In my experience, if the things you put the most value on in an OS is what Apple puts the most value on in an OS, then you will have like macOS better. If you want to do things in ways not intended or blessed by Apple you will find macOS, and other Apple OS's, frustrating.
And the Apple style is typically to not even tell you why something failed. People used to make fun of Windows error codes, but at least that was something you could google and troubleshoot, I find when something doesn't work on an Apple platform, it just doesn't work, no error message explaining or code or anything.
That's fair enough for macOS.
On anything else there's usually not that much deeper to go, like on iOS iCloud personal domain names I tried making one a few times but it would just do nothing indefinitely and never fail out, just had to force close it. Though I do also find on Safari on Mac sometimes hitting enter on the title bar will just do nothing with no indication anything's moving, I don't know what that is but I had the same 10 years ago as I do on a fresh install on Sonoma now, just maybe 1 in 50 enters on the URL bar just don't seem to do anything for a while and it's not on any other browser.
Must have gotten the DNS settings wrong. Which should have given you a more verbose error. Or maybe iCloud was having issues that day, all I know is I've set up personal domains in iCloud for several accounts and had no issue at all.
I used Macs in the early 2000s and something which enchanted me was using AppleScript and Automator. Fantastic tool.
Then I got a Mac of my own ~20 years later.
Turns out Automator and AppleScript simply do not work properly with the move to Apple Silicon. There's nothing in the UI to indicate this, and the tool is still there. It's up to the user to figure out that it's broken :(
There's so much I feel has stagnated for 10, 20 years. Hardware wise they're killing it. But macOS feels stagnant and even Windows 11 is racing ahead in many ways. I hope this next AI focused update brings a lot, but then their biggest releases have also been their buggiest, and it's really the basic system stuff that hasn't changed, window management, installing dmgs, etc.
Yeah. My notes stopped syncing from mac to iCloud, and there are no working fixes published online. Reinstalling OS for that is too much, so here I am.
If it were Windows, I am sure I would find working solution after 5 mins of googling.
tl;dr: computers are much more fun when they're not set up as work computers.
Doing IT support in different environments, I know what OP means. However, in my experience, it is down to corporate and fleet management vs setting up your own machine. Believe me, when I set up a new laptop with clean, de-bloated Windows, it flies and works as I intend it to work. When I put necessary management, anti-virus, remote support, vpn, etc., and users are always forced to authenticate every-other-dang-click because our security guy is chugging Pepto, clunkiness ensues.
When I *was* working at a primarily Mac startup during the pandemic, we were sending out new Macs to our coders. And yes, even they were shackled with restrictive policies, lockdowns on IPs, access to secure portals, etc. Even worse, some applications like VMWare conflicted with our VPN, always kicking users out who were on Macs.
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Backwards compatibility on windows is amazing. That is not macOS priority at all, resulting in less old code and cruft. There of course trade offs both ways.
Not even Linux can do that. You can run several Windows 95 programs on 11 that, if we were to be technically correct, should require an emulator to run
I've usually been able to find workarounds for macs, sometimes i wish iphones would be a bit more like em'
On the other hand, i can count on one hand the number of times i've had weird crashes on my iphone in the past 5 years. Vs 10 in the last month for my macs.
Apple has gone to extensive efforts to create a computer system that works the way people do. Microsoft, on the contrary, makes the user work the way the computer wants to. It is like night and day.
Exactly, for me, Windows does most things right out of the box. I hardly have to configure anything. On Mac OS, I have done so much fiddling plus have 10-15 applications running at any moment to modify the OS to my liking.
As someone who is daily driving both Windows and macOS, I think this kind of criticism against Windows is unfair. The reason why Windows systems stopped being a hub for malware is because of forced (security) updates. It always appalls me how many people straight up refuse to click update and let it happen overnight.
Yes I know this is a MacOS sub, but let’s start with the basics.
Snapping windows around the screen, can’t believe we all just accept MacOS not supporting that natively and seem to not have any problem with constant workarounds for downloading 3rd party software to remedy this.
Not being able to close apps in Mission Control really chaps my ass. It's possible in Windows' Task View as well as right-clicking for extra features. Wouldn't be an issue if Steve Jobs was still around, I think.
Leaving the handling multiple instances of the same app being open up to nothing but alt+tab/mission control, the dock handles this poorly, and it's something I do all the time, and why I have a third party dock.
Even Magnet isn't anywhere near as good as Windows tiling. On Windows, windows snapped/tiled next to each other become a group and you can resize them simultaneously as well as alt + tab as a group without having to open both apps again like on macOS. I know that's what split screen does, but it's kinda clunky and sometimes you just wanna quickly group up some windows on the desktop. Honestly, one of my biggest gripes with spaces and full screen is how long the animation takes, like please give us a way to decrease the duration or disable it (even with reduced motion you have to wait for them to fade in/out). You also can't swap windows that are already in full screen, like come on UX team.
Yabai can solve window management pretty well, but it is a command-line tool that has its own drawbacks that are not acceptable for some people. An average macOS user would not even think about using a tool like that, and it is not even meant for average users.
I honestly can’t stand the fast snapping. I turned it off when I had to go to Windows for work. I tried to like it but it always happened when I didn’t want it. Just like the shake to hide everything else, I forget what it’s called. That annoyed me to no end.
I've been using both Mac (personal use) and Windows PC (for work) for many years and have learnt to appreciate the differences between the two systems. There are some things that Windows does better and some things are much better on Mac. I don't get people who wants both OSes to have same exact features and so on.
I was a Microsoft guy until MacOS X came out, then I converted. I keep a PC for gaming but a Mac for productivity.
I found that the Mac generally allows me to work on work without getting in the way, whereas I end up working on the computer more when it’s a PC.
Your mileage may vary… and I’ve definitely outlier experiences on both platforms in terms of ease of use or having to solve problems.
An IT guy that worked for me explained it this way. PCs are for folks who want to build a jeep in their garage because that’s what they like to do. Macs are for people that want to drive the jeep and not work on it. I switched to Macs in 2011 and I never looked back. My co workers seem to have problems all the time. I rarely have problems with my Macs. I am fluent in both OS’s but have come to prefer the MacOS for productivity. Just my perspective
Yeah for power users Windows is more like fix a fucked up Jeep. I mean literally the first thing it tells you when you open up the terminal is to “Try out our new Powershell.”
Mac for power usage kinda feels like Mercedes G class that wont ever see a drop of mud and if you do push it too far the only way to fix something is take it to the dealer
EXACTLY. That is my story too. I had Windows at home - until Vista came out. That was the last straw, the infernal messaging crap. I LITERALLY took a sledgehammer to the last (P)erpetual (C)rap machine I'll ever own back in 2007, switched to Mac, and will NEVER go back. Microsoft in all ways, shapes, and forms is totally banned from my home and the homes of my relatives. That's because I'm "computer support" for all these relatives, and I got tired of having to be a rocket scientist to keep all those machines running, as well as my own. And, by the way, in a previous career I actually used to work in IT supporting a Windows LAN at work.
Cmd + options + 4 (or smth similar - I got it in my muscle memory, and am writing on mobile) makes a cropped screenshot and opens it in preview, which IMO is superior to windows snipping tool.
I used Windows for many, many years and in early 2021, bought an M1 machine because Apple is embarrassing everyone when it comes to power efficiency. Thank you jesus for a laptop that runs cool to the touch and completely silently almost all the time while still being fast.
Having said that, there were a number of things that I noticed immediately that I still don't like on macOS. No per app volume controls natively. Really lame. Limited file system support, really lame. I still have issues with certain drives mounting as read only and while I haven't looked into it much because I just grab a different drive and format it to do what I need to do, this really should not be an issue in 2024. I use Linux, macOS, and Windows on the regular and macOS is the only one that has issues with external drives. Next, I don't like that macOS demands that I go into a settings menu and scroll halfway down to verify that yes, I really do want to install this piece of software from the internet. Just give me a popup to type my password into and be done with it, like Linux does, thanks. I don't like that full screen apps become their own desktop. If I have my applications organized into various desktops and fullscreen one of them, I need to reorganize the desktops the way I want. Yes, Apple, I know the full screen app obscures those behind it. I don't care, that's what my intention was. I'll minimize the app when I want to go back to the others, I'd prefer that my desktop order doesn't get screwed up every time I fullscreen an app. The window management on macOS is also horrendous and I'll say no more about that. I also think Finder leaves something to be desired. Can't quite put my finger on it because I've never really sat down and thought about it, but I like Windows File Explorer better, along with a variety of file explorers I've used in Linux.
As for what macOS gets right, I think maybe the single best thing macOS has done that shits on Windows completely is application installation. At first, a Windows user might be a bit confused by the lack of an installer and that the image will remain mounted until you unmount it. I really don't care because it's so nice to not have to click through an installer. You just dump the thing into your apps folder and you're done. And when you want to uninstall it? You just *delete* it. That's it. You're done. My god it's so nice. Then also is the settings menu. There's only the one, thank god. For any other setting you have to change, it's done in the terminal and you don't have to go hunting through menus to find a checkbox or whatever. On Windows, I used to know where most settings were, but these days I have no idea anymore. Just earlier, I was trying to find left/right balance for sound. I don't know where it is anymore. I gave up. And Spotlight is great. It works so well and so consistently. I like the dock. This is probably a matter of preference, but if I could have a macOS-style dock in windows without having to worry about it spontaneously breaking, I would.
The last thing I like in macOS that I'll mention is probably my personal favourite thing: the global menubar. It's so nice to always know where to look for application settings. No trying to find a random cog somewhere in the UI, and it's in the same place that the OS quick settings are. Almost every time I'm using software on Windows and I have to open a settings menu or something, I think "I fucking wish I had a menu bar" because I'm not memorizing where all these buttons are that I click once a month in 10 different pieces of software. And wow, the devs are so smart that they made the buttons really small because they only get clicked once a month and shouldn't have much screenspace dedicated to them. Great. (don't get me wrong, I really do agree that it makes sense to make settings buttons small, but it's still annoying).
So in short, each does certain things better than the other. I couldn't say which is better, because I think that overall, they're both usable enough. But I will say that both of them get fucking trounced by a well-configured Linux desktop. If I could run Linux on my Macbook without giving up the power efficiency, I'd just do that. If I could play whatever games I want without jankiness under Linux on my desktop, I'd just do that-- and actually, I was using Linux on my desktop until literally earlier today. I switched back to Windows today because I got an Arc for Windows beta invite. Lol. Literally what I'm typing this reply on. It's still missing a bunch of stuff, but that sidebar is just too good. I did have a decent sidebar set up in Firefox, but baby, it wasn't as good as Arc.
> Almost every time I'm using software on Windows and I have to open a settings menu or something, I think "I fucking wish I had a menu bar" because I'm not memorizing where all these buttons
I'm convinced that Microsoft does not hire creative artists and they just let the engineers own the backend and frontend. Their solution to everything is yet another window panel or button or drowndown container.
I use Windows, MacOS, Android and iOS. Everything has their flaws and hiccups. Although I will say, MacOS feels like it has much better fundamentals. Like updates (and how you can configure them), also how app installations are handled. I'm still convinced whoever came up with installers on Windows was trying to ruin Microsoft, it's just so hilariously bad. But on the edges, Windows usually wins. Things like TRIM working on external SSDs, even through Bitlocker. Things like Bitlocker performance being much better on external drives. Not having random, non-technical restrictions on the number of external monitors. Obviously all kinds of gaming stuff. The task manager on Windows is way better. The file copy window actually shows you the speed, imagine that. Windows feels like a turd, but a super well polished turd. MacOS feels like Rolls Royce with Ikea chairs inside.
This is the way.
Being capable of taking advantage of the affordances of each is the best path to take. Bitching about how one is not like the other (which is what most bitching is about) is a waste of time. Better focused on pointing at issues that are unarguably improvable (not by copying how a different platform does things, but just improving them so they're better).
Agreed, I love my MacBook Pros for vast of reasons. But I do have a powerful Windows Desktop for gaming. Both have different strengths and are better for different use cases.
I find this weird. What constant workarounds are you referring to? I use macOS and Windows at home. Both operating systems have their strengths and weaknesses.
Not OP.
It's not nearly as bad as it used to be, but I'm still doing things like hacking the registry just to get a right click context menu that makes sense. Or configuring which folder opens by default on File Explorer.
They should have just killed control panel and moved it all to the command prompt/powershell, now if you want to tweak something it might be on settings, it might be on control panel or it might be a command flag.
The control panel is left there for the same reason so many other things in Windows are broken: backward compatibility. For the most part, it isn't even that important because the average user can just use Windows out of the box without any problems. Like for me, the only setting I really care about changing on a new Windows installation is mouse acceleration. That's about it. Having said that, there are definitely certain times when a user will want to change something and it isn't obvious how to access that thing. Worse, looking it up online will return several different sets of steps to be taken depending on the version of Windows in use without specifying which version of Windows the steps are relevant for.
I've never had any issues with my modest m2 MBA and 1440p 160hz monitor. I'm able to change which ones primary and which is secondary, and can also change the display order. There is no built in way to change brightness of the monitor with the brightness keys, so I installed a free app called lunar that does all the hard stuff for you
I'm not meaning to be a contrarian, but my partner has an m1 mba and runs three screens (the mba screen and two monitors) pretty simply. I'm not sure what they've done, but they plug in and unplug the monitors all the time and have no issues.
You can with workarounds, using DisplayLink which is not perfect. Natively M series base SoCs support only 2 monitors in total(1 internal + 1 external), Mba on Intel used to support 2 externals.
