Live data from Hacker News

Impressions from a first-time Mac user

loganmarchione.com

321–330 of 756 posts

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#321
post #124

> While macOS isn’t POSIX-certified, it is Single Unix Specification UNIX 03 registered and compliant. This sounds wrong. Isn’t POSIX a mandatory subset of the Single Unix Specification? Hence it is inherently certified.

OP here. I was mainly going off of this (2nd paragraph).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system)

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right...like if I made a blog post about my experience using Windows when I'm forced to, it'd surely be more than a few paragraphs long. The UI in MacOS isn't perfect but it's a lot better than the state of Windows 10, not even close.

I dunno, I really like being able to set out my most-used apps and cycle between them with Win+n - much quicker than alt tab / cmd tab. But then that’s not obvious unless you’ve read any of the documentation - so that’s another question, how many people actually read up about their OS features ?

No post body was provided.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Spotlight is a really good search tool, and it's worth occasionally letting it build its index. You mostly only notice this when you've changes a whole bunch of files or setup the computer for the first time. It really is short-term pain for long-term gain, because Spotlight is phenomenal at finding anything on the Mac in a really short amount of time. That being said, if you're in the dev-space, I'd recommend using…

It's not worth it if my computer heats up to 85 degrees for an hour and a half every few days. Really throws a wrench in my productivity and has already made me miss a couple meetings. Raycast looks neat, but I'm not interested in adding Yet Another Random Closed-Source Tool to my Mac. At this point I'm mostly using it as a dumb terminal and even that is testing my limits with how annoying Homebrew and the FreeBSD 4.…

> has already made me miss a couple meetings.

Congratulations on a novel permutation of “the dog ate my meeting notification” :-)

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, so you can actually do this but the keyboard sequence is a bit bonkers. * Hold down Command and press Tab until the application icon representing the minimised window is highlighted. * Release Tab but DONT let go of Command. * Now press Option too so you are holding down Command + Option * Now release Command so you are just holding down Option * Finally release Option Amazingly this will then maximise the window…

You can also tab to the application, hit the up arrow and use the arrow keys to select the minimized window then hit enter. In fact, my command-tab workflow is: command-tab to open the Switcher and then arrows to switch application/window

Also, when it comes to maximizing, the green button changes modes when you hover over it with Option held and switches to tiling the window left/right or maximizing it. In general, holding Option on Mac toggles alternate behaviors for menus and buttons. (Special callout to Option+dragging a window edge)

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#325

There's a lot of people in comments defending macOS saying that the difference in switching between operating systems will lead to a bad experience no matter what and people just need to power through and learn the new system. I'll say that I've used Windows and macOS both personally and professionally for two decades now (longer for Windows). I'd consider myself a power user in both OSes, I know the keyboard shortcu…

> My experience is that Windows has far better UX for pretty most end users. UPDATE: After seeing a reply to this comment, I googled some screenshots. It seems that Macs normally do display a hint for the shortcut to delete files. I'm not sure why mine doesn't. Windows is also more learnable. On Mac at least today you're just supposed to know stuff. The most basic operation: deleting files. Seems like an operation yo…

Finder tells you the keyboard shortcut to Delete a file in the menu. Most every menu item on macOS that has a keyboard shortcut exposes it in this way through the menu, which is one nice feature that macOS has that Windows doesn’t have, but could have.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes exactly.

I've seen this mention between comments and the article, but there is such an option! Or am I thinking of something else? If you go to "System Preferences" > Mouse > unclick "Scroll Direction: Natural". Am I missing something?

Unless they've changed it really recently you can't have a mouse scroll "unnaturally" and a trackpad "naturally". They're tied together for some reason. You need a 3rd party utility to it.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right...like if I made a blog post about my experience using Windows when I'm forced to, it'd surely be more than a few paragraphs long. The UI in MacOS isn't perfect but it's a lot better than the state of Windows 10, not even close.

I dunno, I really like being able to set out my most-used apps and cycle between them with Win+n - much quicker than alt tab / cmd tab. But then that’s not obvious unless you’ve read any of the documentation - so that’s another question, how many people actually read up about their OS features ?

I've always felt like Apple [desktop] tries to make choices based on what's intuitive for the user, presumably through user testing, whereas Windows historically made choices that developers prefer. My impression is Windows has tried to become more user friendly over time, but it has baggage that results in trying to satisfy two influential groups. Maybe this describes a lot of software, but for better or for worse I think Apple makes a more concerted effort at putting users ahead of developer desires, or at least not sacrificing usability in favor of power users.

I have an iPhone now but I prefer Android's flexibility. I really miss the Google Translate button that comes up automatically if I copy some text. On iPhone, to translate some text, I need to copy, open the other app, make sure 'detect language' is selected, and paste. On Android that was two clicks.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#328
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The author makes a big deal of lack of snapping. Frankly I've never seen the utility of it on OS's that do have it, infact I've always felt it more of a hinderance than a help (gets in the way, tries to snap when you don't want it to). It may be useful for users of large external monitors, allowing to make better use of the screen real estate. Then again, Macos lacks per-application menu bars, which means you canno…

> It may be useful for users of large external monitors, allowing to make better use of the screen real estate OP here. This is exactly why I want snapping (I'm using a 27" 1440p monitor)

I’m using a 40” 4k monitor for Win10, and never found snapping to be attractive, although I routinely have about 20 active windows.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#329
You don't need an app for window splitting. If you hold Option ⌥ key and hover over the green circle, there will be "Move Window to Left side of the screen" and "Move Window to Right side of the screen" options presented instead of "Tile Window to Left of Screen" and "Tile Window to Right of Screen" options. Those don't create a new virtual desktop.

Re: Impressions from a first-time Mac user

#330
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funnily enough, for the ~5 years I used macOS, the Window Manager was the most frustrating aspect for me. I could not maximize apps (there was only a weird fullscreen/focus mode), I would accidentally end up dragging a window very often etc. All this gave ended up creating this feeling in my brain that the windows are just "floating" on the screen instead of being tightly bound to an arrangement.

You're not really 'supposed' to maximize or even tile apps on the Mac. In most cases it's a waste of screen space. The Mac has always been focused around the desktop metaphor. Historically applications were composed of multiple windows, and focusing a window in an application brought all of the other windows for that application to the front. You would manually arrange each of the windows/palettes of your application…

At this point, my work is around tasks, not applications. I hardly ever need more than one window in the same application simultaneously. What I need is my browser open next to a document, or a spreadsheet open next to powerpoint.
Post reply on HN