Live data from Hacker News

Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks

wadetregaskis.com

201–210 of 314 posts

Re: Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks

#201

> The Mac operating system still Just. Fucking. Sucks. at remembering where windows were, when relaunching apps. I agree and it's confounding. For me it's even worse: when plugging back into my home office after some work on the road, it doesn't remember the window positions associated with that setup, and I have to reorganize my dozens of windows away from the laptop screen again. I've solved this through a 3rd-part…

> It's particularly frustrating since Apple's most popular Mac product is their Macbooks, which have a rich docking and display ecosystem, so you'd think dynamically changing the desktop configuration would be solidly handled! But no. I hear what you’re saying, but the vast majority of MacBook pros are probably never plugged into an external display. I know on Hacker News it’s a very different story, but for the gene…

In my case, I almost never use the MBP as a standalone.

My replacement for it will be a Studio, whenever the M4 version comes out. I'll keep my current laptop as an "on the road" computer.

Re: Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's particularly frustrating since Apple's most popular Mac product is their Macbooks, which have a rich docking and display ecosystem, so you'd think dynamically changing the desktop configuration would be solidly handled! But no. I hear what you’re saying, but the vast majority of MacBook pros are probably never plugged into an external display. I know on Hacker News it’s a very different story, but for the gene…

In my case, I almost never use the MBP as a standalone. My replacement for it will be a Studio, whenever the M4 version comes out. I'll keep my current laptop as an "on the road" computer.

Same here. I’d say my laptop is docked 99.99% of the time. I was just pointing out a possible reason as to why multi-monitor support is not a higher priority for Apple. It’s a subset (multi-monitor) of a subset (Mac) of their business.

I do wish it was better, but I’ve also found tools to work around all of my issues .

Re: Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks

#203
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> General OS slowness and instability and clunky design not so much. I can't tell whether you're talking about Windows or Mac here

My WindowServer is sitting at 30% CPU and 15% GPU on an M1 MacBook Pro and I have no idea why. I reboot the Mac more often than I rebooted my dogshit HP enterprise laptop. MacOS is just a bad OS. It's good if you only ever use the MacBook as a laptop, but the moment you hook it up to a useful setup, it becomes a drag.

Did you ever consider there might be something wrong with your machine or some piece of software you’ve installed?

Or do you think the rest of the world that has heaped praise on the Apple Silicon Macs has missed something you’ve seen?

Re: Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks

#205
Macs have numerous weird issues that seem to be beyond Apple to fix. My pet hate is that there's no easy way to just create a new file in Finder. On any sane operating system you'd just right-click and select "create new text file", etc and it'd create one. Macs give you nothing.

And that's before we get into WTF is going on when you hold shift and the cursor keys in a text editor. Sometimes it selects forwards like you want, but sometimes it inexplicably starts to select baskwards, selecting words and the entire paragraphs.

It's like certain key parts were written by someone having a bad day who just thought "this'll piss them off".

Re: Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks

#206

> The Mac operating system still Just. Fucking. Sucks. at remembering where windows were, when relaunching apps. I agree and it's confounding. For me it's even worse: when plugging back into my home office after some work on the road, it doesn't remember the window positions associated with that setup, and I have to reorganize my dozens of windows away from the laptop screen again. I've solved this through a 3rd-part…

they used to have a bug a few years ago and some windows got to be placed outside the visible area when switching displays. there was no direct way to drag them back and restarting the app most of the time did nothing, as it reopened in the same place.

there was a button somewhere on the display settings that had the purpose of moving every app to the current active screen, that one saved the day.

Re: Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks

#207
Doesn't even mention that MacOS will silently downgrade you from 60hz to 30hz, and then when you notice you'll need to unplug and replug everything, change HDMI cables, try a different adaptor, etc etc and then once you finally figure it out and fix it, it will happen again a few days later.

Re: Multiple Displays on a Mac Sucks

#210
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My WindowServer is sitting at 30% CPU and 15% GPU on an M1 MacBook Pro and I have no idea why. I reboot the Mac more often than I rebooted my dogshit HP enterprise laptop. MacOS is just a bad OS. It's good if you only ever use the MacBook as a laptop, but the moment you hook it up to a useful setup, it becomes a drag.

Did you ever consider there might be something wrong with your machine or some piece of software you’ve installed? Or do you think the rest of the world that has heaped praise on the Apple Silicon Macs has missed something you’ve seen?

I blame this on trying to use non-Apple hardware with the MacBook. I'm sure if I had an Apple Display instead of a g-sync 165Hz-capable monitor and closed the lid when hooked up everything would be... perhaps not fine, but good enough.

The macbook is amazing when considered in isolation. Trying to use it in a workstation setting is definitely 'holding it wrong', which drives me nuts. Wasted potential and definitely undeserving of the 'Pro' moniker.

Post reply on HN