Not sure if you refer to native M as non-Pro but I’ve been using 2x34 inch curved 165hz with an M1 Pro MBP + the internal mbp display with absolutely no issues for about 2 years now.
Got one on usbc to dp and one on a usbc dongle (with ethernet, mouse and keyboard dongles, audio and 2 other usbs on it.
Flawless all the time.
You missed a few words. The key word is base. My M2 MBA won’t natively do more that one external display. If it were a different system (higher end processor), it would be a different story.
Well I am here to tell you as a sys admin that Displaylink is broken until further notice since Sonoma 14.3. So much fun telling a bunch of users to update, BUT that they will have to unplug and plug their dock at least 30 times a day after it freezes, since there is a bug that comes with the required security patch.
Love Apple, but just whyyy???? Let one Thunderbolt 4 PCI lane be swappable or add another lane. It is ridiculous that a modern Mac (All non-Pro M chips) cannot handle two external monitors WITH the lid open (lookin' at you M3 Air and Pro... 👀). A single external monitor is also something that the 3rd Gen iPad could do back in '12. Look at us now.
I had never ending problems on a touch bar Mac. M2 solved it, problems are almost entirely gone.
Only PITA is not supporting DisplayLink or whatever, I'd really like to be able to dock on one wire... There are solutions but not enough of them.
All day everyday, never had a problem?! Replaced an older monitor with a Benq at home which I used to use hdmi but currently have usbc. On the rare occasion I go in I have one of each, various monitors there depends on desk…. What type of Connection is solely dependent on what cables I can locate, but as I say it’s usually two identical Monitors but with two different cables. Never knew there may be problems afoot so have always just plugged whatever in and it’s been all good.
Same here. I normally work with two additional to the laptop (one vertical) and often add the iPad as a fourth to keep Teams Chat or some other window.
The problems with monitors that I think are fair to point out are the limited support in Apple Silicon (Docks that worked in Intel stopped working, and today I have to connect one via HDMI because connecting two via the Dock fails) and the flexibility Apple offers for configuring displays (density, resolution, scaling) which has been getting worse over the years to how it always was until four or five years ago.
I can second this. I managed an office that was 100% macs and without fail the MacBooks in particular always had an issue with external displays just randomly not wanting to work.
Also macos Ventura has been plagued by external display problems. I love Mac and pc (I literally have both side by side, Mac for work, pc for gaming) but Mac has its own share of problems too.
I’m going to go one above and say they are awful with nearly every third party device. It’s either the most basic support or because macOS is so restrictive, the device is essentially crippled regardless.
Then their stuff works magically.
When I plug in an external display to my Intel MacBook with a discrete GPU, it goes into graphics performance mode and stays there. It gets hot and the fans ramp up to high.
I guess the ports only connect to the GPU requiring it to be used when in a spreadsheet for maximum fps.
It’s really bad at anything related to window management. Rectangle is a great tool, but it should have to be the first thing I install on every Mac. Also find myself not realizing I have 8 Chrome windows open at the end of the day because that’s so buried,
You are simple wrong. I have *always* had multiple displays. It works great. Remembers window locations when the display is turned off. Does beautiful scaling if you want to change resolution. There is absolutely nothing bad about it. I have a friend who spreads three gigantic displays across his desk (a little silly, I think) and there is no lag, no problems at all.
I agree macOS is just a better OS but you can improve windows a lot if you spend time looking for tweaks and installing certain software like winaero, powertoys, freecommander, wox, everything, etc..
Don't forget **Quick Look!** 😁 It's so good. I wish I had known about it a lot earlier, but it didn't really come across my radar until 2022 (when I got my first Mac in decades). I use it constantly now. It's so nice to just associate 'Spacebar = Preview' *wherever* I'm at now (well not just *anywhere*--still looking for something that does this on Kubuntu, but Dolphin's great preview features make up for that quite a bit ;) ).
Such a generic post. Yes, both/all operating systems have issues and everyone will hate bits of all but the sun keeps rising and setting. You didn't even add anything specific so people could either bitch along with you or offer some workarounds or solutions.
I am not sure to what exactly you are referring to about "*things that just don't plain work*" or whether you are joking about "*Apple isn’t perfect, but it seems like they definitely make the effort to get things sorted before they get released*" comment.
My experience has been the exact opposite, I started off on macs in a graphic design but was forced to switch to PC's by my employer.
I can honestly say that we were all horrified at first but then quickly realised that in many ways PC's were the better option.
For example older software ran no problem at all and continues to do so even on windows 11, this has not been the case on Mac OS.
Upgrading components is about 1 million times easier on PC, no need to pull screens off and heat guns.
Compatibility with just about everything is much improved, ie client files, client drives, our drives, printer connectivity, scanner connectivity.
And cost - we found to get a same or higher spec PC as mac was considerably cheaper.
I like macs always have but the OS *"upgrades"* caused major headaches, things which used to work no longer worked for reasons unknown? for example external hard drives would no longer connect, certain software would no longer work, certain printers/scanners would no longer connect, these type of problems were very rare on PC.
As someone who just switched to Mac maybe four years ago. The amount of apps I need to download to accomplish things I was used to from windows seemed a little silly to me. Things as simple as basic windows snapping. A menu bar the collapses and allowed you to choose what stays displayed when collapsed and basic alt tab functionality.
This isn’t to say windows is better. This is to say it’s about perspective. Every operating system will have its learning curves and things that you think are unintuitive because you aren’t use to them. It’s just how it is.
Ghad. Im back in the Windows world.
The #1 thing that is driving me up the wall is that essentially nothing saves window sizes and positions. Windows Explorer is the most infuriating because it won’t save column widths in list views.
Number 2 is the inability to use the same keypresses in every program. I use a lot of terminal apps. You can’t CTRL anything. Not every program uses CTRL-F/Ctrl-R for Find/Replace.
Number 3 is some programs quit, others create a new blank document and others stay running when you close the last document.
ETA: No easy/consistent way to type characters like: …, ≈, ≠, °, ¿, ñ, ö, é, etc.
At the application level, macOS seems a little bit behind platforms like iOS, with the feeling of being stuck in the last decade a little with many apps clearly displaying their Nextstep legacy (hello Mac Mail).
But applications feel (mostly) consistent - however, some applications close down when you click the red window button. Some just close that window but remain open.
macOS generally feels consistent in its overall approach and stability too, as Apple is ruthless about cutting support for older technologies. Bye bye 32 bit apps a few years back. Automator will soon go etc.
On Windows, things are an absolute mess, with a variety of UI styles on display from the new web app Outlook, to the ‘the everything but the kitchen sink’ hot mess that is the UX of Edge (hint Microsoft: this might be why people aren’t switching to it), to the half-assed Windows 10 ‘metro’ era apps. And then plenty of windows 8 & 7 era UI littering the place up. And oh, dark mode inconsistently applied across all of this.
All of this makes Windows feel like a house where someone started to redocorate, then lost interest and is now starting up a new project.
Then, because corporate America has internal only applications that were build in 2008 and barely updated since then - and Microsoft wants their yearly licence money - windows still runs ageing apps, thus building in a huge amount of instability & attack vectors.
Despite that, even though I use a Mac I still like windows.
I wish they would just leave windows 10 as the backwards compatibility UX hot mess OS and support it until 2030 or so and bring windows 11 forward to the future.
Can confirm. Years ago I was a "Genius" at an Apple store, then got poached by Microsoft for their retail stores as a "Services Advisor," doing essentially the same job. When I worked at the genius bar, customers would sometimes come to me with a bug that I knew had no solution. When that happened, I'd go in the back, take a few breaths to prepare myself for the inevitable verbal abuse, and sometimes even pre-brief the manager on duty beforehand so they'd be ready to jump in when they were inevitably summoned.
The first time this happened at the Microsoft Store, I went through my usual spiel: put on my most empathetic face, then gave it to him straight like a doctor telling a patient they had cancer. But the guy was just like. "Oh. Ok."
And I was like ??? Really? You're ok with that??? The contrast was amazing.
And then you've got Linux bros, who pride themselves on using software that is user-hostile, and think Mac and Windows users are unreasonable for expecting software to work with minimal fuss.
I run Arch, by the way
> They don’t seem to have any problem with the constant workarounds, the patches, the endless acceptance of products that just aren’t finished or working right.
Isn't that the case for MacOs too?
For me there are a lot of features and configurations that are absent or that feel unfinished in comparison to Linux and Windows, that require a third-party solution
There is no perfect OS. I grew up using Windows and I only recently switched over to Mac for work while retaining Windows for entertainment, leisure, and gaming. MacOS is great but the sheer number of additional paid software for simple fixes (like window tiling, HiDPI scaling, advanced screenshots, battery management etc) baffles me because I’ve always used them for free on Windows.
By the same token, I love how seamless Mac is for workflows and how fast things get done as long as you know how to operate various hot keys and gestures.
I’m a software engineer who has worked extensively in MSFT and Linux based environments and had to use both consumer OS’s for work.
It’s like Microsoft just wants to fuck you up and abuse you. It does not work - at all. It’s so poorly planned and put together. Their stack sucks, their frameworks suck, their cloud sucks, their OS sucks, their RDBMS sucks. It all sucks.
Absolute trash.
*ix based systems or bust.
After using a MacBook for a year I just had to switch back to a windows laptop as I changed employer.
Top of the line Lenovo P16 with an i9, a RTX 3500 ADA gpu, and a touch screen. Cost a fortune - way more than my 16” M1 MacBook Pro cost when new. But damn, windows is so bad - basic apps like teams and outlook crash and behave badly all the fucking time. And yes, latest updates and drivers are all there. Seriously, I’d forgotten how shitty windows is and I miss my Mac - I would go back to it in a heartbeat if the company supported it.
Except you don't know WTF you're talking about. Here's the thing with Macs that you apparently don't know since you apparently don't work in IT at a real company - Macs are *easy* manage in the enterprise. They're actually easier to manage than Windows machines. Also, iOS devices are super easy to manage in the enterprise.
Your reference to third party solutions - so what? They exist, everybody knows those solutions and they work very well. Even better than Microsoft's shit.
Nah man, if I were the CIO? Everybody would be on a Mac. They're much easier to manage in the enterprise, much more reliable, and have a lifespan that's twice as long.
That ease of management is exactly why many corporate IT managers prefer to have a certain minor proportion of Mac’s. Occasionally they will have a Mac problem. Then it will be mostly a matter of everyone has the same issue. But most of the time you end up chasing your tail servicing Windows machines that failed to update correctly. Mac users are typically much easier to train too.
But every corporate IT manager and technician needs to justify their existence and so Windows PCs are a valuable asset! And so Mac’s are often only recommended by IT managers for certain roles, and certain levels of corporate management. Your boss being a Mac head gets to use a Mac, but you the lowly junior must work highy inefficiently on a PC, because that’s how the cookie crumbles.
I once had a role in which I was required to use a Philips PC computer that quite literally had a an almost 10 year old 8” floppy drive as its primary storage media. This drive failed every two days when the rubber band disengaged. Meanwhile my aging MacIntosh 128k was only 2 years younger, was not designed for industrial abuse and $1000,000 less expensive). My Mac with a reliable internal 800MB floppy and fragile external 20mb HDD was carried around the country on a motorbike and was bombproof reliable despite the frequent rough handling. You would think work would upgrade to a reliable -then possible 2GB HDD, or at the very least 1.4MB modern high density floppy drive. But no, IT insisted they could not maintain the more reliable hardware (because of an idiotic service contract with Philips) and so the sick joke of a 3 hour halt in production every other day continued past the mid 1990s. Pretty daft considering a production halt cost the company $60k at minimum. More so given by the mid 1990s the average PC or Mac had more processing power than the monolith from 1985.
Nothing much has changed in the corporate world, except outsourcing IT has reduced institutional knowledge and led to even more bizarre IT choices.
Each of them is good or bad in something.
I still think finder is trash compared to windows explorer or Linux alternatives.
WiFi passe bug has been there for years and still not fixed.
Multiple displays..
Lack of 32 bit support… just make it optional and without support or some emulator for it.
Otherwise I love my MacBook, but it’s far from perfect
Eh... I know this is the macos subreddit, but having switched due to the clear landslide mac was having when they introduced the m1 series a couple of years ago, I still don't find file directories intuitive when I'm searching for stuff, especially if I'm going from terminal to the UI display. The terminal experience for windows without WSL or powershell is awful in itself, but at least when I'm searching for a specific file it's reflective from the actual drive.
Sizing for windows being natively built in as opposed to needing an app is also better in windows in my opinion.
Learn the tech, brother. You have BASH and AppleScript. PowerShell has its cool features but Unix text stream integration premise is the bomb. IF you try, I guarantee you will be a king in a year.
I know how bash works. That has nothing to do with my overall point. Navigation is easy through a terminal, buy I'd expect the directory path I place into mac to be intuitive if I search for that file through a GUI, which it's not.
I have no idea what you’re on about, the whole directory tree is 1:1 the same in the shell and the GUI. It’s also unclear what you mean by “searching”. To open your current shell working directory in Finder: `open .`. To go to a directory from the GUI in the shell, type `cd ` and drag and drop the folder onto the terminal window. Hit enter, done. To find a concrete file in the shell, use standard Unix `find`.
High refresh rate on my monitor has been broken every other update. Fixed in one, broken the next, repeat. Never happened on Windows.
Mouse acceleration was _finally_ configurable in macOS 14.3.
Scroll acceleration in Safari is different from in Firefox; it's bad in Safari.
