Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

#481

Post by stouset » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 9:53 PM UTC

zerocrates wrote: post #400

stouset wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but switching the scroll direction was completely justified. It takes literally five minutes to adjust to, and unifies the scrolling direction between touchscreen and non-touchscreen devices. It's not like, in lieu of this reason, there's some massively compelling argument to prefer one way or the other. If not for touch screens, the direction would be completely arbitrary. It didn't end up that way, so they'v…

I (like many, I suspect) am a die-hard "natural scroll" hater. The fact that you're making physical contact with the thing you're scrolling does indeed make the "natural" direction feel natural on a touchscreen, but not on a separated scrollwheel or touchpad. Of course you're right, it's an annoyance that's removed in a matter of seconds by clicking a checkbox, and regardless its a difference you'd quickly adjust to,…

Why would anyone be a "hater" toward natural scroll? The decision of which way a trackpad should scroll while swiping would otherwise be completely arbitrary. It's like being a hater of driving on the left vs. right side of the road (except in this case, I'm guessing it takes longer than five minutes to get used to).

Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

#482

Post by stouset » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 9:55 PM UTC

lotyrin wrote: post #438

Raptor22 wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I the only one here who likes natural scrolling?

Decades of Windows and Linux I figured I'd give it a shot for a few weeks before I would eventually give up on it. It took maybe a day, I'm hooked and now everything else is weird.

This exactly. The amount of griping over such a non-issue is ridiculous. It takes almost nothing to adapt to the change, but people act like Apple switched their keyboards from QWERTY to Kanji.

Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

#483

Post by lozf » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 10:14 PM UTC

crag wrote: post #233

brianstorms wrote: post #101

I haven't quit it, but the problems, annoyances, surprises, seeming ineptitude, and creeping iOSification of OS X that the author describes sure do resonate. Every new major release of OS X is a day or week spent disabling things, shutting down Spotlight again, trying to restore things back to the way they were instead of the way some Designer with a capital D thinks they should be, for no other reason than, "Beauty.…

I agree completely. And believe it or not, I went back to Windows. Sort of. I'm testing the waters. My big issue is iTunes. Yeah I drank the kool-aid and now have an iTunes library of about 100GB. Despite how much I hate what iTunes has become at least is runs on Windows. Also, it's easier to "turn features off" in Windows than OSX these days. I'm sad about it though. But after 14 years on Mac I'm done. It was the up…

If by having an "iTunes" library you mean it has some old DRMd 128kbps AAC files, I believe they'll let you download non-DRMd 256kbps versions which will then play in most decent media players. AAC achieves transparency at lower bitrates than MP3, and compatibility really isn't much of a problem these days. Windows users seem to like foobar2000, MusicBee, or dBPowerAmp so you can move on from iTunes.

Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

#484

Post by toakmu » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 10:17 PM UTC

uherdwong wrote: post #464

toakmu wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Razer has a much worse processor, half the RAM, half the storage, half the battery life, and it's heavier than the 15" MacBook even though it's only 14". And according to reviews "it runs incredibly hot". Not exactly "stomping a mudhole" is it?

lol Battery life is 5-6hrs compared to Apple's "up to 8 hrs" for the MBP 15. That's amazing considering Razer runs a 1344 core GPU. What does a pitiful MacBook Pro have? Integrated graphics. Hahaha. And for the highest end MBP they have? A puny 750m. I'm sure you won't get 8hrs with that one. Compare the two on any graphics benchmark. There's the mudhole I mentioned. 870m is 2x faster than a 750m. The Razer also deli…

Most reviews say the Razer gets between 4 and 4.5 hours on battery. The MacBook is 9 hours and some reviewers got more than 9. Color is personal preference. I think aluminum looks better than plastic.

Nice job trying to use the specs page for the outdated non-Retina MacBook that nobody buys. Here's the real specs page: https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs-retina/

13" MacBook is 1.57kg, 15" MacBook is 2.02kg. Razer is heaver than both.

And nice job ignoring the processor, RAM, storage, and the overheating, "fanboi".

Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

#485

Post by takeda » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 10:39 PM UTC

rubyn00bie wrote: post #270

I want to quit OS X but can't until I get (as almost everyone else in the world has said): 1.) Laptop hardware/construction that rivals Apples. I hate plastic. I hate it. 2.) A usable trackpad. Apple has by far the most usable trackpad and it works well. Windows/Linux laptops force me to bring a mouse because the trackpads/drivers are essentially crap by comparison. 3.) Hassle-free wireless and graphics card drivers.…

Panasonic's Let's Note series.

It made Alan Kay part with Mac. The downside is their price, otherwise they are superior to Apple's Mac Books.

Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

#486

Post by jqm » Sun, Jan 04, 2015, 11:47 PM UTC

kevindication wrote: post #469

jqm wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back to where you started. Slackware.

