You have demonstrated exactly why I don't care how fast the M1 runs, I'm not buying Apple hardware. Not until I start hearing that they have done something about their long quality slide.
Comments like these always make me wonder if I'm the only person in the world still delighted by Apple products. I mean I alone can not be responsible for their sales volume.
And then I start to wonder if I should be more critical of Apple, so I fire up my Windows machine and think silently "No, this is still a worse experience". So I fire up my Ubuntu and have the same reaction. I just don't understand the vitriol some people have for Apple, to me it is hands down always the better platform.
At least for me the reaction is largely emotional. I like using my linux desktop because I can set it up exactly how I want, and macOS just doesn't roll that way. Now, I'm not really the target market, so whatever, but there are a few things that upset me about it:
1. I could really, really love macOS if they had a "don't treat me like a child" checkbox I could hit somewhere that would turn off some of the more obnoxious default behaviors. It took me a solid 5 minutes to figure out how to navigate to the root of the filesystem on a new MBP I recently was given at a new job. The most intuitive thing I could think to do was double click the name of the folder I was in ("Recents", by default when you first open it), which seems to do nothing except make a little icon appear and grow/shrink the window in Big Sur. Neat. The left pane, by default, literally has no means of navigating to the filesystem root. OSX has seemingly always wanted to pretend the filesystem doesn't exist. I like the filesystem. Stop trying to hide things from me.
2. This point is actually more a credit to apple than anything - the rendering, touch input, display management, etc on macOS is stellar, and it makes me angry I can't have the same level of polish on my linux install. I really, really want something that is as smooth as the macOS experience but with the customize-ability of linux. Apple pisses me off because they are incredibly close to that goal but they find it philosophically objectionable (for business reasons that I understand, but it still pisses me off)
> I like using my linux desktop because I can set it up exactly how I want, and macOS just doesn't roll that way.
I'm not trying to have an argument here, but I've never really understood what is the "exactly how you want" that Mac OS doesn't provide? Would you mind sharing some details? Is it just a matter of not being familiar with the places to change the defaults to something more to your liking, or is it actually missing the ability to do something you need?
I've been a Mac user since the 80s, I write software for a living, and I understand that among tech folk there is a continental divide between convention and configuration, and I think that might translate to choice in OS, too. Seems to me that most Mac users are on the convention over configuration side, and most people who are anti-MacOS are the opposite; they want to configure every bit. Just wondering if that's the case here, too, or if there's more to it specifically.
To some extent you're totally right. I can elaborate.
Some of it are technical choices Apple has made that make things hard. I like tiling window managers. The best (only?) one for OSX now requires you to go disable SIP to use it: https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai/wiki/Disabling-System-I... -- this wouldn't be the case if Apple cared at all to support these sorts of use-cases, but they don't, so it suffers collateral damage from their attempts to improve security. (Again, totally reasonable business choice. Not a ton of people in this boat, but turns me off. Why can't I do this by clicking something in system prefs like when I open a downloaded app?)
Another one is, as a developer who once worked at a shop that shipped three-os software, their policies relating to macOS licensing are comical. It's almost like they don't want you to develop for Mac at all unless you're going to exclusively develop for Mac. We had moved everything to the cloud, but we still had a room full of stupid mac minis just to run our build farm. Ridiculous. The new news about mac minis in AWS is an ever-so-slight improvement.
Some of it is definitely the familiarity you describe. I don't want to have to get used to all the weird bsd-ish-but-not-really versions of the common CLI tools. I have no interest in learning apple script, etc. I'm being fairly obviously hypocritical because I was willing to learn a bunch about obscure config files on linux. But, my experience has often been that things I would be willing to invest to customize on macOS are simply not customizeable.
And, hey, perhaps I would've been willing to go through all that were it (reasonably) possible to run OSX on commodity hardware, but as a kid learning programming in the 90's macs were damn expensive compared to windows alternatives. So, I grew up on windows. It's still true. Today I could afford a Mac Pro, but it's a laughable value proposition (easily 3x-5x the cost for equivalent power) compared to building my own linux box (as to the 'your time is money!' counterargument people sometimes make here - it takes me about 2 hours to build a PC and my linux box hasn't panicked or booted improperly once). This used to make sense to me when the OS/hardware was more tightly integrated, but I don't really see how a macPro is any different than the equivalent PC you could build with the same CPU/GPU combos except more expensive and less flexible (admittedly, with a stunning case -- their manufacturing quality is incredible). Maybe they'll realize those benefits again with the M1, which is certainly cool.
