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Why I left Mac for Windows: Apple has given up

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

#661

Post by antfarm »

freehunter wrote: post #239
Razengan wrote: post #152

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…

There's a lot to not like about Windows's UI, but Explorer is worlds better than Finder, there's absolutely no comparison. Every day I still struggle to remember how to go up a level. Option+Up? Nope that selects the next folder up. Control+Up? No, that made all of my windows do something weird that I don't know what that is. Ah, it's Command+Up. As far as I can tell, there's no non-keyboard way to do it. I can't cli…

Just cmd-click the window title. Works in every document-based native macOS app btw.

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

#662

Post by Veen »

diego_moita wrote: post #85

It is so funny to read these Apple vs. Windows discussions when you live outside of North America... The truth is that, for the rest of the world, "Apple platform" means only iOS, only the IPhone, nothing more. In Asia, Africa, Latin America and some parts of Europe, Macs and OSX are a rare species, most people spend years without even seeing a Mac computer "in the wild". They are used only for graphics editing and I…

I live in Hungary, and I see MacBooks all over the place, albeit typically older models. The only Toucbar MBP I've seen is mine.

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

#663

Post by mathw »

mgamache wrote: post #530
cocktailpeanuts wrote: post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Developers flock to the platform with more users. Which means Apple actually does need to focus on iOS to get more people to keep using mac. Those of us who are ios developers will keep bitching about it but have no alternative so will keep on using macs as long as their iOS ecosystem is doing great.

While this is generally true, it's a little more nuanced. For example: Android has a larger market share (by a lot globally), but apps are frequently developed for iOS first. Why? Because it's easier. Device fragmentation plays a large role in that, but part of the cost of the project is dealing with the development ecosystem (good or bad). As Apple makes the development less appealing (because of sub standard hardwa…

Sadly that's more a race to the bottom since Google still don't seem particularly interested in actually making the experience for Android developers any better.

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

#664

Post by antfarm »

andai wrote: post #289
Razengan wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you give a reason why Enter to open a file is ideal, other than just because it's how Windows does it? The Windows Explorer uses Alt+Enter to show the properties of something, and in games and other apps that shortcut means Full Screen. Also, why does Alt+F4 quit an app? What does F4 stand for? Compared to Cmd+Q to Quit or Cmd+W to close it's a lot less intuitive. And so on and so forth.

I still haven't figured out how to actually open a file/folder in Finder (with the keyboard).

There is even a shell command called "open" that opens its argument with the application Finder would use, or watever you pass as an option.

(As a sidenote, you can drag documents from the finder into a Terminal window and their absolute paths appear at the cursor position).

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

#665

Post by majewsky »

zargon wrote: post #604
bagels wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a serious statement, that windows update mines Bitcoin?

No.

Come to think of it, that's actually an interesting monetization scheme. "You can use our software for free, but when your computer idles, we use x% of its computing power for mining cryptocurrency" (or whatever profitable endeavor). It's of course disastrous from an environmental perspective, but still interesting.

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

#666

Post by lokedhs »

ido wrote: post #625
yabatopia wrote: post #608

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an Android user and I pay for things (?) and apps. Are you saying that I'm the only Android user who pays for apps and "things"? Or is your statement just a gratuitous cliche?

Statistically the average revenue per android user is lower than per iOS user. It's not a binary either/or. Source: have been a mobile developer for 6 years.

Is the average revenue per user a relevant number though? When it comes to choosing what platform to develop for, wouldn't total revenue be a more important number?

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

#667

Post by antfarm »

Something most people ignore when it comes to comparing Mac and PC price-wise is the cost for a license of the OS.

Currently, a license for Windows 10 Pro costs € 279 in the German Microsoft Store, while macOS Sierra is free for everyone who can run it. (Some say, Mac is the most expensive dongle.)

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

#668

Post by AsyncAwait »

johnny22 wrote: post #542
AsyncAwait wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After the initial setup, (which BTW is extremely well documented on the wiki), Arch is actually super user friendly. Compared to Ubuntu, you always get the latest software, never have to reinstall, aur has more esoteric software and pacman is faster than apt.

do you really still have to reinstall Ubuntu on upgrades? or are you using reinstall in a more figurative sense? I use Fedora, and the upgrade process tends to work. I remember there was a time when Ubuntu wasn't so great at upgrades in various situations, but I'd hoped that sort of thing would be fixed by now.

The Ubuntu upgrade process is still fairly broken if you have anything outside of the default install, but I am glad to hear that it works well enough on Fedora.

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

#669

Post by pjmlp »

lokedhs wrote: post #650
pjmlp wrote: post #639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Macs were already popular with developers. Apparently as someone that favors Xerox PARC way of thinking, I am not a developer, as I don't embrace the UNIX religion.

That's not what I said. I never meant to give the impression that “developers” necessarily means Unix users. A lot of them are though, definitely enough to be a noticeable fraction. The number of people in this very thread proclaiming the greatness of the Linux subsystem in Windows 10 should confirm this. You have to admit that around 2003 or so there was a huge influx of technical users to the Mac. My proposition is…

I agree, but on these discussions, that subset of developers just gets packaged into developers as whole, as if there wasn't anything else.

Personally I know UNIX since Xenix days, do have a vast experience across UNIX variants, use it in some form in many projects, but rather use OS X and Windows environment.

For strange as it may seem, some of us are actually happier with the GUI developer tooling culture of OS X, Windows, Android, iOS.

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

#670

Post by tnone »

bradgessler wrote: post #164
jmcdiesel wrote: post #17

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…

I too have become annoyed recently at really basic stuff not working in macOS, like I can't drag and drop a picture out of Photos app into Pixelmator to edit. In fact, dragging and dropping a picture out of Photos into any application is completely broken and doesn't work. Its as-if the Apple QA team no longer tests to make sure their applications play nice with each other in a way that has been fundamental to deskto…

I recently discovered the detailed and amazingly accessible Aqua Human Interface Guidelines from their golden years have been completely gutted and replaced with the macOS guidelines that cover only the basics. They've abandoned years of accumulated wisdom. Luckily the old versions still float around in PDF form, the first few chapters are just good timeless UI design advice.
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