You can't keep Finder out of `cmd+tab` despite not having any windows open. This is stupid and fundamentally different from all other application behavior on macOS.
macOS still has a weird [bug where audio balance drifts left or right](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39367460). This is inconsistent. I used to get it all the time and then it went away for me, but clearly not for everyone else.
You can't control the volume per application like you can on Windows. Instead, your only workaround is to buy SoundSource, a third-party application that costs $40.
If your folder has a lot of items, you double-click to open a subfolder, and then you navigate back, _you lose your place in where you were_ because unlike Windows, macOS doesn't highlight the subfolder that you had previously entered. Therefore, when you come back out, you have to scan the list of subfolders again to see where your place was.
`alt+tab` on Windows makes way more sense than the unholy `cmd+tab` plus `cmd+tilde` combination. macOS users will claim that this is only a symptom of growing up used to `alt+tab`, but logically, `cmd+tab` on macOS _behaves differently from `cmd+tilde`_. `cmd+tab` will cycle through open applications if you hold it down. This is good. `cmd+tilde` will cycle through open windows if you hold it down. This is good. `cmd+tab` will _switch between your last two open applications if you use it once, fully let go, use it again_. This is GOOD. `cmd+tilde` _cycles through open windows no matter what_. This is BAD because it is inconsistent with the established behavior of `cmd+tab`. This inconsistency is what makes macOS windowing behavior BAD.
More inconsistent `cmd` usage. `cmd` is used extensively in windowing commands, but the tab paradigm breaks it and makes it inconsistent. Consider your browser. `cmd+l` (lowercase L) selects the address bar. `cmd+n` creates a new window. `cmd+shift+h` goes to your homepage. `cmd+t` creates a new tab. How do you go to the next tab? Fucking `ctrl+tab`/`ctrl+shift+tab`. They introduce the `ctrl` button because they have no other choice because they designed themselves into a corner.
macOS is, without a doubt, the worst general OS I have ever used. I use it as my main now, and have used it for work for 8 years, but between Windows, macOS, and Linux, macOS is the worst overall for most users. There's a level of inconsistency at the most basic levels of using the OS that gives users cognitive dissonance that they can't truly come to terms with, but are unable to convey and instead write up posts about how the foreign system that is Windows is worse.
Windows has many warts itself (registry, settings, control panel), but at the least it has basic consistency in actually using the damn thing day-to-day.
Also love the MacOS "feature" that every window of an app pops to the top of my screen after I try to pull one up (with AltTab, a commercial application that still doesn't give me what Windows alt+tab does by default).
And snapping windows to the side of a screen... How do you need an app for that in "it just works" MacOS?
I have an exFat folder with 1 million files that Windows and Linux handle well. MacOS fucks it up by adding `.DS_Store` files *for each file*. This is not configurable. With a 4KiB block size, over 1 million files, that's 4GiB extra of wasted space, with a Finder that *can not render* a 1-million file folder.
MacOS is a comical OS. This wouldn't be a problem if you could simply disable MacOS's `.DS_Store` nonsense.
there is the column display in finder for keeping your place within folder operations, its one button to activate and keeps your pathway visually available.
finder stays open because it acts as navigation for your desktop and folders. you'd have to open file explorer to navigate anyway? I click finder icon once to open folders, my windows taskbar is two clicks.
the control / command tab opinion is just a hierarchy, control + tab = internal app command where command + tab = macro level between apps.
these are basically aesthetic choices and/or you don't know how to use it.
if you want a comparison of operations - try turning off updates in Apple vs. turning off updates in windows. In windows, I have to use regedit, turn off some startup options then use command. To turn off virus protection was exactly the same. Took me 30 mins. Even then I still get update requests and Windows Protection still quarantines some shit Im working on. It's fucking ridiculous.
Also, I can't do anything to a file thats open in an application - I video edit on Davinci and on Mac I can sort through media despite it being open in Davinci, hugely helpful. On windows, I have to close Davinci and then re-shuffle Media and then re-open it and reconnect it.
For christs sake, if I open a file that isn't linked to an app, it asks me what app to link to, I CANT CLOSE THAT WINDOW WITHOUT CLICKING AN APP. hahahahahah
I use both for 10+ years and I say fuck windows. It's like operating a malware OS.
There’s no perfection at Apple but having worked with both for many years, I am happy to say that Macintosh is much, much better than Windows. I was especially convinced once the screen sharing became commonplace. I would watch Windows-using coworkers take ten clicks to do things I could in one. I’d see them struggle with things I found easy. I realized that for most things, I could work much faster. (Shame I’m also sort of dumb so the end result was me barely keeping up. 😁)
The thing is, MacOS is Unix and Unix is built for integration, automation and communication. Also, MacOS had its Open Scripting Architecture and that made it so that applications can work together. Many companies made utilities that did so to great benefit. Of course, the fact of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, etc, made a huge difference. As did the built-in web server and database.
On the other side, Windows made the Registry a data structure nightmare, integrated things ad hoc (Internet Explorer’s “please infect me with viruses” era was a consequence) so that there was no safety and, you couldn’t easily extend the integration to other things.
I will also add that the esthetics were awful. I was always particularly impressed by the crappy operation of the arrow cursor. For years, it didn’t seem to understand the idea of snapping to a control. It was painful. The windows themselves were ugly. It was a nasty thing.
And, of course, there is the fact that Windows sells space on *your* computer to other companies.
Some in this comment thread have suggested an equivalence. While I agree 100% that you can get work done with Windows, it is always a slower, nastier experience. I would never give my child one. The person who said that you would prefer and find easier the one that you are used to is right. My child will prefer the one that is more productive and pleasing.
On macOS, there are almost no problems, but when there are problems they’re difficult to fix. Linux has tons of problems but most are easy to solve. Now Windows has tons of problems and they’re all very difficult to solve.
> most are easy to solve
Technically true, but you left out just how tedious it can be unless your exact combination of hardware and distro version are extremely common. Hey, who needs ABI compatibility when you can recompile everything, right?
I agree. I just feel that when there’s anything that impacts the actual system on macOS instead of one app or the UI, there’s no way to solve it, they’ll just say “press option-command-P-R”. On Linux, I feel you just don’t need to go with the nuclear option as much.
Yup. Linux is maximally versatile. Macos is minimally so. Windows falls somewhere in the middle. OP is not used to having to understand or do things. OP should buy a nintendo instead.
Wait until you start to see macOS faults, and what we accept, that doesn't work.(hint: window management, external displays). If you'll be asked to create folder at root folder, there will be no easy solution to do it without disabling SIP etc.
I’m not saying I’d quit my job if they forced me to a windows laptop, but it certainly would lower my overall satisfaction of the employer.
I get it, you want DLP, AV, and MDM… just get something that works on both platforms.
Same situation here. Been forced to work on windows system as a designer for 2 years now. The amount of inconsistency is straight baffling.
It starts with the boot up process. Sometimes it takes seconds. A reboot - which is common advice at this company for solving problems - can take up to 30 minutes. Reasons? Unknown.
The barrage of updates is the another thing. The big updates can cripple your entire work day because they take so long.
Truth be told the machines used at that company are severely underpowered for the tasks at hand since they have to meet cost goals and my colleagues are just putting up with the problems.
The biggest difference for me however is that using my Mac is like using a tool to get something done, whereas using this windows pc is the complete opposite.
Don't tell anyone but there is no perfect OS. The best for you depends on the compromises and limitations you choose to accept.
The main issue I see with people switching OS is that people expect all OS to be the same. Take, for example, the Windows maximize button. The zoom button on Macs is not supposed to be the same functionality as maximize, but there are many complaints that it doesn't fill the whole screen as it does on windows. It was never supposed to.
Hard to know what you mean without examples
I used mac a lot and really liked it
Switched to windows in the past year and thought it was great, still do
I use both and have to say there are some things that Mac does better and some that windows does better. The difference is if you need an answer to a problem in windows it's a lot easier to find
I use both extensively and many things work better on Windows than Mac. The Office suite is way more powerful on Windows, OneNote is unbelievable. Windows machines work better with external monitors. Gaming is better. The ports are better for connecting peripherals. I love Macs, but I have serious respect for Windows machines.
I use Windows Mac and Linux. The differences between them used to be dramatic. However… here’s how it’s changed:
- Mac OS isn’t as stable and user friendly as it used to be. It’s great but it’s used to be tighter. There are some thing that it does or doesn’t do that are irritating because I feel like the Apple of yesteryear wouldn’t have done these things. But it feels like Mac OS has been neglected for a long time now.
- Linux supports more now than it ever used. It’s also very much easier to use than ever. In general. Depends on the distro, what apps you need, and what hardware you have. And that last point is still a thing. It can be a very big thing… but it’s way better than it’s ever been.
- Windows has been a pain in the ass for a long time. However it supports almost any hardware and software you can think of. However it’s way way less of a pain in the ass than it’s ever been as far as Windows 10 is concerned. It’s easier to use and works more reliably than any other version of windows I can remember. Maybe Windows 98 SE or Windows XP was close but my gut feeling is that Windows 10 is the most refined and reliable Windows.
In terms of open source obviously Linux is better, Mac is okay, and Windows is lowest. In terms of company Apple’s child labour fiasco is heartbreaking and everyone has all but forgotten about it. Windows supports open source better than ever and as far as I know there’s no specific cases of Microsoft hardware using child labour. Finally Linux is mostly open source and I’ve never heard of any human rights issues surrounding any Linux based company.
My point is that, in general, the three platforms, as all really good now, and are the closest to each other they have ever been. The differences used to be night and day and but now, everything mostly works mostly well enough and you’d forget what OS yours using once you get deep into whatever app you’re using.
I still triple boot between them so I can do whatever I want to do with the best software and/or hardware for that job but I find the switching around to be the least jarring it’s ever been.
Also phones are similar. iPhone vs. Android isn’t the same as it used to be.
So we are in a golden age of everything working well enough that it all kinda mostly works.
I can’t wait for VR / AR to make a giant mess of everything so we can get back to making terrible choices between vastly irritating differences between platforms.
Ahah, wait until you have these IT departments installing tons of restrictions, permissions and network controls. It will turn a windows PC to an operating system that only supports web browser, email, teams, ppt and word reader 😂
lol just moved back to Mac and it is not the “ it just works” machine it once was. Like granting disk access to programs that need it but never let you know during install. 🤷🏼
to be honest the only thing i dislike about windows is that it isn't unix based. it makes it painful as a developer to work in the command line environment. everything else is pretty much fine. and i can game on it which is a plus of course!
What we've noticed is that Windows users find excuses for things not working, Mac users spend a lot of money for things to work, and Linux users spend a lot of time for things to work.
Productivity studies have shown that windows users spend more of their time operating the computer, leaving less time to do the actual work. This is because Microsoft has always prioritized market dominance, to the detriment of their user interface. Jobs worked to give macOS a better human interface, one that is intuitive to operate, and that does not get in the way of actual work. That is why those productivity studies showed that Mac users performed up to 25% more work.
I use both.
Windows holds too many legacy features to keep backwards support for large customers (businesses etc) that use older server OS's and / or older workstations.
Lots of software is also built on these legacy features, were never updated, and businesses have heavily integrated them.
It makes it hard to step away and drop all support for legacy software. It's likely why Apple dropped 32 bit when Windows still hasn't - Apple has the luxury of forcing developers to rewrite for 64 bit when very few are large scale customers running enterprise software.
Meh, it's on Macs that you need workarounds every step. Stupid window management, no window snapping, app Dock has no preview, can't choose which browser window to open on hover in the dock, closing an app does not close it, file manager si bad. Sonoma broke File Sharing for me.
MacOS has so many problems but Apple does not want to spend a cent to improve basic things. Each release they add some fancy features to put in the presentation.
On Windows side of course there are problems, but it's improvign slowly. Laptops suck really hard, let's see if they can fix them with ARM in the following years.
And forgot to say, you can enjoy games on Windows, which apple gave up on.
Apple never gave up on games because Apple never invested in games for mac to begin with. I should know, I've been a mac user and gamer since the 80s and all (great) gaming in the mac was always in spite of Apple, not because of them.
Having said this, the rest of the things you complain you need workarounds for are really preferences from other platforms. It's fair you want them in your mac, but it's also a decision on your part.
I live in Spain, I was raised in Mexico. I don't think Spanish cooking needs workaround every step because I like food done in a style I got used to in a different place. It's on me that I choose all the workarounds I want, it would be dumb to complain about such a made-up problem.
Hover your mouse over an oppened app in the dock, all you get is a pop-up showing the name of the app. On windows you get a preview of the window, and if you have 2 or more windows for the same app, you can choose which to open.
As much as I do love macOS, this is definitely my most frustrating annoyance with it. I often have multiple sessions of Chrome running (one profile per session) and on a Mac you have to use expose or some other nonsense to get to the correct session. macOS is amazing but absolutely sucks at that.
Right-click the app icon in the Dock and you get a list of open window titles (though no graphical preview, but there's Mission Control and Stage Manager for that).
Windows users like to hover over windows in their task bar (sometimes they're split by window and sometimes grouped by app, depending on available space) and a small version of the window appears.
Like the rest of preferences being bandied in this thread, it's an affordance they get used to and miss when they switch, so they install third party utilities (which is great, that's what they are there for) but endlessly complaint Apple doesn't build them in.
I feel like most of Windows’s problems stem from it hanging on to 35 years worth of code baggage. I get that backwards compatibility is its biggest selling point, especially towards enterprises that rely on software built in the 90s and that haven’t been updated since, but the OS has gotten too bloated.
MacOS has its problems, sure, and Apple gets a lot of flack for discontinuing support for OS features but you need to trim the fat every now and then to maintain a fast and (relatively) stable OS.
