231–240 of 276 posts
Part of my focus to begin this year has been identifying cross platform replacements for any Apple native apps I still use, with a preference for open source and self hosted (where possible). The one I can't seem to fully kick is Apple Reminders, but I've been able to replace pretty much everything else.
I'm a big fan of Planify, which supports a few different syncing backends: https://github.com/alainm23/planify
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they have yet to invent a linux laptop with good battery life, quality keyboard & trackpad, sleep-then-suspend, bluetooth. as long as apple makes computers with those things, i can be content even if it means living inside my full screen linux vm
the macbooks are crazy for battery life compared to anything else. But you can run Linux on an M2 Macbook. And there is premium windows hardware on the market, where Linux actually works better than Windows (notably business laptops like the Thinkpad x1 and HP Elitebook).
I have been a Mac user since the classic mac days. I waited in line for the first iPhone. macOS/iOS 26 are bad enough that I've begun switching to Linux. I preordered a Clicks Communicator and Pebble Round 2. Switching from a Macbook Pro M4 to an Asus ROG Flow Z13 with Debian. macOS 26.3 updated clang and broke my emscripten workflow. I tried to unrar a file but the version of unrar provided in homebrew is deprecated…
Gonna say that the switch from X11 to Wayland that was pretty much forced this year across many distributions, broke a ton of things too (screenshot programs, keyboard shortcuts), however, all the code is open source, and there are workarounds and source code available but it still sucks. Basic keyboard shortcuts are still broke with the Wayland migration. e.g. Copyq has this janky workaround for a shortcut to regist…
As a previous Mac(intosh) user of many years, before you switch back, I'd recommend trying Pop OS and its new COSMIC desktop env based on Wayland. It's still has some rough edges, not as polished as macOS was, but free from Apple's enshittification, and free in terms of open source. It's everything I wished Macintosh would have matured into, but that ship has sailed years ago.
Some people run NixOS with COSMIC DE, I'm considering that for my next machine. Also, Pop OS is based on Ubuntu, which you might also try. I've installed it for several non-technical friends and family, and they haven't had a single issue with it, migrating from Windows or Mac.
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the macbooks are crazy for battery life compared to anything else. But you can run Linux on an M2 Macbook. And there is premium windows hardware on the market, where Linux actually works better than Windows (notably business laptops like the Thinkpad x1 and HP Elitebook).
unfortunately asahi linux bare metal cuts batty life by 40% or so and doesn’t support external displays via USB-C. worse battery seems a very common theme for linux-on-laptop.
But, compared to W11?
I guess it depends a lot. My Precision 5520 got an extra hour of battery on the 9cell varient. Thats about a 20% uplift from W11; but thats an old Xeon laptop now.
Apple needs a 50% purge in headcount. Yes, they have so much money they don't need to but the organizational bloat there is on another level. The issues brought up in the article have been going on for decades and the right people are needed to address these things.
Not sure how "purging" the headcount is supposed to fix all the problems.
Alternatively, if they could reassign that 50% of their headcount to bring Mountain Lion or Mavericks to the working state (updating cryptographic stacks, patching vulnerabilities) and just don't... touch... the... UI?
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Yes I agree. I have an M1 Max like the author of this piece and recently upgraded. It's fine. I don't like the look of it much and the drag targets are annoying but other than that it's been completely normal.
So are you saying the long list of bugs don't actually happen?
I use my MBP around 10-12 hours a day, maybe more. I don't love the finder but never really have bugs exactly.
Time machine isn't great but it's ok. It gets stuck if you don't have enough disk space.
The other things don't really affect me.
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“I don't feel like we own them.” ← Well-put! I was 100% Apple: Mac Mini on the desktop, Macbook Air laptop, iPhone, and two iPads. Then came Tahoe. I hated it so badly and it wouldn't let me change the things I hated. I noticed a subtle sneer as I worked, having to use this stupid computer that wouldn't let me adjust it to my liking anymore. Then I noticed I wasn't working as much as I used to because I just visceral…
I am currently all-in on the Apple ecosystem and have been for almost 13 years now. But quality of life in Apple land has steadily been getting worse, so I have been considering making the sort of change you describe, but not quite ready to make that leap yet. What would you say was the hardest part of the transition for you?
Anyone saying they had no trouble migrating away is either lying or delusional.
Just off the top of my head: external accessory issues when Linux wakes up from sleep; trackpad quality; battery life; full-disk encryption is still spotty if you, for example, want to use ZFS; boot-level security can be a nightmare to setup (although Evil Maids aren’t a concern for me); systemd things that don’t work and don’t report they’re not working; inconsistent shortcuts for basic things.
Man, I like the ideals behind BSD and Linux, but we gotta stop pretending that basic UX stuff is done and fixed, when we know perfectly well that it’s been broken for a decade (running Linux servers or desktop-on-the-side since 2015).
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Gonna say that the switch from X11 to Wayland that was pretty much forced this year across many distributions, broke a ton of things too (screenshot programs, keyboard shortcuts), however, all the code is open source, and there are workarounds and source code available but it still sucks. Basic keyboard shortcuts are still broke with the Wayland migration. e.g. Copyq has this janky workaround for a shortcut to regist…
> been considering switching TO the mac As a previous Mac(intosh) user of many years, before you switch back, I'd recommend trying Pop OS and its new COSMIC desktop env based on Wayland. It's still has some rough edges, not as polished as macOS was, but free from Apple's enshittification, and free in terms of open source. It's everything I wished Macintosh would have matured into, but that ship has sailed years ago.…
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And yet Apple engineers are going through numerous forums and Reddit posts to gaslight people by commenting “well, it doesn’t happen to me, mine works perfectly”. They managed to mess up an entire ecosystem and they’re acting so stupid about it that I cannot believe all this software was made by Apple. There’s no elegance, no thought out user experience, no good design, it’s all stupid glass design with comical amoun…
I'm convinced that this is the fate of all successful software companies. It's not a result of arrogance or hubris or anything else like that. It's the result of turnover. Take your favourite rock band and turn over all the musicians until no one is left from the original band. Should we expect the band to continue cranking out chart-topping hits? There's one further factor that makes the situation even worse than th…