Lastly, I'll never forgive them for starting the trend of eliminating 3.5mm jacks on phones.
TLDR; You're probably right. Macs aren't a great choice if you're a power user (read: control freak) with your PC.
I'm actually right there with you with your development related digs on Apple. They're draconian, and it's only gotten worse in the Tim Cook era. The major beef I've had with them the last decade are the whole slew of absurd (imo) hardware/design decisions and tiny oversights that never would've flown under the old Apple. Losing the headphone port to get a slightly thinner phone nobody was asking for? Shipping those damn butterfly keyboards? Ditching MagSafe power cords for "USB C everywhere" (but not on phones and not all usb C cables are power cables)? Pushing the Touch Bar like it’s the solution to everything when it solves nothing? Da fuq? I could go on. Just one silly thing after the other while I imagine them all patting themselves on the back for a job well done while watching that money pour in. And the prices! Macs were always expensive but damn did this last set of Pro level laptops and desktops get stupid expensive.
It's almost like they put a numbers guy in the CEO role of a formerly design obsessed company and the metric turned from "is this insanely great?" to "will this get us to the _next_ trillion dollars?"
So yeah, as a lifelong Apple user I've had some major beef. There's plenty to complain about. But with that all being said, I’ve been pretty happy experience and productivity wise running an old 2013 MacBook Pro and and a tiny iPhone SE and never considered leaving the Apple ecosystem, because honestly… what’s the alternative? Windows feels like nonsense to me, Google is privacy nightmare, and going full Linux feels like… work. I'm sure it would be possible to carve out a nice system and find some linux gui that doesn't look like complete garbage, tweak my settings just right, and find all the free versions of the apps I need. But at the end of the day I don't think I'd get that "it just works" feeling I still get with Mac OS—for me I'd think it'd feel like a successfully completed science project.
So for me, even at their worst, Apple is still best. And this M1 news and the new iPhone form factors (the 12 mini, specifically) has given me some hope that maybe they haven't completely lost their way.
> Why can't I do this by clicking something in system prefs like when I open a downloaded app?
If you could change it in system preferences it'd defeat the entire point of SIP, which is to run the OS rootless. Your user isn't privileged enough to disable it which is why you need to boot into recovery mode in order to disable it. This feature isn't unique to MacOS, either [1].
And of course, if you don't like it, you can disable it once and never have to think about it again! At worst you're running with true root privileges, which isn't different from linux.
For what it's worth, Yabai's tiling actually works fine without disabling SIP. Your link enumerates the features that requires disabling SIP.
> But, my experience has often been that things I would be willing to invest to customize on macOS are simply not customizeable.
A lot of the time it's definitely more convoluted to customize MacOS though i am curious what sorts of things you are trying to customize that you couldn't.
> (as to the 'your time is money!' counterargument people sometimes make here - it takes me about 2 hours to build a PC and my linux box hasn't panicked or booted improperly once).
When people say "your time is money" with regards to using Linux, it's rarely about building a computer and generally has to do with using the OS itself.
> TLDR; You're probably right. Macs aren't a great choice if you're a power user (read: control freak) with your PC.
I think it's more that it's not a great choice if you don't want to invest the same amount of time you've invested in learning how to be a power user in a different operating system.
I think your last point is definitely valid. Best counterpoint I could make there is investing the time in linux is probably more widely valuable/applicable in terms of being able to apply it on the job.
I learned a bunch of linux stuff for fun, and it's helped me a lot in my job. I dunno if I could say the same about macOS.
Thanks for a really balanced comment. Just on the ability to customise point - I've always thought that the Mac strikes a good balance - most things I want to change I can (including what is shown in the Finder sidebar) but also things that I really shouldn't be spending my time on I can't. Much as I like much of the linux distros I've tried I spend too much time tinkering!
