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If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

macworld.com

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Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#241

Post by wtallis »

loudthing wrote: post #188
joemi wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure plenty of people will disagree with me, but I don't think this is a good precedent. Apple has always been opinionated, and that's a lot of what made Apple different. Admittedly, sometimes their opinionated takes weren't great, but a lot of times they really were great, even when some people didn't realize it. That's what allowed Apple to grow and soar to the heights it did. I worry that the new MBP line is a…

I agree that Apple's hot headedness in the past has helped the industry in the long run. For example, eliminating the floppy drive with the original iMac, or pushing for open alternatives to Flash by not allowing it on iPhones. It is concerning that they included a full size sd card reader (22 year old technology at this point).

The SD form factor is over two decades old, but the technology inside the cards and readers has advanced significantly, so you're effectively complaining that nobody has broken backwards compatibility by switching form factors.

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#242

Post by memco »

AlexandrB wrote: post #88
alphaomegacode wrote: post #70

As an anecdotal example that may be relevant, I wanted to upgrade to Monterey and my Mac Mini said there wasn't enough room. Hooked up a Western Digital external drive that I had used on previous Macs and launched Time Machine. And that's when it started. Time Machine presented what seemed like a stack of Finder windows in the middle, a timeline with hash marks on the right-side and the only button highlighted was th…

Time Machine has been neglected for so long . The UI was never great for power users, but at least it worked. For a novice computer user it was a pretty good "set it and forget it" experience. In the last 3 years it has become so unreliable (every time it tries to backup it claims the backup is corrupted and needs to be re-created) that I've given up and switched to Carbon Copy Cloner.

> In the last 3 years it has become so unreliable (every time it tries to backup it claims the backup is corrupted and needs to be re-created)

This bit me and I've not fully recovered yet. I had some stuff backed up manually, but some stuff I just trusted to the time machine backups. Now that some of the backups are unrecoverable I only have easy access to the stuff I backed up manually. I'm interested in trying CCC, but part of the reason things went south for me was apparently due to closing my laptop mid backup to a network TM volume and I'm curious if CCC can handle that any better. Do you use CCC for network backups and have you ever had issues with it?

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#243

Post by gonehome »

greedo wrote: post #202
taylodl wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the dearth of 3rd party hardware that I find frustrating. It's not apparent that Apple has done much to flesh out that ecosystem.

Is it Apple's job to flesh it out, or is it better if they come up with a spec for HomeKit and have third parties create devices?

It's not their job, but third parties have failed.

It'd be nice for them to make one base level device (like a smart switch) which supports most of the use cases.

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#244

Post by jazzyjackson »

threeseed wrote: post #159
EamonnMR wrote: post #79

This morning I plugged in my macbook and tried to turn it on. No dice. Hammered the external mouse and keyboard. No luck. Opened up the clamshell, started testing USB-C ports to figure out which one wants to charge today. Hammered the "on" button. It started asking out loud in what to me sounded like an old school macintalk voice for a username... I have to assume I provoked some sort of accessibility feature. Hammer…

So you clearly have a hardware problem since your USB-C ports aren't charging. And rather than go to Apple you instead randomly press buttons and then are surprised when random things happen. Okay.

“randomly press buttons” is absolutely step 1, this is not a nuclear power plant we’re dealing with… they got it to work didn’t they?

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#245

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

Anunayj wrote: post #210
__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no fan of Microsoft, but a vanilla Windows 10 install isn't very bloated imo. Did you perhaps start with an image provided by the laptop vendor? It's not Microsoft's fault that they're usually full of trash.

I think perhaps you are in the EU and were using the "N" version of windows 10. I realized that the normal windows 10 installs a LOT of bloatware (Like I don't need candy crush), while the N version did not do that.

Oh that's a good point.

I'm in the US, but yes whenever I select the image to download I do pick the N version.

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#247

Post by sneak »

superasn wrote: post #59
freediver wrote: post #18

Yesterday I prepared a few years old Windows laptop for my daughter to use in school. It took me a few hours just to install updates, remove bloatware (my oh my, the amount is staggering!) and fix privacy settings. And this was for Windows 10 which I hear is a mild version of a mess that Windows 11 is. I was instantly reminded why I appreciate Apple software more.

1. Yes first thing I run if I ever have to use a Windows PC is this little gem called Shutup 10 (1). 2. Then there is another software called 10AppsManager (2) to remove further bloatware like Onedrive, Skype, etc. 3. After that I visit ninite.com (3) to get the usual software without toolbars and spyware. 4. For other software like ffmpeg I use choco or chocolatey (4). I am now a full time linux user but this was th…

https://wpd.app

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#248

Post by SavantIdiot »

Today on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29227450

TL;DR: Certain Accessibility features relating to the pointer can cause your Mac to run out of memory on certain apps.

I bring this up because something as simple as the MOUSE POINTER can bring the system to its knees if not implemented correctly, and they expect all this heavily integrated functionality (AR, Siri, iCloud scanning) to work flawlessly? I fear even if Apple stopped adding new features entirely, they'd have a decade of corner cases to clean up.

I work on Mac, Win and Ubuntu all day. Mac & Win are neck-and-neck for crazy weird bugs I encounter as an every day, non-super user that are un-googlable (or return SEO garbage).

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#249

Post by jaywalk »

onemoresoop wrote: post #28
freediver wrote: post #18

Yesterday I prepared a few years old Windows laptop for my daughter to use in school. It took me a few hours just to install updates, remove bloatware (my oh my, the amount is staggering!) and fix privacy settings. And this was for Windows 10 which I hear is a mild version of a mess that Windows 11 is. I was instantly reminded why I appreciate Apple software more.

Windows is horrible in this regard. And what's worse is that the users seem not to care such that this behavior proliferates. I have a windows machine that I take it offline and want it running at all times. No updates possible, Wi-Fi is turned of right? Wrong, windows does restart machine and enables Wi-Fi. It pisses me to no end how little control I have of this machine

Sounds like you're just using the basic toggle switch to "disable" Wi-Fi when that's not really the purpose of the switch. If you actually want the Wi-Fi disabled, you have to do it right. Do it in the UEFI menu, or disable it in Device Manager if that option isn't available. It won't get re-enabled if you do it right.

Re: If Apple keeps letting its software slip, the next big thing won’t matter

#250

Post by gcanyon »

nouveaux wrote: post #201
mschuster91 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most Apple users will definitively want those on, and will break your system in subtle ways if you disable them. What happened to the good old days of "ask for user consent before phoning home"? I mean, Apple is miles ahead of Windows in that regard, but your average Linux or BSD setup won't phone home outside of repository downloads unless requested.

This is the Little Snitch[0] problem. If you have ever used Little Snitch, you will soon realize that 1) there is so much crap phoning home and 2) most people do not want to deal with giving permission to each and every one of these services. I have tried giving permission and at the end of the day, it's just not worth the time. For me, Little Snitch is great as a reporting tool but it's just too much work as a firew…

> most people do not want to deal with giving permission to each and every one of these services.

It’s far worse than just annoying: if people have to give permission to a bunch of things they don’t understand, they will absolutely give permission to something they shouldn’t.

You want the user to make a few decisions as possible, and every single one should be an actual decision: where the user knows what the options are, has an actual stake, and might legitimately choose either option depending on their preferences and circumstance.

The more times they have to click “yes” without thinking, the more susceptible to malware they become.

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