The state of switching to Windows from Mac in 2019 • Hacker News Board

Re: The state of switching to Windows from Mac in 2019

#181

Post by Alas1 » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 4:25 PM UTC

bschwindHN wrote: post #152

Alas1 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is no longer great (it used to be so around Mavericks). Current pdfkit is broken, and renders PDFs blurry, with the effect enhanced on low PPI screens. This holds for iOS as well since the same pdfkit is used, but since the devices running those are extremely high PPI this bug goes unnoticed by all but those looking for it or those with sensitivity to such imperfections. I think the state of PDF rendering on macOS…

Do you have screenshots that can demonstrate this? I'm surprised to hear it, I'm fairly picky about visual quality but I've never noticed an issue with PDFs on MacOS or iOS. Never used a low PPI screen with them though.

Some of the many reports:

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/295427/what-causes...

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8531638

https://twitter.com/deivi_dragon/status/938663751158501376

https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/72lxjx/macos_high_si...

It is less visible on a high PPI screen although still there and noticable if you know it exists. Unfortunately I know it exists, can see it and am bothered, so I stopped using my Macbook and left it to collect dust.

Re: The state of switching to Windows from Mac in 2019

#182

Post by wlesieutre » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 4:31 PM UTC

wtallis wrote: post #173

wlesieutre wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple calls this setting "Scroll direction: Natural" and describes it as "Content tracks finger movement." That's been their default since back in 2011, and although a lot of people disabled it at the time I definitely prefer this mode of scroll interaction. It's more direct and is consistent across all the gadgets I use. It acts like you're grabbing the content and moving it around, rather than grabbing a scroll ind…

> It's more direct and is consistent across all the gadgets I use. The problem is that a touchpad is still fundamentally an indirect pointing device, rather than a direct pointing device like a touchscreen. The "consistency" argument relies on the same flawed reasoning that led Microsoft so astray with their Windows 8/Metro UI efforts to unify touchscreen and desktop interfaces. And ergonomically, it's easier to perf…

>The problem is that a touchpad is still fundamentally an indirect pointing device, rather than a direct pointing device like a touchscreen.

As a counterpoint, cursor movement with a trackpad is just as indirect, yet we make the cursor move around directly with your finger.

Why not make the cursor act like traditional scrolling? Treat the cursor like the contents of a scrollable view, and your finger motion acts like it's moving the viewport relative to the contents even though the cursor/page is actually moving while the screen/viewport is stationary?

That sounds super weird, yeah?

Having flipped my mental model to "one finger drags the cursor, two fingers drags the content", going back to "one finger drags the cursor, two fingers drags the viewport relative to the content" sounds similarly strange.

>And ergonomically, it's easier to perform a down scroll on a touchpad with the non-"natural" scroll direction, because your fingers have more room to curl further than to straighten out when they're resting normally on the trackpad.

Not really an issue; scrolling has momentum and requires very little movement. Give it a push and then put your fingers back down to stop it, it's not like a clicky mouse wheel where you have to scroll scroll scroll scroll scroll to go more than a few lines at a time.

Re: The state of switching to Windows from Mac in 2019

#183

Post by ymolodtsov » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 4:52 PM UTC

dasKrokodil wrote: post #177

ymolodtsov wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> In OS X, you have to press tab a million times until you have reached your desired button and then press space... What do you mean? If you have a dialog button you just need to click Cmd-"First letter of the command that you need". The system never teaches you, true, but it's there.

I just tried this in TextEdit by writing something and then quitting without saving first. It didn't work for the 'Delete' and 'Cancel' buttons. It did work for the 'Save' button, but that one is the default anyway, so I could've just pressed return instead.

Checked it, TextEdit has a slightly unusual modal window, generally it works throughout the system.

Re: The state of switching to Windows from Mac in 2019

#184

Post by soylentcola » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 5:16 PM UTC

ToFab123 wrote: post #169

nwallin wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My biggest peeve about windows is how it sends my laptop to sleep when I close the lid. You're plugged into a docking station with a keyboard, monitor, and mouse connected. I have several windows open on the monitor. No windows open on the tiny crappy laptop screen. Why the fartnugget do you think closing the laptop means "go to sleep"?! I didn't buy a docking station, monitor, keyboard and mouse to augment the shitt…

That is very simple to change. Settings --> power and sleep options --> Additional power options --> Choose what closing the lid does Or from command line https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/scriptcenter/Quickly-c...

And if you're lazy like me, just hit the Win key, type "lid", and click "change what closing the lid does" from the results.

Re: The state of switching to Windows from Mac in 2019

#185

Post by Sir_Vival » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 6:09 PM UTC

wtallis wrote: post #172

thiht wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Keep in mind you might be heavily biased because you're used to macOS. When I had to switch from Windows 10 to macOS last year for work, I was flabbergasted at how the general UX sucked compared to what I expected: - it's not possible to switch between multiple windows of the same application with Cmd+Tab - it's not possible to display two windows side by side without switching to fullscreen mode - it's hard to make…

> the apps don't close when you click the close button. I get that there used to be a reason for this, nowadays it's just bad design Are there any apps in particular for which you feel that this behavior is worse? It's supposed to be for document-centric applications or those that do something useful in the background (eg. iTunes). On Windows, the latter category tends to clutter up the system tray, while the former…

I hate any application in Windows that doesn't close when I hit the close button. If you want your application to minimize to the taskbar, have that happen when I hit the minimize button.

The same goes for phones, too. The last time I used Discord on my phone I ended up restarting the whole phone because I couldn't figure out how to close it.