> Comments like these always make me wonder if I'm the only person in the world still delighted by Apple products. I mean I alone can not be responsible for their sales volume.
I agree with you, but I've admittedly never used macOS migration assistant because I find it easier to just copy over a few directories and get to work.
Even when I've had Apple products fail, I've had great experiences with support in and out of warranty. And the little touches how devices interop and the like are a delight.
I have had too many issues that were too complicated to solve. Add to that weird hardware issues (the touch-ic debacle hit me and apple was shitty about it, 2 failed SATA cables (WTF!!) and the apple store wanted to charge me $500 and burn my data. What was the chip that magically became desoldered in newer macbooks? I had that. Apple fixed it not by resoldering, but by putting a rubber thing on the chip that made the chassi push it in place. For that they 1. deleted all my data and 2. claimed warranty didn't cover it. I ended up having to go through the Swedish consumer agency.
I think they make decent stuff but are quite possibly the worst company I have ever dealt with. I will never buy an apple product ever again. It was like an abusive relationship.
Mac always works great for me, the hardware (post keyboard fix or pre keyboard problems) is good, so I stick with it.
For 95% of users, Mac just works with the exception of how MS Office programs can be pretty meh on Mac.
I have tried Linux machines at work and at home, and I appreciate the open values of Linux, but I think it's few years before touchpads and multi-screen graphics are really as slick and reliable as Mac for everyone not just HN power users.
The tinkerer in me will buy a Linux machine eventually, but I have tendency to tinker instead of getting things done, which prevents me from going Linux at the moment. Mac OS just works, feels, and looks good by default and gets out of my way.
I am also waiting to see how the next couple of years of CPU wars plays out before committing to a Linux laptop like a ThinkPad with all that stuff soldered in place.
Can't see myself ever going back to Windows which I grew up with. Windows 10 just looks and feels and acts miserable.
Apple's better, but not nearly as good as they could be. Even MacOS doesn't follow their human interface guidelines. The butterfly keyboards really are sensitive to dirt, it's a problem. The touchbar is bad, it's really bad. MacOS does not have much of a lead over windows in terms of usability, and is much worse at multitasking (not at a technical level, at a UI level.) The obsession with thinness is a bit much, and they have pushed it to the point where they have compromised internal reliability and build quality and cut off ports and useful features for millimeters no one cares about. Their machines are now hot glued together and nigh unrepairable and unrecyclable, and so an environmental catastrophe as well.
They can do better. The M1 is an example of the kind of thing they're capable of pulling off from their position. It's much like Warren Buffett once said, Berkshire Hathaway, the company that made him one of the wealthiest men in the world, was the biggest mistake of his life--the opportunity cost was going into insurance, where he projects he could've made much more money.
They're the best, but a sorry disappointment compared to what they could be.
You're not the only person. I have my share of complaints, to be sure, and I do genuinely think their software QA has dropped over the last five or six years -- and their tendency to provide little to no diagnostic information when anything goes wrong is an occasional source of frustration. (I think their hardware is still pretty good, but the utter failure of the butterfly keyboard -- with some of the "why is this thing here" reaction the market has had to the Touch Bar thrown in -- has overshadowed that.) But I still like Apple products, by and large. I like the software that I'm using that's Mac-only. I still find a lot of small little things about the UX to be nicer, for me, than even recent experiences with Windows and various flavors of Linux. I could certainly move to Linux if I felt that I had to, but I suspect I'd spend literally years hitting what I considered to be rough edges.
And, to the OP's point, I've used Migration Assistant a fair amount over the years and it's always worked fine for me, and I don't think I've come across many, if any, stories of it seriously failing before.
I've had my share of Apple skepticism over the years (and even some unwarranted Apple hate earlier in my life), but these days, I use Apple products because for the most part, they just work.
There are absolutely valid criticisms of Apple and their products, but this is not limited to Apple. It does seem that critics are especially vocal, and this drowns out the happy users who don't necessarily have reasons to go around proclaiming their happiness.
Ok, well let me add that I do find it good. I never seem to have the problems people complain about. I don't know why, so I'm always baffled by all the complaints.
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25238688 for the last time that I expressed this opinion on HN.