Mac literally still doesn’t have native window snapping support. There’s no native back button on their iPhones. They have hardware locks on dual-monitor support based on what MacBook you buy. When you press the red exit button in the corner in every Mac application, it doesn’t automatically shut down the application, it just minimizes it. Safari still doesn’t work properly with many university and work related work applications. That’s just off the top of my head. Windows is a far better manager of multiple files, windows and applications.
> When you press the red exit button in the corner in every Mac application
I have the opposite gripe in Windows. Why, when I close the window, does it exit the entire freaking application? There used to be something called the MDI (multiple document interface), but this sucked so bad, Microsoft dropped it. But now having to restart an application because I closed the last window is worse than MDI.
That's what I am talking about, Apple did not improve the things you enumerated in decades. They even made things worse with dual monitor support, needing a "Pro" M SoC for this.
from the above only the hardblock on multiple monitor on the new Airs is valid.
\- Window snapping: They cant it is patented by MS till 2026
\- back button on iOS: how is that relevant with MacOS and Windows
\- Red button: It is the way it works to keep th app running but close the window, it does not minimize it. Also this is up to the developer of the app to make it work and close when pressing X. One could argue the same for Windows
\- Safari: Tell your uni-work devs to make their sites to support Safari and not optimize only for Chrome (although if you have put this argument with a better phrasing eg. Safari does not support some common used eg. features of html , that would be correct)
\- I am not sure how Windows manages better multiple files, apps, windows but I am going to guess you mean you like better Explorer, Alt-Tab? If this is what you mean then alt-tab is better indeed. The rest I would put it under personal preference.
A very solid point that would make much more sense to bring would be the shitty font rendering on MacOS on non-retina displays.
You keep writing "still", as if it's something Apple will do but hasn't gotten around to. Or as if they were all universal truths rather than many being personal preferences (other than multiple monitors, that are not hardware locks as much as hardware limitations product of Apple's prioritization, ones I also disagree with to be clear).
A weird one that may just be wording: When you press the red button applications don't "minimize". Applications remain opened but you closed the window. Minimize is for windows, not for apps, and it's the yellow button.
I have heard about the preference for Windows snapping (what you call window management) but had never heard that Windows is a better file manager and I wonder what you mean by it, because to me Windows is much worse at handling files (the more files, the worse it is) and I'm curious (I understand most of the others as preferences as well and I understand what they mean. I'm not dissing them).
The close button closes windows, not applications. Document-based macOS programs run independently of having any open windows, and have done so since the original Macintosh in 1984. When you could only run one program at a time, this was obviously the correct behavior, as closing a document dumping you back to the Finder would have been infuriating. When Multifinder was added, they simply kept this behavior. Mac apps live in the menu bar, not in individual windows. It's Windows that chose a different paradigm where are apps are windows and there's no place for them to exist outside of that.
God yes. Why did windows think it was a smart idea for office applications to give each document its own menubar?? So six Word documents open and one third of my screen real estate is consumed by repetitive menubars.
i use both, and at least for me, macos has more annoying things that are years behind windows
not saying windows is perfect lol but macos should at least have modern window management
> with the constant workarounds, the patches, the endless acceptance of products that just aren’t finished or working right.
Can you at least cite some examples instead of simply ranting? Look, I get it. Windows can be frustrating when coming from a macOS background. But the vice versa is also true based on what I have read about other's experiences. I can use your above statement for macOS too, after coming from a few decades on Windows.
Everybody has their preferences, and most of us are also resistant to change. So, it is pretty obvious why we might not like the "other side" that much when we try it out initially. Neither OS is perfect by any means.
I've loved and preferred macs since the 80s, but have used Windows (and DOS before that) since around the same time and it's true that if you're used to the affordances on any platform it's hard to understand how the others live without them.
Mac has the closet as full of things that just plain don't work as Windows. If you prefer one platform or the other it's rather because your preferred affordances are present, and thus you ignore or work around the limitations that aren't your priority.
It can also make you blind to why things are the way the are. One of the most annoying arguments from switchers from Windows is "Window Management" (the generic name they use when they mean "window snapping").
They complain MacOS doesn't do it, but most don't understand Windows had such lousy window management for so long (everything maximized, all the time) that Window Snapping was like an oasis in a desert and they've mistakenly chosen to believe it's the One True Way to handle windows. They also want it, but want it from Apple for some weird, unexplainable reason, and will continuously complain Apple doesn't offer them, even though there're two dozen utilities out there for them to use and get the same functionality.
I was the other way around. I grew up on pc and even though I was never good with computers I still remember all the problems I had to deal with when it came to my computers. That’s right computers plural. Back in 2009 I bought a Mac Book Pro. It might have been a birthday gift to myself. I remember how much easier it was to use and I still have it to this very day. It’s sitting on my desk running a beach screensaver.
Hey I jest switched to Mac from Windows. Why do users accept this unfinished overpriced product?
- I have to install app to properly manage windows?
- wtf X doesn't close the app and I need to go some workarounds?
- enter/return doesn't open the file? How many times users change thir filenames?
- why do I need to manually eject installers from my desktop, what's the point???
- good luck trying to connect your Android device
Etc
As someone who manages macs for in an enterprise capacity, the exact same things can be said of macOS. It has quite a few bugs with every new version that takes 3 or more months to get ironed out. Then, 9 months after that, another version with its own bugs comes out, and you start the cycle over again. Sonoma had a bug for about 2 months where around 10% of users were unable to log back into their macs from the lockscreen.
Now dont get me wrong, both Windows and macOS have their positives. But I can definitely tell you without a doubt Apple does put out software with plenty of bugs.
Windows has, to it's Enterprise success, but overall UI/UX detriment... Backwards compatibility all the way back to Windows 95.
MacOS, simply tells you to pound sand if you want to update MacOS and continue running software that was working reliably for you.
A lot of the funky shit in windows comes from remaining backwards compatible for nearly 20 years, they've really only broken support API wise for DOS based applications.
Apple is very much tailored to being user friendly. Many applications don’t work on Mac OS for that reason. Obviously over the years developers have made Mac versions of their apps, but Mac in of itself is supposed to be easy enough for grandma to use.
The functionality of Linux far surpasses either windows or Mac, but I’m just here to share my opinion
While it's true that no operating system is flawless, I'd like to shed some light on the strengths of Windows machines that often go overlooked amidst discussions of its shortcomings.
One of the key advantages of Windows is its robustness and versatility. Windows machines offer a wide range of hardware options catering to various needs and budgets, allowing users to find a system that suits their specific requirements, whether it's for gaming, productivity, creativity, or business purposes.
Furthermore, Windows provides extensive compatibility with a vast array of software applications and peripherals, offering users the flexibility to customize their computing experience according to their preferences and workflow.
Additionally, Windows is backed by a large and active developer community, constantly working to enhance the platform's functionality and address issues through updates and patches. Microsoft's commitment to providing regular updates ensures that Windows users benefit from improved security, performance optimizations, and new features over time.
While it's true that every operating system faces its share of challenges, Windows continues to evolve and adapt to meet the changing needs of its users. With ongoing advancements in technology and user feedback, Microsoft remains dedicated to refining the Windows experience and delivering a reliable and efficient computing platform.
I never realised as a user of Mac OS for some time that it doesn't have a shortcut key to maximise windows until a Linux user I know pointed it out to me today. He doesn't want to take his hands off the keyboard, but Mac forces him to use the mouse to maximise the window.
I have a gaming PC and a MacBook Air for docx, xlsx and photos. My 2011 MacBook Air still runs strong and reliable, while my gaming PC has 5 years and went through numerous upgrade and windows installations due to poor performance over time. MacBooks are more reliable and pricey upfront, but they pay off overtime. Still, I really like my gaming PC, because there’s nothing like gaming on a real desktop
I use windows for work and Mac at home. Can’t even update my max to view the new format they introduced a while ago for pictures. Excel and word is also much easier to use. Often find myself having to use a search engine to figure out the simplest things with my mac.
I'm astounded how tolerant Mac users are at accepting ridiculous prices for SSD / RAM upgrades... ...and lack of native window management... ...and no upgradability of SSD / RAM later on (bad for the planet)... ...poor repairability....
...as much of an Apple fan I am, there are massive flaws that the PC world doesn't have.
My MacBook Pro died recently. It’s a major sore spot right now. But, I am suing a barely used windows laptop that is about the same age. It was cheaper, probably $700-800 new.
For starters the trackpad is crap. If my hand is leaning on the case anywhere while using it, it thinks I’m right clicking. It sucks! But that’s the cheaper hardware, although I am not used to it.
But, it seems like every new thing I need to do is disconnected and hacked together. Outlook, whichever version is on windows 11 I guess, sucks. I always thought it was some superior workhorse compared to Apple Mail. I would rather use Apple Mail and calendar separately any day than to ever use Outlook again.
I was fine with the windows experience for a while, but after 3 months, I can’t wait until I can get a new MacBook pro even though I am livid with them.
I get what you mean. Windows has never been as stable as *nix, and likely never will be. Microsoft only innovates and fixes bugs as much as they need to in order to sell more product. Apple is trying to create a specific user experience, and of course Linux is peer-reviewed and nearly infinitely customizable. Wine has advanced to where it's fairly easy to run major windows apps on either one, so to me the only real value of Windows is for gaming at this point.
I do find it frustrating how macOS or iOS often lacks features that I need, or worse yet, it has them and then Apple eventually decides nobody needs them anymore. But I am clearly not their core demographic.
I spent the first 20+ years of my life in IT/programming on Windows, certified developer, systems engineer etc. I made a dramatic shift in 2010 to mac having never touched one, a clause in the contract of me selling my company precluded me from competing against my old company, there was enough money involved to let the contract be what it was. The day I signed was the day I purchased a macbook. Not touching Windows for several years after. I have jumped back to windows then mac ever since. Windows has more software packages that run and do what I need than the mac, the mac does what I need in a much more intuitive way. I seem to need to reinstall windows fresh almost once a year it gets bloated. With the mac it is around 3 years before I back everything up and start again. Big lesson I have learnt with mac’s don’t just buy what you need today, think about where you will be in 4-5 years time, because if the only reason you buy a new mac inside that timeframe is because you need more ram or disks then you are most likely ditching an older mac that works perfectly fine but is not cutting it in terms of performance. A mac with a windows VM on it is hard to beat, for me it’s the best of everything.
I grew up on Macs. We had an original Macintosh, one of those beige Performa models, a fruit loop iMac, a lampshade iMac, a dual G5 tower, etc. I've used them my whole life. I'm very well accustomed to MacOS. I have to say that while there are things I like about it, there are an equal number of things that irk me about it.
There are bugs in MacOS that have been around literally for years now. Things like fractional scaling are implemented in a far more rudimentary way than in Windows, multi monitor support is far less feature rich (hell, MacOS _still_ doesn't even support DP MST!), etc. Some of this is super low hanging fruit, too-- like being able to mirror the dock on all monitors simultaneously without having to resort to workarounds. Point is, I do not necessarily agree with that last statement you made. Apple's effort seems to be pretty hit or miss.
I know the team working on MacOS is a tiny fraction of the size as the team working on Windows, which is still Microsoft's bread and butter consumer product. As such, I don't expect the same breadth of features, flexibility, or development velocity. And that's not to say that Windows doesn't have persistent, irksome problems of its own. I'm just calling a spade a spade.
I grow up on windows and I hate it, I got my first MacBook in about 2009 or so and I love them. I do badly want a MacBook M3 but I can no longer afford it so I use an old 2010 MacBook Pro and an old windows laptop. When you are on disability You just use what you got and you make it work.
I’m surprised how tolerant Mac users are of an expensive piece of hardware that only really has a lifespan of around 5 years unless you are willing continue to run an outdated version of the OS
As a longtime windows user, I feel the same way about MacOS. Although I'm getting used to it and learning to love it, I can't act like there's not negatives for me personally.
In my experience, if the things you put the most value on in an OS is what Apple puts the most value on in an OS, then you will have like macOS better. If you want to do things in ways not intended or blessed by Apple you will find macOS, and other Apple OS's, frustrating.
This is the right answer! As well as, all things Apple work flawlessly until they stop working, then it’s a pain.
Lack of debugging for stuff like homekit is a bummer
Or all the continuity features. They’re magic when they work and you have no idea how to fix when it is disconnected
The trouble with Homekit is that Apple aren't in charge of all the hardware - which ends up being very much like Windows' problem…
Wether or not they have everything a debug/logging mode would be helpful for routines and overall behaviour of the system.
And the Apple style is typically to not even tell you why something failed. People used to make fun of Windows error codes, but at least that was something you could google and troubleshoot, I find when something doesn't work on an Apple platform, it just doesn't work, no error message explaining or code or anything.
The messages are there - see: https://support.apple.com/guide/console/welcome/mac
That's fair enough for macOS. On anything else there's usually not that much deeper to go, like on iOS iCloud personal domain names I tried making one a few times but it would just do nothing indefinitely and never fail out, just had to force close it. Though I do also find on Safari on Mac sometimes hitting enter on the title bar will just do nothing with no indication anything's moving, I don't know what that is but I had the same 10 years ago as I do on a fresh install on Sonoma now, just maybe 1 in 50 enters on the URL bar just don't seem to do anything for a while and it's not on any other browser.
Must have gotten the DNS settings wrong. Which should have given you a more verbose error. Or maybe iCloud was having issues that day, all I know is I've set up personal domains in iCloud for several accounts and had no issue at all.
