster noted, in Yosemite those panels now use a cross-dissolve effect instead the simpler slide and…

I totally agree the example I posted is ridiculous. Let me explain why I did it. I was a hackintosh user for years. I got an old lenovo from 2007 with an intel core 2 duo and thought it would be fun to install OS X Tiger on it. Install went smoothly except the intel integrated graphics wasn't supported. I decided to check out System Preferences to see how much had changed in all these years. I immediately noticed thi…

Hm, I don't think this is a good example if the point is to talk about general graphics slowness, because the slowness here is not due to generic graphics issues.

This is slow because each pane is running in its own process and it's doing some complicated cross-process graphics stuff to get all the drawing into the same window. This changed in… maybe Lion?

Re: UI Performance Decline – OS X Tiger to Yosemite [video]

#216

Post by general_failure » Wed, Dec 24, 2014, 10:39 PM UTC

For me the installation bombed. Just locked up forever in 1 min remaining.

Re: UI Performance Decline – OS X Tiger to Yosemite [video]

#217

Post by hubot » Wed, Dec 24, 2014, 11:17 PM UTC

vivab0rg wrote: post #152

joelthelion wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why for me Linux is the only sensible choice of platforms. All the other platforms means giving complete control over my tools to a single company.

So much this. I've settled on elementaryOS 0.2 (based off Ubuntu 12.04 LTS) for all my development, staging, and production environments, being netbook, notebook, All-in-One desktop, Mac mini and all my VPS servers. Software package consistency is a invaluable, and you don't even have to give up on the looks: https://github.com/vivaserver/MoonLion

to me, Ubuntu 14.10 is still very rough. there are so many inconsistency everywhere: shortcuts, software's ui, etc...

take a simple example: usually Ctrl Q (cmd q on os x) means quit. try doing on os x will quit the app 9 out of 10 times. on ubuntu? not really.

Re: UI Performance Decline – OS X Tiger to Yosemite [video]

#218

Post by DanBC » Wed, Dec 24, 2014, 11:33 PM UTC

sandGorgon wrote: post #50

city41 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm at my wits end with Yosemite. I'm very seriously considering switching to Linux or Windows. Of the numerous problems this OS has, my biggest problem is waking my rMBP from sleep. About 20% of the time, it just doesn't wake up and requires a hard shutdown. I never had that problem with Mountain Lion or Mavericks.

Please do try Gnome 3.14 - Right now, it is only part of Fedora 21. But I think you will love it. Do give it a shot.

Gnome software has switched to an infuriating naming scheme.

The file manager (gnautilus) is now called "files". The video player (totem) is now called "videos". This is so obviously broken for people who are trying to web-search for answers to problems that they're having.

Whats worse os that the renaming is inconsistent - software will get one name in the menu, another name in the help > about, and another name on the Internet.

Gnome - and I say this as politely as I can - makes me fucking hate using a computer.

Re: UI Performance Decline – OS X Tiger to Yosemite [video]

#219

Post by jbinto » Wed, Dec 24, 2014, 11:34 PM UTC

general_failure wrote: post #216

For me the installation bombed. Just locked up forever in 1 min remaining.

It would have finished eventually. This only happens if you have a lot of stuff in /usr/local (e.g. Homebrew).

https://jimlindley.com/blog/yosemite-upgrade-homebrew-tips/

Re: UI Performance Decline – OS X Tiger to Yosemite [video]

#220

Post by collyw » Wed, Dec 24, 2014, 11:35 PM UTC

MarcScott wrote: post #110

city41 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm at my wits end with Yosemite. I'm very seriously considering switching to Linux or Windows. Of the numerous problems this OS has, my biggest problem is waking my rMBP from sleep. About 20% of the time, it just doesn't wake up and requires a hard shutdown. I never had that problem with Mountain Lion or Mavericks.

Yosemite was just the push I needed to switch to Linux. I shoved Ubuntu server on my MBP with the i3 windows manager and have never been happier.

Yosemite must be bad if you found Ubuntu good. I constantly get "a problem has been detected" messages whenever I boot. Got Manjaro (a user friendly Arch spin off) on my other laptop. Way less problematic and XFCE behaves predictably.