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Welcome (back) to Macintosh

take.surf

91–100 of 276 posts

Re: Welcome (back) to Macintosh

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what worries me. I’ve used Time Machine for almost 20 years and it has provided seamless transitions to new MacBooks. But how do I know if it is currently borked?

I heard in the past that Time Machine backups would inevitably become corrupt because of a fundamental defect. Pretty vague, I realize, but I wouldn't have used it anyway; I rely on Carbon Copy Cloner to back up only what's important.

The problem was directory hard links. Fortunately that particular issue was resolved by replacing it with APFS snapshots. But the reputation damage is done; I don’t really trust Time Machine.

Re: Welcome (back) to Macintosh

#92

Another issue I wanted to rant about is sleep. My last three desktop macs (Mac mini i7, iMac 5k, Mac Studio M2 Max) would with 50% probability wake up seconds after clicking “Sleep”. I have gotten used to having to do a “double sleep” routine.

I have an M4 Max Mac Studio, and my record is 5 clicks. I found the success rate much improved after I assigned a keyboard shortcut; I have had it quickly wake up again a couple of times, so it's still not quite perfect, but that's very much the exception now.

Some tiny bit of input from the mouse, which I'm possibly not holding quite perfectly still post-click, perhaps? I can only assume so. The odd thing about it, though: none of my laptop Macs had this problem, even though I am using the same keyboard, the same mouse, and the same USB hub. Something must be different, somewhere. I wonder what.

Re: Welcome (back) to Macintosh

#93
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

They definitely do. But in my experience they "accumulate".

Like, things all work pretty well at first. And then god only knows what happens as config and preference files get into weird states, and temp files accumulate and never get deleted, and cache files get stuck with old info and refuse to update, and god only knows.

So people with relatively new installations have a pretty good time, while people who have migrated their data across three MacBooks over ten years are encountering problems left and right.

I reinstalled Sequoia fresh last year because some mystery process would slowly consume 50GB of disk space over the course of every two weeks, no disk utility could locate any file responsible, but restarting reset it. But with the fresh reinstall, everything started working fine again. It's annoying. Then I upgraded to Tahoe and zero problems. But I'm sure they'll gradually start appearing over the next year or two.

Re: Welcome (back) to Macintosh

#94
post #23

Apart from the mess it caused for iPhone and Mac, my watch upgraded last night to 26 flavor. I am not kidding - I can't see anything on the screen now before coffee. Watch has become completely useless for my early morning eyes. What they did to Watch is much worse than what they did to iPhone and Mac

ATP spent like an hour complaining about workouts on watchOS 26; if they’re railing against the machine something is very broken.

Re: Welcome (back) to Macintosh

#95

I've been running Tahoe since 26.2, after cowardly skipping 0 and 1. And... it's fine? Am I only using the happy path? Or are people just particularly confident about complaining about Tahoe after seeing everyone else do it. For sure it has glitches, but as far as I can tell, they're the same glitches that were in Sequoia. (If anyone at Apple is reading this, can you take a glance at your NFS client code? It does lik…

> And... it's fine? Am I only using the happy path?

In my experience, the OS is as good as it's ever been. I've had to restart a Tahoe machine for something other than updates maybe once with macOS 26, and my main workstation is used 12+ hours/day.

In the HN Extended Universe, everyone using macOS has perpetually Had Enough and "begun to switch to Linux", while in the real world, Apple shipped 10%+ more Macs in 2025 than they did in 2024.

Re: Welcome (back) to Macintosh

#96
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry but if your out is linux and windows because you're not happy how stuff doesn't "just work" in the Apple ecosystem boy are you in for a bad surprise. However bad you think Apple is getting with MacOS - windows is getting worse. And Linux ? Good luck getting decent hardware that will run without having basic functionality issues. Queue the linux brigade "my PC works perfect, what linux issues are you having"…

We seem to have a world where neither Linux, nor MacOS, nor Windows "just work". None of them have meaningful support channels for individuals. All of them have issues. They're very similar in these ways. The first of these systems is actionable: When it doesn't work, it can generally be made to work. The whole journey may be an awful affair for the entire duration, but a person can usually (not always!) get there. T…

> The first of these systems is actionable: When it doesn't work, it can generally be made to work. The whole journey may be an awful affair for the entire duration, but a person can usually

It's also important to mention that it is more likely a person would get help along the way.