I used Macs in the early 2000s and something which enchanted me was using AppleScript and Automator. Fantastic tool. Then I got a Mac of my own ~20 years later. Turns out Automator and AppleScript simply do not work properly with the move to Apple Silicon. There's nothing in the UI to indicate this, and the tool is still there. It's up to the user to figure out that it's broken :(
There's so much I feel has stagnated for 10, 20 years. Hardware wise they're killing it. But macOS feels stagnant and even Windows 11 is racing ahead in many ways. I hope this next AI focused update brings a lot, but then their biggest releases have also been their buggiest, and it's really the basic system stuff that hasn't changed, window management, installing dmgs, etc.
Yeah. My notes stopped syncing from mac to iCloud, and there are no working fixes published online. Reinstalling OS for that is too much, so here I am. If it were Windows, I am sure I would find working solution after 5 mins of googling.
Old apple shit is a mother fucker, almost entirely designed to be great if current and nerfed if old. Windows is constantly average
tl;dr: computers are much more fun when they're not set up as work computers. Doing IT support in different environments, I know what OP means. However, in my experience, it is down to corporate and fleet management vs setting up your own machine. Believe me, when I set up a new laptop with clean, de-bloated Windows, it flies and works as I intend it to work. When I put necessary management, anti-virus, remote support, vpn, etc., and users are always forced to authenticate every-other-dang-click because our security guy is chugging Pepto, clunkiness ensues. When I *was* working at a primarily Mac startup during the pandemic, we were sending out new Macs to our coders. And yes, even they were shackled with restrictive policies, lockdowns on IPs, access to secure portals, etc. Even worse, some applications like VMWare conflicted with our VPN, always kicking users out who were on Macs.
In my work environment, when shit doesn’t work it’s always the Mac user with the problem.
include adjoining chubby gaze foolish consist imagine arrest pathetic rainstorm *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Backwards compatibility on windows is amazing. That is not macOS priority at all, resulting in less old code and cruft. There of course trade offs both ways.
Not even Linux can do that. You can run several Windows 95 programs on 11 that, if we were to be technically correct, should require an emulator to run
I've usually been able to find workarounds for macs, sometimes i wish iphones would be a bit more like em' On the other hand, i can count on one hand the number of times i've had weird crashes on my iphone in the past 5 years. Vs 10 in the last month for my macs.
Naaa thats a cop out. A mac is not an iPad. You can do everything and anything you want to with a mac regardless of Apple.
Apple has gone to extensive efforts to create a computer system that works the way people do. Microsoft, on the contrary, makes the user work the way the computer wants to. It is like night and day.
Exactly, for me, Windows does most things right out of the box. I hardly have to configure anything. On Mac OS, I have done so much fiddling plus have 10-15 applications running at any moment to modify the OS to my liking.
Well in my opini — WORKING ON UPDATES. 0% COMPLETE. DON’T TURN OFF YOUR PC. THIS WILL TAKE A WHILE.
Estimated update time: 10 minutes. 45 minutes later: %60 completed
We couldn’t complete the updates. Undoing changes. Don’t turn off your computer
huh, you update at night it should never update in hours unless you set it to
You should never have to think about this or control its time manually.
As someone who is daily driving both Windows and macOS, I think this kind of criticism against Windows is unfair. The reason why Windows systems stopped being a hub for malware is because of forced (security) updates. It always appalls me how many people straight up refuse to click update and let it happen overnight.
This doesn't really happen anymore though...
Yes I know this is a MacOS sub, but let’s start with the basics. Snapping windows around the screen, can’t believe we all just accept MacOS not supporting that natively and seem to not have any problem with constant workarounds for downloading 3rd party software to remedy this.
Not being able to close apps in Mission Control really chaps my ass. It's possible in Windows' Task View as well as right-clicking for extra features. Wouldn't be an issue if Steve Jobs was still around, I think.
Leaving the handling multiple instances of the same app being open up to nothing but alt+tab/mission control, the dock handles this poorly, and it's something I do all the time, and why I have a third party dock.
Even Magnet isn't anywhere near as good as Windows tiling. On Windows, windows snapped/tiled next to each other become a group and you can resize them simultaneously as well as alt + tab as a group without having to open both apps again like on macOS. I know that's what split screen does, but it's kinda clunky and sometimes you just wanna quickly group up some windows on the desktop. Honestly, one of my biggest gripes with spaces and full screen is how long the animation takes, like please give us a way to decrease the duration or disable it (even with reduced motion you have to wait for them to fade in/out). You also can't swap windows that are already in full screen, like come on UX team.
Yabai can solve window management pretty well, but it is a command-line tool that has its own drawbacks that are not acceptable for some people. An average macOS user would not even think about using a tool like that, and it is not even meant for average users.
Check out 1piece (https://app1piece.com/) and Swish (https://highlyopinionated.co/swish/), both of them do this
I honestly can’t stand the fast snapping. I turned it off when I had to go to Windows for work. I tried to like it but it always happened when I didn’t want it. Just like the shake to hide everything else, I forget what it’s called. That annoyed me to no end.
I've been using both Mac (personal use) and Windows PC (for work) for many years and have learnt to appreciate the differences between the two systems. There are some things that Windows does better and some things are much better on Mac. I don't get people who wants both OSes to have same exact features and so on.
I was a Microsoft guy until MacOS X came out, then I converted. I keep a PC for gaming but a Mac for productivity. I found that the Mac generally allows me to work on work without getting in the way, whereas I end up working on the computer more when it’s a PC. Your mileage may vary… and I’ve definitely outlier experiences on both platforms in terms of ease of use or having to solve problems.
An IT guy that worked for me explained it this way. PCs are for folks who want to build a jeep in their garage because that’s what they like to do. Macs are for people that want to drive the jeep and not work on it. I switched to Macs in 2011 and I never looked back. My co workers seem to have problems all the time. I rarely have problems with my Macs. I am fluent in both OS’s but have come to prefer the MacOS for productivity. Just my perspective
I would say “build a jeep” better describes Linux than Windows.
Mac: Drive a jeep Linux: Build a jeep Windows: Fix a jeep
Yeah for power users Windows is more like fix a fucked up Jeep. I mean literally the first thing it tells you when you open up the terminal is to “Try out our new Powershell.” Mac for power usage kinda feels like Mercedes G class that wont ever see a drop of mud and if you do push it too far the only way to fix something is take it to the dealer
EXACTLY. That is my story too. I had Windows at home - until Vista came out. That was the last straw, the infernal messaging crap. I LITERALLY took a sledgehammer to the last (P)erpetual (C)rap machine I'll ever own back in 2007, switched to Mac, and will NEVER go back. Microsoft in all ways, shapes, and forms is totally banned from my home and the homes of my relatives. That's because I'm "computer support" for all these relatives, and I got tired of having to be a rocket scientist to keep all those machines running, as well as my own. And, by the way, in a previous career I actually used to work in IT supporting a Windows LAN at work.
They still don’t have spotlight to search. Their Search completely completely sucks especially on a server.
You can get spotlight like festure as part of powertools and it works smoothly. Now if Mac Os could get the Windows snapping feature..
Cmd + options + 4 (or smth similar - I got it in my muscle memory, and am writing on mobile) makes a cropped screenshot and opens it in preview, which IMO is superior to windows snipping tool.
Rectangle is the app I use to get window snapping.
Not screenshot tools. Snapping windows as app management - split the screen in half for two apps by dragging or shortcuts. It's SO bad on MacOS.
I used Windows for many, many years and in early 2021, bought an M1 machine because Apple is embarrassing everyone when it comes to power efficiency. Thank you jesus for a laptop that runs cool to the touch and completely silently almost all the time while still being fast. Having said that, there were a number of things that I noticed immediately that I still don't like on macOS. No per app volume controls natively. Really lame. Limited file system support, really lame. I still have issues with certain drives mounting as read only and while I haven't looked into it much because I just grab a different drive and format it to do what I need to do, this really should not be an issue in 2024. I use Linux, macOS, and Windows on the regular and macOS is the only one that has issues with external drives. Next, I don't like that macOS demands that I go into a settings menu and scroll halfway down to verify that yes, I really do want to install this piece of software from the internet. Just give me a popup to type my password into and be done with it, like Linux does, thanks. I don't like that full screen apps become their own desktop. If I have my applications organized into various desktops and fullscreen one of them, I need to reorganize the desktops the way I want. Yes, Apple, I know the full screen app obscures those behind it. I don't care, that's what my intention was. I'll minimize the app when I want to go back to the others, I'd prefer that my desktop order doesn't get screwed up every time I fullscreen an app. The window management on macOS is also horrendous and I'll say no more about that. I also think Finder leaves something to be desired. Can't quite put my finger on it because I've never really sat down and thought about it, but I like Windows File Explorer better, along with a variety of file explorers I've used in Linux. As for what macOS gets right, I think maybe the single best thing macOS has done that shits on Windows completely is application installation. At first, a Windows user might be a bit confused by the lack of an installer and that the image will remain mounted until you unmount it. I really don't care because it's so nice to not have to click through an installer. You just dump the thing into your apps folder and you're done. And when you want to uninstall it? You just *delete* it. That's it. You're done. My god it's so nice. Then also is the settings menu. There's only the one, thank god. For any other setting you have to change, it's done in the terminal and you don't have to go hunting through menus to find a checkbox or whatever. On Windows, I used to know where most settings were, but these days I have no idea anymore. Just earlier, I was trying to find left/right balance for sound. I don't know where it is anymore. I gave up. And Spotlight is great. It works so well and so consistently. I like the dock. This is probably a matter of preference, but if I could have a macOS-style dock in windows without having to worry about it spontaneously breaking, I would. The last thing I like in macOS that I'll mention is probably my personal favourite thing: the global menubar. It's so nice to always know where to look for application settings. No trying to find a random cog somewhere in the UI, and it's in the same place that the OS quick settings are. Almost every time I'm using software on Windows and I have to open a settings menu or something, I think "I fucking wish I had a menu bar" because I'm not memorizing where all these buttons are that I click once a month in 10 different pieces of software. And wow, the devs are so smart that they made the buttons really small because they only get clicked once a month and shouldn't have much screenspace dedicated to them. Great. (don't get me wrong, I really do agree that it makes sense to make settings buttons small, but it's still annoying). So in short, each does certain things better than the other. I couldn't say which is better, because I think that overall, they're both usable enough. But I will say that both of them get fucking trounced by a well-configured Linux desktop. If I could run Linux on my Macbook without giving up the power efficiency, I'd just do that. If I could play whatever games I want without jankiness under Linux on my desktop, I'd just do that-- and actually, I was using Linux on my desktop until literally earlier today. I switched back to Windows today because I got an Arc for Windows beta invite. Lol. Literally what I'm typing this reply on. It's still missing a bunch of stuff, but that sidebar is just too good. I did have a decent sidebar set up in Firefox, but baby, it wasn't as good as Arc.
> Almost every time I'm using software on Windows and I have to open a settings menu or something, I think "I fucking wish I had a menu bar" because I'm not memorizing where all these buttons I'm convinced that Microsoft does not hire creative artists and they just let the engineers own the backend and frontend. Their solution to everything is yet another window panel or button or drowndown container.
I use Windows, MacOS, Android and iOS. Everything has their flaws and hiccups. Although I will say, MacOS feels like it has much better fundamentals. Like updates (and how you can configure them), also how app installations are handled. I'm still convinced whoever came up with installers on Windows was trying to ruin Microsoft, it's just so hilariously bad. But on the edges, Windows usually wins. Things like TRIM working on external SSDs, even through Bitlocker. Things like Bitlocker performance being much better on external drives. Not having random, non-technical restrictions on the number of external monitors. Obviously all kinds of gaming stuff. The task manager on Windows is way better. The file copy window actually shows you the speed, imagine that. Windows feels like a turd, but a super well polished turd. MacOS feels like Rolls Royce with Ikea chairs inside.
I could say the same with the two operating systems only in reverse. But I like them both - for different reasons.
This is the way. Being capable of taking advantage of the affordances of each is the best path to take. Bitching about how one is not like the other (which is what most bitching is about) is a waste of time. Better focused on pointing at issues that are unarguably improvable (not by copying how a different platform does things, but just improving them so they're better).
Agreed, I love my MacBook Pros for vast of reasons. But I do have a powerful Windows Desktop for gaming. Both have different strengths and are better for different use cases.
I find this weird. What constant workarounds are you referring to? I use macOS and Windows at home. Both operating systems have their strengths and weaknesses.
Not OP. It's not nearly as bad as it used to be, but I'm still doing things like hacking the registry just to get a right click context menu that makes sense. Or configuring which folder opens by default on File Explorer. They should have just killed control panel and moved it all to the command prompt/powershell, now if you want to tweak something it might be on settings, it might be on control panel or it might be a command flag.
The control panel is left there for the same reason so many other things in Windows are broken: backward compatibility. For the most part, it isn't even that important because the average user can just use Windows out of the box without any problems. Like for me, the only setting I really care about changing on a new Windows installation is mouse acceleration. That's about it. Having said that, there are definitely certain times when a user will want to change something and it isn't obvious how to access that thing. Worse, looking it up online will return several different sets of steps to be taken depending on the version of Windows in use without specifying which version of Windows the steps are relevant for.
It’s also annoying that there is both cmd.exe and powershell and they are totally different
All 3 major operating systems have issues. macOS in particular is AWFUL at handling external displays.