I did enjoy Slackware as a learning experience all those years ago, but nowadays I like to spend more time building things and less time futzing with the OS.

Eh, I don't know... I don't really fuss with it much. Admittedly I did the first few times setting up, but now my desktop dot-files move with me, get a minor edit every so often, and once every couple of years I have to rebuild some packages....

I guess if needed lots of packages on the fly, or changed machines every few months it would be different. But it's once in a great while... then solid and stable for a long time.

To be frank, I would rather build packages from source. It's not I'm suspicious, but I run into plenty of problems with versions etc. using package tools, and it's really not that much more work just to do it the basic way.

Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

#487

Post by intopieces » Mon, Jan 05, 2015, 12:19 AM UTC

This thread has and will attract a great number of malcontents (selection bias?) but it's sufficient to say that the changes made to OS X, over the protests of power users, has significantly increased the value of the brand. Mac sales, after succumbing to a small dip in 2013, are now back at an all time high. [0]

[0] http://www.statista.com/statistics/276308/global-apple-mac-s...

So this appears to be the result of popularization, or appealing to the bottom line consumer, the one that throws away an old computer to buy a brand new one instead of replacing components piecemeal. The bottom line is: OS X's changes are not made for you, and you're right to switch to something that suits your needs. Additionally, the claims of ineptitude are misplaced, given the information about their recent sales. It appears to be what consumers want.

Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

#488

Post by overgard » Mon, Jan 05, 2015, 1:08 AM UTC

stouset wrote: post #480

overgard wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I ever need it "unified"? Mouse interaction and touch interaction are night and day, I'm in entirely different mental modes when I use either of those devices. What is confusing is when suddenly, up is down. That's legit confusing. Admittedly I use an actual mouse with actual buttons. I tossed the "magic" mouse into a drawer after a week because it was annoying. Cute, but a pain when you're trying to get ac…

Apple prepares their moves well in advance, like a positional chess player. Can you really not see a future in which, for example, there's a display on a MBP trackpad? And it's not "suddenly". You toggle a checkbox. For about five minutes, you get scrolling backwards. Your brain adapts, and then you move on with your life . Seriously, this is a total non-issue, regardless of whatever "different mental mode" nonsense…

Well, I spent about 2 minutes figuring out how to turn it off, so close enough? I mean, I did move on with my life. I scroll up and things move up. I pointed it out because I thought it was dumb, not because I have some sort of obsession with it.

You seem to be making an attempt to paint me as a luddite afraid of the future, but that's really not accurate. I just like my scroll wheel to not move in the wrong direction because "tablets ermahgerd!" I thought it was stupid to break well established behavior in an attempt to "unify" with a device that runs an entirely different operating system on hardware with entirely different input mechanisms.

I don't really care if Tim Cook is playing chess nine moves ahead or something. I just want the damned thing to not get in my way.

Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

#489

Post by MrDom » Mon, Jan 05, 2015, 1:11 AM UTC

badsock wrote: post #307

brianstorms wrote: post #101

I haven't quit it, but the problems, annoyances, surprises, seeming ineptitude, and creeping iOSification of OS X that the author describes sure do resonate. Every new major release of OS X is a day or week spent disabling things, shutting down Spotlight again, trying to restore things back to the way they were instead of the way some Designer with a capital D thinks they should be, for no other reason than, "Beauty.…

You can switch to Linux, but unfortunately it's been degrading along similar lines. Big, wrong ideas are destructive, and the two biggest, wrongest ones right now seem to be: "desktops are just out-of-date tablets", and "the only good affordance is a dead affordance". Affordances are what make computers humane, and there's a world of difference between how phones are used (mostly social), tablets are used (mostly med…

What's an affordance? I've never heard that term in this context before.

Re: Why I Quit OS X – Geoff Wozniak

#490

Post by MrDom » Mon, Jan 05, 2015, 1:16 AM UTC

timonovici wrote: post #279

morganvachon wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Desktop Linux is mostly install an work. It is...until it isn't. Nine out of ten Ubuntu or Mint installs will go off without a hitch, with no weird issues or regressions, and a warm, friendly, comfortable development environment welcomes you. Then there's that one time you install it on your laptop so you have a to-go environment that matches your workstation, and BOOM! your wifi isn't recognized (what year is it a…

I always wonder where do people get these quirks... And I suspect mostly that's Ubuntu's fault, which is a shitty OS to begin with. It's the only distro I had problems with my graphics card (an Aspire 5050, several years ago), and the audio output. I've been on archlinux, on testing, for christ sake, and it's been at least a year since I had an issue of any kind. Debian was also fine by me, but the software was too o…

I've tried Debian, arch and several flavors of Ubuntu (like #!). The quirks aren't in the OS, they're in the shitty drivers, which are common to all linux based oses. Just because you don't personally see an issue doesn't mean others don't. The inconsistency across hardware is a large reason apple forces people to use their OS only on approved hardware.