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macOS Big Sur Preview

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Re: macOS Big Sur Preview

#261

Post by jki275 »

fareesh wrote: post #210
GeekyBear wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Honestly, every time Apple has done anything with the Mac the past couple of years, they've screwed it up. Compared to what OS? The latest Windows 10 update buggers up Storage Spaces and printing, hard on the heels of another Windows 10 Update that deleted the user's files.

Is it uncommon for folks to use a Linux desktop as their primary OS? I've been doing so for about 10 years and I've had no complaints. Whenever I need some specific software I boot to Windows or use Virtualbox. I also have a Macbook Pro 2015

Uncommon? Yes. Very few people run Linux as a their primary OS.

Re: macOS Big Sur Preview

#262

Post by AJRF »

I'm glad I finally no longer need macOS to have a nice developer experience. Docker & WSL2 are all I really need to do development these days. Back when I started using macOS, Windows seemed pretty dire for developers unless you were in the .NET and back then web-dev.

Around the time ruby on rails was becoming super-popular I noticed a lot of developers getting MacBooks through their workplace and that kind of caught on as it was easy to install all the cool new dev tools that came out after that like Node etc. Apple built up a nice cache with developers and from 2007-2018 the circles I ran in you would be hard pressed to find a developer using Windows.

All this time Microsoft were in the background diligently putting together a grand strategy for getting back developer mind-share, and they have done a spectacular job. VSCode + Visual Studio Community Edition, WSL & WSL2, The new terminal experience, supporting Docker, buying GitHub, open sourcing .NET, improving Azure and just constantly tightening up Windows 10.

They've put their best foot forward going into the future and I am so glad because during the time all the cache Apple have built up has eroded. The keyboards, the kernel panics in Catalina, the MacBooks have been unspectacular, they just won't fix bugs, Swift is unused outside of iOS dev, Catalinas false promise of "just click a button to make your iOS app work on macOS", iOS has stagnated feature wise, Xcode is a malignant tumour that rears its ugly face when you try and use git for the first time, and they keep railroading down this road towards iOS-ification of all their platforms.

Developers wanted the iPad to become more like macOS - and with Big Sur it looks like they've pulled a reverse Uno card.

Re: macOS Big Sur Preview

#263

Post by haroldp »

adambware wrote: post #193

They've added padding to the design nearly everywhere - "menu bar is now taller", "Dock is lifted from the bottom", and the extra padding on the Sidebars is obvious. As a power user of a Macbook Pro, this is cutting into my screen real estate and not very appealing to me.

But think of all the space saved by turning every web browser's title bar into tabs or location bars. So what if you're left with 8 pixels to grab a window with your mouse and move it!

Re: macOS Big Sur Preview

#264

Post by jki275 »

jbverschoor wrote: post #233
untog wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does it need to be compared to any OS? One of the reasons I switched to Mac was the OS X was far more stable than Windows. I still want a stable OS.

I have biweekly kernel panics on macOS... somewhere in the io sub system. Luckily vscode etc store their state

You have a hardware problem.

Re: macOS Big Sur Preview

#265

Post by WorldMaker »

AlexandrB wrote: post #110
SenHeng wrote: post #84

I’m surprised at all the negative takes. I thought it was refreshing, they’re reintroducing colours and icons, cleaning up and using a consistent design language across platforms, and introducing new, well tested convenience features.

> cleaning up and using a consistent design language across platforms This is not a positive. A laptop is not a big iPhone and shouldn't use the same design language. One of the worst thing about Windows 10 is its use of huge, touch-friendly interfaces in an OS most commonly used with a keyboard and mouse. MacOS appears to be headed the same way (and it doesn't even support touch screens).

Per Fitz's Law, touch-friendly is mouse friendly. The larger the click target the faster and easier it is to click, especially as the distance between the current mouse position and the target increases. It's a huge mouse accessibility win to design touch-first target sizes, and there's decades of UX research on that topic. Just because the mouse is precise enough to do it doesn't mean that users should have to "360 no-scope" all of their apps every day.

Re: macOS Big Sur Preview

#266

Post by andrekandre »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #180
xrisk wrote: post #11

Oh god that new Mail app looks disgusting. Reminds me of a shitty Electron app, that kind of design.

Anyone who uses Exchange servers or Office 365 should switch to Outlook. It's like the grown-up, adult brother of Apple's mail client.

sort of... the fact it doesnt use the native notification system is super annoying because outlook brings itself (and all its windows) front and center whenever a reminder happens, disturbing my work...

Re: macOS Big Sur Preview

#267

Post by gtf21 »

heavyset_go wrote: post #136
AnonC wrote: post #34

The UI and UX seem to be getting worse on macOS with the “iOSification” of the OS. I thought Jony Ive’s exit would stop that trend. It’ll be interesting to read perspectives from John Gruber, M J Tsai, Marco Arment, etc. I still haven’t upgraded from Mojave to Catalina because of serious bugs reported by other people (including data loss issues in Mail). I’ll see if Big Sur shows improvements (reported by others) and…

Catalina was the primary motivator to move back to Linux for myself, and I don't regret it. If you care about things like this, you can configure Plasma Desktop with macOS features and shortcuts and end up feeling right at home.

Catalina was the straw that broke this camel's back as well. 15 years on a Mac and I'm back on Linux.

Re: macOS Big Sur Preview

#268

Post by ciupicri »

irshadshalu wrote: post #215
GeekyBear wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Honestly, every time Apple has done anything with the Mac the past couple of years, they've screwed it up. Compared to what OS? The latest Windows 10 update buggers up Storage Spaces and printing, hard on the heels of another Windows 10 Update that deleted the user's files.

can't speak about the very recent updates, but windows have been consistent and adamant on keeping the backward compatibility. they still use reserved file names for io devices so that 30+ year old printers can still work, and you can still open a 2000s doc file in office 365. (I'm looking at you Apple, who made many of the 32 bit apps I loved useless) relevant video: https://youtu.be/bC6tngl0PTI (Tom Scott: Why you…

Actually you can use CON as a filename in Windows, you just have to use the right API. The command:

    type CON > "\\?\C:\CON"
will create a file named CON. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/fileio/naming... has some details about this.

Re: macOS Big Sur Preview

#269

Post by kemayo »

KenanSulayman wrote: post #231

Apple wants members of their $500 Universal App Quick Start program to send back their Developer Transition Kit (DTK) units after the program automatically expires (!) after one year. [1] Citing directly from this document: > You agree to promptly return the Developer Transition Kit to the Apple address designated by Apple no later than thirty (30) days after the end of the Term, or as otherwise earlier requested by…

It's what they did back in the Intel transition, also. They then sent everyone who'd had one a new Intel iMac, so it's plausible that they might do something like that again this time. (But don't count on it -- it wasn't promised last time either.)

Re: macOS Big Sur Preview

#270

Post by jki275 »

mmastrac wrote: post #202
jtbayly wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just read about this here: https://talk.tidbits.com/t/psa-catalina-spotlight-is-broken-... It's one of the most recent reasons I have yet to update to Catalina.

Oh huh. I use that feature pretty often. I have my fan speeds ramped up to max 24/7 so I never noticed mds_stores going crazy but - yep there it goes.

I just did it, cpu did ramp up, but dropped right back to normal as soon as I closed the calculator. odd.
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