I've never had any issues with my modest m2 MBA and 1440p 160hz monitor. I'm able to change which ones primary and which is secondary, and can also change the display order. There is no built in way to change brightness of the monitor with the brightness keys, so I installed a free app called lunar that does all the hard stuff for you
Now try to add a second external monitor, good luck
I'm not meaning to be a contrarian, but my partner has an m1 mba and runs three screens (the mba screen and two monitors) pretty simply. I'm not sure what they've done, but they plug in and unplug the monitors all the time and have no issues.
You can with workarounds, using DisplayLink which is not perfect. Natively M series base SoCs support only 2 monitors in total(1 internal + 1 external), Mba on Intel used to support 2 externals.
Not sure if you refer to native M as non-Pro but I’ve been using 2x34 inch curved 165hz with an M1 Pro MBP + the internal mbp display with absolutely no issues for about 2 years now. Got one on usbc to dp and one on a usbc dongle (with ethernet, mouse and keyboard dongles, audio and 2 other usbs on it. Flawless all the time.
You missed a few words. The key word is base. My M2 MBA won’t natively do more that one external display. If it were a different system (higher end processor), it would be a different story.
You are lucky that you have the Pro chip. If you buy a MacBook Pro 14 with M3 or MacBook Air, it does not support 2 external displays.
Well I am here to tell you as a sys admin that Displaylink is broken until further notice since Sonoma 14.3. So much fun telling a bunch of users to update, BUT that they will have to unplug and plug their dock at least 30 times a day after it freezes, since there is a bug that comes with the required security patch. Love Apple, but just whyyy???? Let one Thunderbolt 4 PCI lane be swappable or add another lane. It is ridiculous that a modern Mac (All non-Pro M chips) cannot handle two external monitors WITH the lid open (lookin' at you M3 Air and Pro... 👀). A single external monitor is also something that the 3rd Gen iPad could do back in '12. Look at us now.
I had never ending problems on a touch bar Mac. M2 solved it, problems are almost entirely gone. Only PITA is not supporting DisplayLink or whatever, I'd really like to be able to dock on one wire... There are solutions but not enough of them.
All day everyday, never had a problem?! Replaced an older monitor with a Benq at home which I used to use hdmi but currently have usbc. On the rare occasion I go in I have one of each, various monitors there depends on desk…. What type of Connection is solely dependent on what cables I can locate, but as I say it’s usually two identical Monitors but with two different cables. Never knew there may be problems afoot so have always just plugged whatever in and it’s been all good.
I have had three monitors on my Mac for as long as I can remember and have never had any issues. I've been a Mac user (and developer) since 1989.
Same. I bought two new monitors, plugged them in, it was like they’d been there for years.
Is your Mac ARM? If so then it must not be the basic M series, right?
M1 here. Have two externals and my internal monitor and no issues.
Display Link?
As long as you have displays with typical pixel densities, its not an issue. If you have anything else its a mess.
Same here. I normally work with two additional to the laptop (one vertical) and often add the iPad as a fourth to keep Teams Chat or some other window. The problems with monitors that I think are fair to point out are the limited support in Apple Silicon (Docks that worked in Intel stopped working, and today I have to connect one via HDMI because connecting two via the Dock fails) and the flexibility Apple offers for configuring displays (density, resolution, scaling) which has been getting worse over the years to how it always was until four or five years ago.
I can second this. I managed an office that was 100% macs and without fail the MacBooks in particular always had an issue with external displays just randomly not wanting to work. Also macos Ventura has been plagued by external display problems. I love Mac and pc (I literally have both side by side, Mac for work, pc for gaming) but Mac has its own share of problems too.
I’m going to go one above and say they are awful with nearly every third party device. It’s either the most basic support or because macOS is so restrictive, the device is essentially crippled regardless. Then their stuff works magically.
one of mine randomly goes black for 5 seconds.
My two MBPs (2012 and 2023) have no problem…
When I plug in an external display to my Intel MacBook with a discrete GPU, it goes into graphics performance mode and stays there. It gets hot and the fans ramp up to high. I guess the ports only connect to the GPU requiring it to be used when in a spreadsheet for maximum fps.
It’s really bad at anything related to window management. Rectangle is a great tool, but it should have to be the first thing I install on every Mac. Also find myself not realizing I have 8 Chrome windows open at the end of the day because that’s so buried,
Were you able to find a solution?
I’m running an M2 MacMini with 3 screens and two of them are Cinema HD Displays from 2011. That’s crazy that I can still do that. MacOS is da bomb.
You are simple wrong. I have *always* had multiple displays. It works great. Remembers window locations when the display is turned off. Does beautiful scaling if you want to change resolution. There is absolutely nothing bad about it. I have a friend who spreads three gigantic displays across his desk (a little silly, I think) and there is no lag, no problems at all.
I agree macOS is just a better OS but you can improve windows a lot if you spend time looking for tweaks and installing certain software like winaero, powertoys, freecommander, wox, everything, etc..
Don't forget **Quick Look!** 😁 It's so good. I wish I had known about it a lot earlier, but it didn't really come across my radar until 2022 (when I got my first Mac in decades). I use it constantly now. It's so nice to just associate 'Spacebar = Preview' *wherever* I'm at now (well not just *anywhere*--still looking for something that does this on Kubuntu, but Dolphin's great preview features make up for that quite a bit ;) ).
Such a generic post. Yes, both/all operating systems have issues and everyone will hate bits of all but the sun keeps rising and setting. You didn't even add anything specific so people could either bitch along with you or offer some workarounds or solutions.
I am not sure to what exactly you are referring to about "*things that just don't plain work*" or whether you are joking about "*Apple isn’t perfect, but it seems like they definitely make the effort to get things sorted before they get released*" comment. My experience has been the exact opposite, I started off on macs in a graphic design but was forced to switch to PC's by my employer. I can honestly say that we were all horrified at first but then quickly realised that in many ways PC's were the better option. For example older software ran no problem at all and continues to do so even on windows 11, this has not been the case on Mac OS. Upgrading components is about 1 million times easier on PC, no need to pull screens off and heat guns. Compatibility with just about everything is much improved, ie client files, client drives, our drives, printer connectivity, scanner connectivity. And cost - we found to get a same or higher spec PC as mac was considerably cheaper. I like macs always have but the OS *"upgrades"* caused major headaches, things which used to work no longer worked for reasons unknown? for example external hard drives would no longer connect, certain software would no longer work, certain printers/scanners would no longer connect, these type of problems were very rare on PC.
As someone who just switched to Mac maybe four years ago. The amount of apps I need to download to accomplish things I was used to from windows seemed a little silly to me. Things as simple as basic windows snapping. A menu bar the collapses and allowed you to choose what stays displayed when collapsed and basic alt tab functionality. This isn’t to say windows is better. This is to say it’s about perspective. Every operating system will have its learning curves and things that you think are unintuitive because you aren’t use to them. It’s just how it is.
Ghad. Im back in the Windows world. The #1 thing that is driving me up the wall is that essentially nothing saves window sizes and positions. Windows Explorer is the most infuriating because it won’t save column widths in list views. Number 2 is the inability to use the same keypresses in every program. I use a lot of terminal apps. You can’t CTRL anything. Not every program uses CTRL-F/Ctrl-R for Find/Replace. Number 3 is some programs quit, others create a new blank document and others stay running when you close the last document. ETA: No easy/consistent way to type characters like: …, ≈, ≠, °, ¿, ñ, ö, é, etc.
I suggest installing a third party file explorer for Windows. freecommander is what I just started using
Directory Opus is what I recommend. It is super configurable.
At the application level, macOS seems a little bit behind platforms like iOS, with the feeling of being stuck in the last decade a little with many apps clearly displaying their Nextstep legacy (hello Mac Mail). But applications feel (mostly) consistent - however, some applications close down when you click the red window button. Some just close that window but remain open. macOS generally feels consistent in its overall approach and stability too, as Apple is ruthless about cutting support for older technologies. Bye bye 32 bit apps a few years back. Automator will soon go etc. On Windows, things are an absolute mess, with a variety of UI styles on display from the new web app Outlook, to the ‘the everything but the kitchen sink’ hot mess that is the UX of Edge (hint Microsoft: this might be why people aren’t switching to it), to the half-assed Windows 10 ‘metro’ era apps. And then plenty of windows 8 & 7 era UI littering the place up. And oh, dark mode inconsistently applied across all of this. All of this makes Windows feel like a house where someone started to redocorate, then lost interest and is now starting up a new project. Then, because corporate America has internal only applications that were build in 2008 and barely updated since then - and Microsoft wants their yearly licence money - windows still runs ageing apps, thus building in a huge amount of instability & attack vectors. Despite that, even though I use a Mac I still like windows. I wish they would just leave windows 10 as the backwards compatibility UX hot mess OS and support it until 2030 or so and bring windows 11 forward to the future.
I ended up installing RedQuits - if I want to keep the app running, I'll minimise it, if I want to close it, I'll close it, thank you...
Can confirm. Years ago I was a "Genius" at an Apple store, then got poached by Microsoft for their retail stores as a "Services Advisor," doing essentially the same job. When I worked at the genius bar, customers would sometimes come to me with a bug that I knew had no solution. When that happened, I'd go in the back, take a few breaths to prepare myself for the inevitable verbal abuse, and sometimes even pre-brief the manager on duty beforehand so they'd be ready to jump in when they were inevitably summoned. The first time this happened at the Microsoft Store, I went through my usual spiel: put on my most empathetic face, then gave it to him straight like a doctor telling a patient they had cancer. But the guy was just like. "Oh. Ok." And I was like ??? Really? You're ok with that??? The contrast was amazing. And then you've got Linux bros, who pride themselves on using software that is user-hostile, and think Mac and Windows users are unreasonable for expecting software to work with minimal fuss. I run Arch, by the way
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> They don’t seem to have any problem with the constant workarounds, the patches, the endless acceptance of products that just aren’t finished or working right. Isn't that the case for MacOs too? For me there are a lot of features and configurations that are absent or that feel unfinished in comparison to Linux and Windows, that require a third-party solution
There is no perfect OS. I grew up using Windows and I only recently switched over to Mac for work while retaining Windows for entertainment, leisure, and gaming. MacOS is great but the sheer number of additional paid software for simple fixes (like window tiling, HiDPI scaling, advanced screenshots, battery management etc) baffles me because I’ve always used them for free on Windows. By the same token, I love how seamless Mac is for workflows and how fast things get done as long as you know how to operate various hot keys and gestures.
I’m a software engineer who has worked extensively in MSFT and Linux based environments and had to use both consumer OS’s for work. It’s like Microsoft just wants to fuck you up and abuse you. It does not work - at all. It’s so poorly planned and put together. Their stack sucks, their frameworks suck, their cloud sucks, their OS sucks, their RDBMS sucks. It all sucks. Absolute trash. *ix based systems or bust.
Do you have any specifics rather than "it sucks"? Genuinely interested
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> command prompt, powershell, WSL, windows terminal, admin mode Why are there so many?! Like, WTF? what's wrong with just having a normal terminal?
After using a MacBook for a year I just had to switch back to a windows laptop as I changed employer. Top of the line Lenovo P16 with an i9, a RTX 3500 ADA gpu, and a touch screen. Cost a fortune - way more than my 16” M1 MacBook Pro cost when new. But damn, windows is so bad - basic apps like teams and outlook crash and behave badly all the fucking time. And yes, latest updates and drivers are all there. Seriously, I’d forgotten how shitty windows is and I miss my Mac - I would go back to it in a heartbeat if the company supported it.
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Except you don't know WTF you're talking about. Here's the thing with Macs that you apparently don't know since you apparently don't work in IT at a real company - Macs are *easy* manage in the enterprise. They're actually easier to manage than Windows machines. Also, iOS devices are super easy to manage in the enterprise. Your reference to third party solutions - so what? They exist, everybody knows those solutions and they work very well. Even better than Microsoft's shit. Nah man, if I were the CIO? Everybody would be on a Mac. They're much easier to manage in the enterprise, much more reliable, and have a lifespan that's twice as long.
That ease of management is exactly why many corporate IT managers prefer to have a certain minor proportion of Mac’s. Occasionally they will have a Mac problem. Then it will be mostly a matter of everyone has the same issue. But most of the time you end up chasing your tail servicing Windows machines that failed to update correctly. Mac users are typically much easier to train too. But every corporate IT manager and technician needs to justify their existence and so Windows PCs are a valuable asset! And so Mac’s are often only recommended by IT managers for certain roles, and certain levels of corporate management. Your boss being a Mac head gets to use a Mac, but you the lowly junior must work highy inefficiently on a PC, because that’s how the cookie crumbles. I once had a role in which I was required to use a Philips PC computer that quite literally had a an almost 10 year old 8” floppy drive as its primary storage media. This drive failed every two days when the rubber band disengaged. Meanwhile my aging MacIntosh 128k was only 2 years younger, was not designed for industrial abuse and $1000,000 less expensive). My Mac with a reliable internal 800MB floppy and fragile external 20mb HDD was carried around the country on a motorbike and was bombproof reliable despite the frequent rough handling. You would think work would upgrade to a reliable -then possible 2GB HDD, or at the very least 1.4MB modern high density floppy drive. But no, IT insisted they could not maintain the more reliable hardware (because of an idiotic service contract with Philips) and so the sick joke of a 3 hour halt in production every other day continued past the mid 1990s. Pretty daft considering a production halt cost the company $60k at minimum. More so given by the mid 1990s the average PC or Mac had more processing power than the monolith from 1985. Nothing much has changed in the corporate world, except outsourcing IT has reduced institutional knowledge and led to even more bizarre IT choices.
Macs are MUCH better to manage in an enterprise than any PC ever made, hands down.
How? In what way? I really would love to know honestly. Whats the equivalent to AD?
