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Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

char.gd

211–220 of 790 posts

Re: Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

#211

I have increasingly little hope that apple will make pro focused hardware ever again. The company does not seem to care about the mac anymore at all.

I really wonder what's happening inside the company, because Apple's lawyers make the company so secretive that we don't know much about it. Do employees read HN? Do they collect reports about what the consumers are asking for and send it up the management chain? Do they knowingly choose to ignore it? or do they actually believe the Emoticon Macbook is the future? or do employees feel dismayed that their management puts the Macbook/macOS departments in wreck, to later claim something like "Sorry guys, the market doesn't want laptops anymore, but, swear, we've tried real hard"? Does the Mac department experience super-high turnover, with coding ruins of senior devs being taken over by students on internships?

How does it feel to belong to the Blackberry of Apple? Do they get laughed at during lunch breaks?

Re: Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

#212

I used to be hardcore windows guy... Then 10 years ago I got a mac. I never went back.. But what am I saving money for right now? To build a nice PC again. Mostly because of the exact reasons in the article. I have a fondness for apple... but they have definitely lost their way. First, they were a computer company driven by a man who loved computers ("first" here is the Jobs return era) ... then they became a Compute…

Buy a breakable USB cable? I've had MacBooks for 10 years, and I'm ecstatic to see MagSafe gone. Apple chargers have always been shit, and Apple laptops have never been compatible with off the shelf battery packs. Moving to USB-C and detachable, replaceable cables, is a huge step forward. Also, what PC alternative has a MagSafe equivalent?

Microsoft's own Surface Book uses something very like MagSafe:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bnIIuS0New

http://www.cultofmac.com/174993/microsoft-steals-apples-mags...

I've also been using MacBooks since 2006, and I love MagSafe - or at least, MagSafe 1 (haven't tried the more recent MagSafe 2).

Re: Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Comments like this make it hard to take any side of the discussion seriously. /Neither/ of the OSes are "Escher'esque nightmare[s]." • macOS Finder: http://i.imgur.com/9Y5hK0e.png • Windows Explorer: http://i.imgur.com/ef7CnJ4.png Alright. Maybe not nightmarish, but one of these IS objectively more convoluted than the other. Let's start with something simple: WHY does the "Options" button on the Windows Explorer Ri…

Perhaps you're failing to view things from the perspective of the average user? I see the MacOS Finder and see unlabelled icons. My elderly folks are terrible at remembering what various icons do, and what error messages are for, etc. I've trained them to pause and read the words on the toolbar, read the words on the window, etc. as they're generally self-explanatory. So the finder that is more convoluted for a more…

> I've trained them to pause and read the words on the toolbar, read the words on the window, etc. as they're generally self-explanatory.

You're a miracle worker. :)

Failure to read what's on the screen is one of the biggest reasons why "non computer" people don't get things done with computers.

Re: Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

#214

Oh please. Not this again. I recently had the pleasure of checking in on Windows for the second time in 7 years. I had been a PC user since the DOS days, starting on a 286, and going all the way to Windows 8 when I switched to Macs around 2010. I've only ever needed Windows for games since then, and decided to install Boot Camp on the 15" 2016 MacBook Pro that I just got (which happens to be a pretty good machine [1]…

An in-depth comparison would be most welcome. I use Windows (7) all day writing code at work, and use Sierra at home nights and weekends. I do prefer MacOS, but I'm very curious what your issues are because I don't see them. If I really wanted as powerful a (desktop) machine as I could get for gaming, I'd definitely go Windows. No contest. (I don't want that.) Apple's notebooks are excellent, no argument there.

I'm a huge fan of Windows 7. The UI is simple, everyone is familiar with it, it's relatively stable, but most importantly, basic tasks are so much easier to deal with. In my opinion, it is the best Windows OS made.

Unfortunately Windows 8 and 10 are just not great OSs, in my opinion. A major theme on these threads is "Apple is trying to force mobile onto desktop computers." yet I see Windows doing it just as much, and not nearly as smooth, as Apple. Cortana, weird metro UI layout, terrible settings, confusing maintenance, updates never work, slow response times, etc.