Re: The state of switching to Windows from Mac in 2019

#186

Post by pier25 » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 6:43 PM UTC

Alas1 wrote: post #181

bschwindHN wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have screenshots that can demonstrate this? I'm surprised to hear it, I'm fairly picky about visual quality but I've never noticed an issue with PDFs on MacOS or iOS. Never used a low PPI screen with them though.

Some of the many reports: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/295427/what-causes... https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8531638 https://twitter.com/deivi_dragon/status/938663751158501376 https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/72lxjx/macos_high_si... It is less visible on a high PPI screen although still there and noticable if you know it exists. Unfortunately I know it exists, can see it and am bothered, so I…

I've never seen this issue myself. I'm on High Sierra now.

In Yosemite PDF rendering performance was crap for me in some high resolution documents for print, but other than that it has been flawless for as long as I've been using macOS.

I've only seen the issue shown in the Reddit post (which looks like some rendering lag) in Android actually.

Re: The state of switching to Windows from Mac in 2019

#187

Post by Alas1 » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 6:59 PM UTC

pier25 wrote: post #186

Alas1 wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the many reports: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/295427/what-causes... https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8531638 https://twitter.com/deivi_dragon/status/938663751158501376 https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/72lxjx/macos_high_si... It is less visible on a high PPI screen although still there and noticable if you know it exists. Unfortunately I know it exists, can see it and am bothered, so I…

I've never seen this issue myself. I'm on High Sierra now. In Yosemite PDF rendering performance was crap for me in some high resolution documents for print, but other than that it has been flawless for as long as I've been using macOS. I've only seen the issue shown in the Reddit post (which looks like some rendering lag) in Android actually.

As I said it's difficult to see on a high PPI screen unless you're looking for it. High Sierra, I think, is the first version where this bug was introduced, so you most certainly have it but it just isn't drastic enough a change to bother most people on a Macbook's screen. The rendering lag is another problem that was introduced with the one I'm referring to, which is a separate issue but they are probably related.

Re: The state of switching to Windows from Mac in 2019

#188

Post by ThoAppelsin » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 7:06 PM UTC

bschwindHN wrote: post #152

Alas1 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is no longer great (it used to be so around Mavericks). Current pdfkit is broken, and renders PDFs blurry, with the effect enhanced on low PPI screens. This holds for iOS as well since the same pdfkit is used, but since the devices running those are extremely high PPI this bug goes unnoticed by all but those looking for it or those with sensitivity to such imperfections. I think the state of PDF rendering on macOS…

Do you have screenshots that can demonstrate this? I'm surprised to hear it, I'm fairly picky about visual quality but I've never noticed an issue with PDFs on MacOS or iOS. Never used a low PPI screen with them though.

Don't you ever present anything on a projector?

Many professors in our department have a MBP, and their LaTeX presentations look bad, just because macOS is bad. I notice it every single time, and sometimes (without me even saying, I just tolerate it, don't make a sound) they themselves do, too, asking themselves whether they've grown that so old or something.

I only have the leftovers of my girlfriend, 2015 MBA, as a macOS device. The PDFs look like crap on Preview and many other ".app"s I have tried. SumatraPDF running on Wine works properly though. Yeah, I'd say Preview simply does not work properly at this point. Shame, but also fun to watch from the Windows's side.

Re: The state of switching to Windows from Mac in 2019

#189

Post by WorldMaker » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 7:15 PM UTC

nwallin wrote: post #138

pbreit wrote: post #9

I just switched from Mac to Windows and had to move back. I cannot believe how miserable the Windows experience is. I mistakenly thought that since so much is browser-based, it's not a big deal. But literally every single little thing is slightly-to-much worse on Windows. Even stupid things like changing scroll direction, saving the 5 second preference for notifications to disappear, finding a wifi password, arrangin…

My biggest peeve about windows is how it sends my laptop to sleep when I close the lid. You're plugged into a docking station with a keyboard, monitor, and mouse connected. I have several windows open on the monitor. No windows open on the tiny crappy laptop screen. Why the fartnugget do you think closing the laptop means "go to sleep"?! I didn't buy a docking station, monitor, keyboard and mouse to augment the shitt…

> Also windows absolutely refuses to update. It didn't update to 1803 without downloading the install iso manually, it didn't update to 1806, and now it's refusing to update to 1903.

Microsoft has leaned very conservative in offering the feature updates after complaints from the earlier ones. Especially if your laptop has high usage patterns that likely suggest a work laptop it may not offer you the feature update until late in the cycle. Or in some cases specific hardware or software installed.

(A big block right now still for 1903 is it can be hesitant if you have a lot of unpatched games installed because several versions of highly deployed anti-cheat software cause BSODs if not up to date, affecting even major games like Fortnite.)

There is a good alternative to downloading the ISO, called the Update Assistant. It's an app that can tell you why you are currently blocked, if that is the case, and/or force install the update. It's at the top of this download page (the "Update Now" button in the gray region, not the Media Creation Tool below it):

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Re: The state of switching to Windows from Mac in 2019

#190

Post by ThoAppelsin » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 7:52 PM UTC

pbreit wrote: post #9

I just switched from Mac to Windows and had to move back. I cannot believe how miserable the Windows experience is. I mistakenly thought that since so much is browser-based, it's not a big deal. But literally every single little thing is slightly-to-much worse on Windows. Even stupid things like changing scroll direction, saving the 5 second preference for notifications to disappear, finding a wifi password, arrangin…

"Saving screenshots"

Nice way to hint that you are definitely being sarcastic, because cmd+something+3 surely and clearly is no way intuitive, contrary to the use of dedicated Print Screen key on Windows.