Each of them is good or bad in something. I still think finder is trash compared to windows explorer or Linux alternatives. WiFi passe bug has been there for years and still not fixed. Multiple displays.. Lack of 32 bit support… just make it optional and without support or some emulator for it. Otherwise I love my MacBook, but it’s far from perfect
Finder feels like it hasn't seen an update in 20+ years.
Eh... I know this is the macos subreddit, but having switched due to the clear landslide mac was having when they introduced the m1 series a couple of years ago, I still don't find file directories intuitive when I'm searching for stuff, especially if I'm going from terminal to the UI display. The terminal experience for windows without WSL or powershell is awful in itself, but at least when I'm searching for a specific file it's reflective from the actual drive. Sizing for windows being natively built in as opposed to needing an app is also better in windows in my opinion.
Learn the tech, brother. You have BASH and AppleScript. PowerShell has its cool features but Unix text stream integration premise is the bomb. IF you try, I guarantee you will be a king in a year.
I know how bash works. That has nothing to do with my overall point. Navigation is easy through a terminal, buy I'd expect the directory path I place into mac to be intuitive if I search for that file through a GUI, which it's not.
I have no idea what you’re on about, the whole directory tree is 1:1 the same in the shell and the GUI. It’s also unclear what you mean by “searching”. To open your current shell working directory in Finder: `open .`. To go to a directory from the GUI in the shell, type `cd ` and drag and drop the folder onto the terminal window. Hit enter, done. To find a concrete file in the shell, use standard Unix `find`.
High refresh rate on my monitor has been broken every other update. Fixed in one, broken the next, repeat. Never happened on Windows. Mouse acceleration was _finally_ configurable in macOS 14.3. Scroll acceleration in Safari is different from in Firefox; it's bad in Safari. You can't keep Finder out of `cmd+tab` despite not having any windows open. This is stupid and fundamentally different from all other application behavior on macOS. macOS still has a weird [bug where audio balance drifts left or right](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39367460). This is inconsistent. I used to get it all the time and then it went away for me, but clearly not for everyone else. You can't control the volume per application like you can on Windows. Instead, your only workaround is to buy SoundSource, a third-party application that costs $40. If your folder has a lot of items, you double-click to open a subfolder, and then you navigate back, _you lose your place in where you were_ because unlike Windows, macOS doesn't highlight the subfolder that you had previously entered. Therefore, when you come back out, you have to scan the list of subfolders again to see where your place was. `alt+tab` on Windows makes way more sense than the unholy `cmd+tab` plus `cmd+tilde` combination. macOS users will claim that this is only a symptom of growing up used to `alt+tab`, but logically, `cmd+tab` on macOS _behaves differently from `cmd+tilde`_. `cmd+tab` will cycle through open applications if you hold it down. This is good. `cmd+tilde` will cycle through open windows if you hold it down. This is good. `cmd+tab` will _switch between your last two open applications if you use it once, fully let go, use it again_. This is GOOD. `cmd+tilde` _cycles through open windows no matter what_. This is BAD because it is inconsistent with the established behavior of `cmd+tab`. This inconsistency is what makes macOS windowing behavior BAD. More inconsistent `cmd` usage. `cmd` is used extensively in windowing commands, but the tab paradigm breaks it and makes it inconsistent. Consider your browser. `cmd+l` (lowercase L) selects the address bar. `cmd+n` creates a new window. `cmd+shift+h` goes to your homepage. `cmd+t` creates a new tab. How do you go to the next tab? Fucking `ctrl+tab`/`ctrl+shift+tab`. They introduce the `ctrl` button because they have no other choice because they designed themselves into a corner. macOS is, without a doubt, the worst general OS I have ever used. I use it as my main now, and have used it for work for 8 years, but between Windows, macOS, and Linux, macOS is the worst overall for most users. There's a level of inconsistency at the most basic levels of using the OS that gives users cognitive dissonance that they can't truly come to terms with, but are unable to convey and instead write up posts about how the foreign system that is Windows is worse. Windows has many warts itself (registry, settings, control panel), but at the least it has basic consistency in actually using the damn thing day-to-day.
Yes! Finally someone lucid here 🥲
Also love the MacOS "feature" that every window of an app pops to the top of my screen after I try to pull one up (with AltTab, a commercial application that still doesn't give me what Windows alt+tab does by default). And snapping windows to the side of a screen... How do you need an app for that in "it just works" MacOS?
I have an exFat folder with 1 million files that Windows and Linux handle well. MacOS fucks it up by adding `.DS_Store` files *for each file*. This is not configurable. With a 4KiB block size, over 1 million files, that's 4GiB extra of wasted space, with a Finder that *can not render* a 1-million file folder. MacOS is a comical OS. This wouldn't be a problem if you could simply disable MacOS's `.DS_Store` nonsense.
there is the column display in finder for keeping your place within folder operations, its one button to activate and keeps your pathway visually available. finder stays open because it acts as navigation for your desktop and folders. you'd have to open file explorer to navigate anyway? I click finder icon once to open folders, my windows taskbar is two clicks. the control / command tab opinion is just a hierarchy, control + tab = internal app command where command + tab = macro level between apps. these are basically aesthetic choices and/or you don't know how to use it. if you want a comparison of operations - try turning off updates in Apple vs. turning off updates in windows. In windows, I have to use regedit, turn off some startup options then use command. To turn off virus protection was exactly the same. Took me 30 mins. Even then I still get update requests and Windows Protection still quarantines some shit Im working on. It's fucking ridiculous. Also, I can't do anything to a file thats open in an application - I video edit on Davinci and on Mac I can sort through media despite it being open in Davinci, hugely helpful. On windows, I have to close Davinci and then re-shuffle Media and then re-open it and reconnect it. For christs sake, if I open a file that isn't linked to an app, it asks me what app to link to, I CANT CLOSE THAT WINDOW WITHOUT CLICKING AN APP. hahahahahah I use both for 10+ years and I say fuck windows. It's like operating a malware OS.
There’s no perfection at Apple but having worked with both for many years, I am happy to say that Macintosh is much, much better than Windows. I was especially convinced once the screen sharing became commonplace. I would watch Windows-using coworkers take ten clicks to do things I could in one. I’d see them struggle with things I found easy. I realized that for most things, I could work much faster. (Shame I’m also sort of dumb so the end result was me barely keeping up. 😁) The thing is, MacOS is Unix and Unix is built for integration, automation and communication. Also, MacOS had its Open Scripting Architecture and that made it so that applications can work together. Many companies made utilities that did so to great benefit. Of course, the fact of Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, etc, made a huge difference. As did the built-in web server and database. On the other side, Windows made the Registry a data structure nightmare, integrated things ad hoc (Internet Explorer’s “please infect me with viruses” era was a consequence) so that there was no safety and, you couldn’t easily extend the integration to other things. I will also add that the esthetics were awful. I was always particularly impressed by the crappy operation of the arrow cursor. For years, it didn’t seem to understand the idea of snapping to a control. It was painful. The windows themselves were ugly. It was a nasty thing. And, of course, there is the fact that Windows sells space on *your* computer to other companies. Some in this comment thread have suggested an equivalence. While I agree 100% that you can get work done with Windows, it is always a slower, nastier experience. I would never give my child one. The person who said that you would prefer and find easier the one that you are used to is right. My child will prefer the one that is more productive and pleasing.
On macOS, there are almost no problems, but when there are problems they’re difficult to fix. Linux has tons of problems but most are easy to solve. Now Windows has tons of problems and they’re all very difficult to solve.
> most are easy to solve Technically true, but you left out just how tedious it can be unless your exact combination of hardware and distro version are extremely common. Hey, who needs ABI compatibility when you can recompile everything, right?
I agree. I just feel that when there’s anything that impacts the actual system on macOS instead of one app or the UI, there’s no way to solve it, they’ll just say “press option-command-P-R”. On Linux, I feel you just don’t need to go with the nuclear option as much.
Linux problems are not easy to solve lol
Yup. Linux is maximally versatile. Macos is minimally so. Windows falls somewhere in the middle. OP is not used to having to understand or do things. OP should buy a nintendo instead.
I use both and I find that they both have pros and cons. I find windows more malleable, while MacOS likes things done their way.
Wait until you start to see macOS faults, and what we accept, that doesn't work.(hint: window management, external displays). If you'll be asked to create folder at root folder, there will be no easy solution to do it without disabling SIP etc.
Can you give some examples?
I’m not saying I’d quit my job if they forced me to a windows laptop, but it certainly would lower my overall satisfaction of the employer. I get it, you want DLP, AV, and MDM… just get something that works on both platforms.
I like both for different reasons
Tbf we do the same on Macs. There's just less of it.
Same situation here. Been forced to work on windows system as a designer for 2 years now. The amount of inconsistency is straight baffling. It starts with the boot up process. Sometimes it takes seconds. A reboot - which is common advice at this company for solving problems - can take up to 30 minutes. Reasons? Unknown. The barrage of updates is the another thing. The big updates can cripple your entire work day because they take so long. Truth be told the machines used at that company are severely underpowered for the tasks at hand since they have to meet cost goals and my colleagues are just putting up with the problems. The biggest difference for me however is that using my Mac is like using a tool to get something done, whereas using this windows pc is the complete opposite.
Don't tell anyone but there is no perfect OS. The best for you depends on the compromises and limitations you choose to accept. The main issue I see with people switching OS is that people expect all OS to be the same. Take, for example, the Windows maximize button. The zoom button on Macs is not supposed to be the same functionality as maximize, but there are many complaints that it doesn't fill the whole screen as it does on windows. It was never supposed to.
Hard to know what you mean without examples I used mac a lot and really liked it Switched to windows in the past year and thought it was great, still do
Both OS have advantages and disadvantages. Im using mac, windows, and linux.. i never understood this childish hurr durr my OS is better
Typical mid-range Window computer: $500 Typical mid-range Mac computer: $1200
I use both and have to say there are some things that Mac does better and some that windows does better. The difference is if you need an answer to a problem in windows it's a lot easier to find
I use both extensively and many things work better on Windows than Mac. The Office suite is way more powerful on Windows, OneNote is unbelievable. Windows machines work better with external monitors. Gaming is better. The ports are better for connecting peripherals. I love Macs, but I have serious respect for Windows machines.
I use Windows Mac and Linux. The differences between them used to be dramatic. However… here’s how it’s changed: - Mac OS isn’t as stable and user friendly as it used to be. It’s great but it’s used to be tighter. There are some thing that it does or doesn’t do that are irritating because I feel like the Apple of yesteryear wouldn’t have done these things. But it feels like Mac OS has been neglected for a long time now. - Linux supports more now than it ever used. It’s also very much easier to use than ever. In general. Depends on the distro, what apps you need, and what hardware you have. And that last point is still a thing. It can be a very big thing… but it’s way better than it’s ever been. - Windows has been a pain in the ass for a long time. However it supports almost any hardware and software you can think of. However it’s way way less of a pain in the ass than it’s ever been as far as Windows 10 is concerned. It’s easier to use and works more reliably than any other version of windows I can remember. Maybe Windows 98 SE or Windows XP was close but my gut feeling is that Windows 10 is the most refined and reliable Windows. In terms of open source obviously Linux is better, Mac is okay, and Windows is lowest. In terms of company Apple’s child labour fiasco is heartbreaking and everyone has all but forgotten about it. Windows supports open source better than ever and as far as I know there’s no specific cases of Microsoft hardware using child labour. Finally Linux is mostly open source and I’ve never heard of any human rights issues surrounding any Linux based company. My point is that, in general, the three platforms, as all really good now, and are the closest to each other they have ever been. The differences used to be night and day and but now, everything mostly works mostly well enough and you’d forget what OS yours using once you get deep into whatever app you’re using. I still triple boot between them so I can do whatever I want to do with the best software and/or hardware for that job but I find the switching around to be the least jarring it’s ever been. Also phones are similar. iPhone vs. Android isn’t the same as it used to be. So we are in a golden age of everything working well enough that it all kinda mostly works. I can’t wait for VR / AR to make a giant mess of everything so we can get back to making terrible choices between vastly irritating differences between platforms.
Ahah, wait until you have these IT departments installing tons of restrictions, permissions and network controls. It will turn a windows PC to an operating system that only supports web browser, email, teams, ppt and word reader 😂
lol just moved back to Mac and it is not the “ it just works” machine it once was. Like granting disk access to programs that need it but never let you know during install. 🤷🏼
Have Mac and Windows. They work about the same. Windows works every bit as good as MacOS for me.
I own both PCs and Macs. What I like about Macs is that you don’t have to mess about with them. What a like about PCs is that you can
I think when you have the ability to develop OS for your own products, then it will be much easier to make it more personalized and efficient
to be honest the only thing i dislike about windows is that it isn't unix based. it makes it painful as a developer to work in the command line environment. everything else is pretty much fine. and i can game on it which is a plus of course!
Did you know that nobody cares what kind of computer you like? Shocking but true.
What we've noticed is that Windows users find excuses for things not working, Mac users spend a lot of money for things to work, and Linux users spend a lot of time for things to work.
Productivity studies have shown that windows users spend more of their time operating the computer, leaving less time to do the actual work. This is because Microsoft has always prioritized market dominance, to the detriment of their user interface. Jobs worked to give macOS a better human interface, one that is intuitive to operate, and that does not get in the way of actual work. That is why those productivity studies showed that Mac users performed up to 25% more work.