I gave up on Windows 10 when I got my father a new laptop and had to troubleshoot my sister's. The OS is a mess. Finding basic things is so difficult. Just give me a control panel. Now we have "Settings" too, which is just a mess. Windows Update never works properly. It constantly needs a troubleshooter to run and start and stop the services again.

My dad didn't want to log in with an email to his laptop. So I disabled it (which was difficult to find, so I had to google it.) Now it's suddenly back, and he's complaining about it. There's no way he manually did it purposefully.

Trying to disable things like Cortana never works right. The huge debacle of info being sent to microsoft and needing heavy workarounds to actually prevent it from occurring. And then being force fed apps with advertisements built into the OS...come on.

Apple simply needs to improve their hardware at their price point and 90% of these threads wouldn't be made. The OS needs some additional features and improvements, but the experience is just so much better than Win10 and 8 for me.

My current build uses Windows 7 and whenever it is officially unsupported I will move on from Windows completely.

Re: Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

#215
I really don't understand the whole Windows vs Mac thing, both operating systems largely do what we want it 100% comes down to if the software that you need is on one platform or the other.

I'm in the market to upgrade at some point in the near future as my mac has developed a number of hardware issues and the linux subsystem for Windows and Docker support are both intriguing.

Re: Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

#217

MacOS is at a standstill in terms of usability, but I feel that windows 10 has gone back. Microsoft has chosen to focus on enterprise. This is probably the right move for their culture and the future of the company, but the remainder of their consumer products seem to be turning into an ad-supported model heavily focused on legacy support. Windows may have a new coat of paint, but the underlying OS just gets more bur…

Agreed.

I can't believe how much worse Windows 10 is than 7. And all the good features of 10 could easily be integrated with the 7 UI.

It's very frustrating that there isn't another player in this space. I don't mind fooling around with linux but sometimes you just want to buy a laptop and go without all the extra crap and most of the consumer space won't go through that anyway.

Re: Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

#218
post #91

More FOTM moaning about the state of Apple. I can't believe people keep reading these "I left Apple and here's why you should care" articles by front end devs with no real idea of what goes into OS dev and where macOS has come from since the days of OS8. Give me a break, surely if you want to use Windows you don't need to write 2000 words in the form of some needlessly pronoun heavy (because your opinion is really im…

    > where macOS has come from since the days of OS8.
Downhill in many ways that I care about. Someone else posted elsewhere in this thread that they can no longer drag a photo directly from Photos app to Pixelmator. That would be unimaginable in the old days.

I care a lot about a consistent Finder UI, about the Clipboard and Dragboard. Those became a little less logical when OS X 10 was introduced. As you know, many other features became much more powerful, so overall it was easily forgivable.

Unfortunately, since Tim has been in charge, the lack of logic and consistency has become a real problem. Nobody at Apple seems to care about their own "Human Interface Guidelines" anymore.

It's like Apple compares Mac with iOS, and decides that mystery meat navigation, and inconsistent UI, are no big deal. As long as it's no worse on the Mac than on iOS, Apple is fine with things.

Re: Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

#219

Oh please. Not this again. I recently had the pleasure of checking in on Windows for the second time in 7 years. I had been a PC user since the DOS days, starting on a 286, and going all the way to Windows 8 when I switched to Macs around 2010. I've only ever needed Windows for games since then, and decided to install Boot Camp on the 15" 2016 MacBook Pro that I just got (which happens to be a pretty good machine [1]…

The UI is a mess of old and new in Windows 10. Generally "advanced" options means switching to and old menu style (win 7 and older).

Re: Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

#220
Same. Replaced my MacBook with a Surface Book. Why? Tns of reasons, not the last of which being that the M processor I have is so underpowered that it's an embarrassment that the company offered it in a laptop. I can use two of Chrome, Excel, Outlok and Spotify. Open one more and I get the beach ball.

I also find that Microsoft is at least trying to make quality products even if they will never be mainstream (like the Surface Book). Very happy y have made the switch.

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