And - it should also be said that there are non-Linux free operating systems, like the BSD's, for which it can also "generally be made to work". And there's the more niche HaikuOS (where I don't know if what doesn't work can be made to work, but people do use it).

Re: Welcome (back) to Macintosh

#97
post #61

Apple hasn't been able to ship software in decades. They got bored of computing. Writing was on the wall when they started producing movies because Hollywood people are cooler than nerds and hey why earn a giant cash pile if not for some execs to have fun with it. This is a company which hasn't done anything meaningful to innovate since Steve Jobs died. Yeah I have all Apple gear. It's fine. Whatever. Nicest commodit…

To be fair, apple silicon is quite an innovation. Or did you mean only software? Perhaps, Rosetta 2 and the hypervisor/container thingy? Those are pretty cool.

Apple Silicon and Rosetta 2 are amazing precisely because the One Eye of Cupertino isn’t watching them so they can get real work done.

Everyone else is mandated to make things unlickable.

Re: Welcome (back) to Macintosh

#98

I was a big Mac user. I had a IIcx and an LC, and I evangelized it even when apple stock was $0.95 and the wolves were at the door. I couldn't afford a PowerMac at the time, but I generally used them at the university when I could. I had a desk lamp iMac, then bought the first big screen iMac, which lasted me quite a while. I really liked everything up to Snow Leopard, probably a little beyond that, too. But in a lon…

I'm like you.

I loved Apple IIs at schools and libraries as a young child, fell in love with my Mac IIsi at home at the age of 7. Later, at 13, I had a Macintosh-evangelizing web site and mailing list that Guy Kawasaki (Apple's lead evangelist) even subscribed to.

I've been a primary Mac user through the 68k, PowerPC, Intel, and Apple Silicon days, from System 6.0.7 through today. Got an original iPhone and iPad, have upgraded my iPhone every few years since.

The technofeudalism, bugginess, and UI crappiness has me done and looking for the exits, to say nothing of the embrace of Trump. My next laptop won't be a Mac, and my next phone won't be an iPhone.

Re: Welcome (back) to Macintosh

#99
post #32
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's really sad. When this was introduced (With Lion I believe?) it was such a cool feature to demo to people that didn't have much exposure to Macs yet at that time. Just deleting and restoring a file on the Desktop with the "Space UI" and backups just being there and working without buying complicated backup software was a genuine peak macOS moment. Now I'm barely using it as every few months I'm prompted to just d…

I have set up Time Machine backups for literally hundreds, if not thousands of people in a support role over many years and have hardly ever witnessed this happening. It's one thing to say you may have had to do this once or twice in a decade or the like, but every few months is ridiculous and speaks to some other underlying issue with your setup, like a quietly failing drive or bad cable, etc. I'm not one of these '…

For me, it's backing up over a network share. My Synology NAS works perfectly and flawlessly for literally everything else. It's RAID 1. It supports Time Machine. But somehow it would get corrupted every few months and I'd have to start it all over.

Tons of people complain about this. I suspect it's some subtle bug with sparse bundles and SMB.

Re: Welcome (back) to Macintosh

#100

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…

From an outsider just going by what you wrote: you are trading a $2000+ year-old computer for a new $2000+ computer because you are annoyed about some temporary problems (yes, they are temporary). Apple marketers are just going to think that in another year you’re going to get annoyed by some Linux thing (yes, there will be something annoying) and buy a brand new $2000+ Mac. These kind of posts get a lot of upvotes,…

> because you are annoyed about some temporary problems

I mean, all problems are temporary, time is money etc. etc. And there are signs that suggest that some of these problems (namely freedom to run your own software) are not going to get resolved soon. Is there something deeper in your thought that I missed?

> These kind of posts get a lot of upvotes, but they do nothing to change corporate behavior.

I don't understand, we are on a discussion forum. Of course writing comments here does not influence what Apple does, that's not what HN is for, I think (I hope) that everyone already assumes that. Why do you feel the need to point that out?

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