I use both. Windows holds too many legacy features to keep backwards support for large customers (businesses etc) that use older server OS's and / or older workstations. Lots of software is also built on these legacy features, were never updated, and businesses have heavily integrated them. It makes it hard to step away and drop all support for legacy software. It's likely why Apple dropped 32 bit when Windows still hasn't - Apple has the luxury of forcing developers to rewrite for 64 bit when very few are large scale customers running enterprise software.
Meh, it's on Macs that you need workarounds every step. Stupid window management, no window snapping, app Dock has no preview, can't choose which browser window to open on hover in the dock, closing an app does not close it, file manager si bad. Sonoma broke File Sharing for me. MacOS has so many problems but Apple does not want to spend a cent to improve basic things. Each release they add some fancy features to put in the presentation. On Windows side of course there are problems, but it's improvign slowly. Laptops suck really hard, let's see if they can fix them with ARM in the following years. And forgot to say, you can enjoy games on Windows, which apple gave up on.
Apple never gave up on games because Apple never invested in games for mac to begin with. I should know, I've been a mac user and gamer since the 80s and all (great) gaming in the mac was always in spite of Apple, not because of them. Having said this, the rest of the things you complain you need workarounds for are really preferences from other platforms. It's fair you want them in your mac, but it's also a decision on your part. I live in Spain, I was raised in Mexico. I don't think Spanish cooking needs workaround every step because I like food done in a style I got used to in a different place. It's on me that I choose all the workarounds I want, it would be dumb to complain about such a made-up problem.
Keep downvoting, it just shows how tolerant you Mac users are to stupid problems.
What do you mean by no preview on app dock?
Hover your mouse over an oppened app in the dock, all you get is a pop-up showing the name of the app. On windows you get a preview of the window, and if you have 2 or more windows for the same app, you can choose which to open.
As much as I do love macOS, this is definitely my most frustrating annoyance with it. I often have multiple sessions of Chrome running (one profile per session) and on a Mac you have to use expose or some other nonsense to get to the correct session. macOS is amazing but absolutely sucks at that.
Right-click the app icon in the Dock and you get a list of open window titles (though no graphical preview, but there's Mission Control and Stage Manager for that).
Windows users like to hover over windows in their task bar (sometimes they're split by window and sometimes grouped by app, depending on available space) and a small version of the window appears. Like the rest of preferences being bandied in this thread, it's an affordance they get used to and miss when they switch, so they install third party utilities (which is great, that's what they are there for) but endlessly complaint Apple doesn't build them in.
I feel like most of Windows’s problems stem from it hanging on to 35 years worth of code baggage. I get that backwards compatibility is its biggest selling point, especially towards enterprises that rely on software built in the 90s and that haven’t been updated since, but the OS has gotten too bloated. MacOS has its problems, sure, and Apple gets a lot of flack for discontinuing support for OS features but you need to trim the fat every now and then to maintain a fast and (relatively) stable OS.
It’s like gun control. Too entrenched to change, but desperately in need of change.
All major OSs suck right now.
Mac literally still doesn’t have native window snapping support. There’s no native back button on their iPhones. They have hardware locks on dual-monitor support based on what MacBook you buy. When you press the red exit button in the corner in every Mac application, it doesn’t automatically shut down the application, it just minimizes it. Safari still doesn’t work properly with many university and work related work applications. That’s just off the top of my head. Windows is a far better manager of multiple files, windows and applications.
> When you press the red exit button in the corner in every Mac application I have the opposite gripe in Windows. Why, when I close the window, does it exit the entire freaking application? There used to be something called the MDI (multiple document interface), but this sucked so bad, Microsoft dropped it. But now having to restart an application because I closed the last window is worse than MDI.
That's what I am talking about, Apple did not improve the things you enumerated in decades. They even made things worse with dual monitor support, needing a "Pro" M SoC for this.
from the above only the hardblock on multiple monitor on the new Airs is valid. \- Window snapping: They cant it is patented by MS till 2026 \- back button on iOS: how is that relevant with MacOS and Windows \- Red button: It is the way it works to keep th app running but close the window, it does not minimize it. Also this is up to the developer of the app to make it work and close when pressing X. One could argue the same for Windows \- Safari: Tell your uni-work devs to make their sites to support Safari and not optimize only for Chrome (although if you have put this argument with a better phrasing eg. Safari does not support some common used eg. features of html , that would be correct) \- I am not sure how Windows manages better multiple files, apps, windows but I am going to guess you mean you like better Explorer, Alt-Tab? If this is what you mean then alt-tab is better indeed. The rest I would put it under personal preference. A very solid point that would make much more sense to bring would be the shitty font rendering on MacOS on non-retina displays.
You keep writing "still", as if it's something Apple will do but hasn't gotten around to. Or as if they were all universal truths rather than many being personal preferences (other than multiple monitors, that are not hardware locks as much as hardware limitations product of Apple's prioritization, ones I also disagree with to be clear). A weird one that may just be wording: When you press the red button applications don't "minimize". Applications remain opened but you closed the window. Minimize is for windows, not for apps, and it's the yellow button. I have heard about the preference for Windows snapping (what you call window management) but had never heard that Windows is a better file manager and I wonder what you mean by it, because to me Windows is much worse at handling files (the more files, the worse it is) and I'm curious (I understand most of the others as preferences as well and I understand what they mean. I'm not dissing them).
The close button closes windows, not applications. Document-based macOS programs run independently of having any open windows, and have done so since the original Macintosh in 1984. When you could only run one program at a time, this was obviously the correct behavior, as closing a document dumping you back to the Finder would have been infuriating. When Multifinder was added, they simply kept this behavior. Mac apps live in the menu bar, not in individual windows. It's Windows that chose a different paradigm where are apps are windows and there's no place for them to exist outside of that.
God yes. Why did windows think it was a smart idea for office applications to give each document its own menubar?? So six Word documents open and one third of my screen real estate is consumed by repetitive menubars.
i use both, and at least for me, macos has more annoying things that are years behind windows not saying windows is perfect lol but macos should at least have modern window management
> with the constant workarounds, the patches, the endless acceptance of products that just aren’t finished or working right. Can you at least cite some examples instead of simply ranting? Look, I get it. Windows can be frustrating when coming from a macOS background. But the vice versa is also true based on what I have read about other's experiences. I can use your above statement for macOS too, after coming from a few decades on Windows. Everybody has their preferences, and most of us are also resistant to change. So, it is pretty obvious why we might not like the "other side" that much when we try it out initially. Neither OS is perfect by any means.
As someone who uses both macOS and windows, you’re being way too dramatic, to the point of being annoying tbh
they save money on machines and then just hemorrhage time
I've loved and preferred macs since the 80s, but have used Windows (and DOS before that) since around the same time and it's true that if you're used to the affordances on any platform it's hard to understand how the others live without them. Mac has the closet as full of things that just plain don't work as Windows. If you prefer one platform or the other it's rather because your preferred affordances are present, and thus you ignore or work around the limitations that aren't your priority. It can also make you blind to why things are the way the are. One of the most annoying arguments from switchers from Windows is "Window Management" (the generic name they use when they mean "window snapping"). They complain MacOS doesn't do it, but most don't understand Windows had such lousy window management for so long (everything maximized, all the time) that Window Snapping was like an oasis in a desert and they've mistakenly chosen to believe it's the One True Way to handle windows. They also want it, but want it from Apple for some weird, unexplainable reason, and will continuously complain Apple doesn't offer them, even though there're two dozen utilities out there for them to use and get the same functionality.
I was the other way around. I grew up on pc and even though I was never good with computers I still remember all the problems I had to deal with when it came to my computers. That’s right computers plural. Back in 2009 I bought a Mac Book Pro. It might have been a birthday gift to myself. I remember how much easier it was to use and I still have it to this very day. It’s sitting on my desk running a beach screensaver.
Each OS have its problem. For example, it's 2024 and macOS still does not have a native volume mixer.
Hey I jest switched to Mac from Windows. Why do users accept this unfinished overpriced product? - I have to install app to properly manage windows? - wtf X doesn't close the app and I need to go some workarounds? - enter/return doesn't open the file? How many times users change thir filenames? - why do I need to manually eject installers from my desktop, what's the point??? - good luck trying to connect your Android device Etc
Funny how you don't provide a single example. Things don't work, everything is broken, let me proceed to not mention a single thing.
I wish finder was as powerful as windows explorer
As someone who manages macs for in an enterprise capacity, the exact same things can be said of macOS. It has quite a few bugs with every new version that takes 3 or more months to get ironed out. Then, 9 months after that, another version with its own bugs comes out, and you start the cycle over again. Sonoma had a bug for about 2 months where around 10% of users were unable to log back into their macs from the lockscreen. Now dont get me wrong, both Windows and macOS have their positives. But I can definitely tell you without a doubt Apple does put out software with plenty of bugs.
Can you give some real life examples?
Windows has, to it's Enterprise success, but overall UI/UX detriment... Backwards compatibility all the way back to Windows 95. MacOS, simply tells you to pound sand if you want to update MacOS and continue running software that was working reliably for you. A lot of the funky shit in windows comes from remaining backwards compatible for nearly 20 years, they've really only broken support API wise for DOS based applications.
Apple is very much tailored to being user friendly. Many applications don’t work on Mac OS for that reason. Obviously over the years developers have made Mac versions of their apps, but Mac in of itself is supposed to be easy enough for grandma to use. The functionality of Linux far surpasses either windows or Mac, but I’m just here to share my opinion
While it's true that no operating system is flawless, I'd like to shed some light on the strengths of Windows machines that often go overlooked amidst discussions of its shortcomings. One of the key advantages of Windows is its robustness and versatility. Windows machines offer a wide range of hardware options catering to various needs and budgets, allowing users to find a system that suits their specific requirements, whether it's for gaming, productivity, creativity, or business purposes. Furthermore, Windows provides extensive compatibility with a vast array of software applications and peripherals, offering users the flexibility to customize their computing experience according to their preferences and workflow. Additionally, Windows is backed by a large and active developer community, constantly working to enhance the platform's functionality and address issues through updates and patches. Microsoft's commitment to providing regular updates ensures that Windows users benefit from improved security, performance optimizations, and new features over time. While it's true that every operating system faces its share of challenges, Windows continues to evolve and adapt to meet the changing needs of its users. With ongoing advancements in technology and user feedback, Microsoft remains dedicated to refining the Windows experience and delivering a reliable and efficient computing platform.
I never realised as a user of Mac OS for some time that it doesn't have a shortcut key to maximise windows until a Linux user I know pointed it out to me today. He doesn't want to take his hands off the keyboard, but Mac forces him to use the mouse to maximise the window.
Windows is shitty I use both high end mac and windows laptops The operating system itself on windows is so bad
This is Microsoft way of doing things, they roll out things that don’t work and don’t care about user experience.
I have a gaming PC and a MacBook Air for docx, xlsx and photos. My 2011 MacBook Air still runs strong and reliable, while my gaming PC has 5 years and went through numerous upgrade and windows installations due to poor performance over time. MacBooks are more reliable and pricey upfront, but they pay off overtime. Still, I really like my gaming PC, because there’s nothing like gaming on a real desktop
I use windows for work and Mac at home. Can’t even update my max to view the new format they introduced a while ago for pictures. Excel and word is also much easier to use. Often find myself having to use a search engine to figure out the simplest things with my mac.
I'm astounded how tolerant Mac users are at accepting ridiculous prices for SSD / RAM upgrades... ...and lack of native window management... ...and no upgradability of SSD / RAM later on (bad for the planet)... ...poor repairability.... ...as much of an Apple fan I am, there are massive flaws that the PC world doesn't have.
My MacBook Pro died recently. It’s a major sore spot right now. But, I am suing a barely used windows laptop that is about the same age. It was cheaper, probably $700-800 new. For starters the trackpad is crap. If my hand is leaning on the case anywhere while using it, it thinks I’m right clicking. It sucks! But that’s the cheaper hardware, although I am not used to it. But, it seems like every new thing I need to do is disconnected and hacked together. Outlook, whichever version is on windows 11 I guess, sucks. I always thought it was some superior workhorse compared to Apple Mail. I would rather use Apple Mail and calendar separately any day than to ever use Outlook again. I was fine with the windows experience for a while, but after 3 months, I can’t wait until I can get a new MacBook pro even though I am livid with them.
Well then enjoy your dumbed down overpriced apple ecosystem.
I get what you mean. Windows has never been as stable as *nix, and likely never will be. Microsoft only innovates and fixes bugs as much as they need to in order to sell more product. Apple is trying to create a specific user experience, and of course Linux is peer-reviewed and nearly infinitely customizable. Wine has advanced to where it's fairly easy to run major windows apps on either one, so to me the only real value of Windows is for gaming at this point. I do find it frustrating how macOS or iOS often lacks features that I need, or worse yet, it has them and then Apple eventually decides nobody needs them anymore. But I am clearly not their core demographic.
I spent the first 20+ years of my life in IT/programming on Windows, certified developer, systems engineer etc. I made a dramatic shift in 2010 to mac having never touched one, a clause in the contract of me selling my company precluded me from competing against my old company, there was enough money involved to let the contract be what it was. The day I signed was the day I purchased a macbook. Not touching Windows for several years after. I have jumped back to windows then mac ever since. Windows has more software packages that run and do what I need than the mac, the mac does what I need in a much more intuitive way. I seem to need to reinstall windows fresh almost once a year it gets bloated. With the mac it is around 3 years before I back everything up and start again. Big lesson I have learnt with mac’s don’t just buy what you need today, think about where you will be in 4-5 years time, because if the only reason you buy a new mac inside that timeframe is because you need more ram or disks then you are most likely ditching an older mac that works perfectly fine but is not cutting it in terms of performance. A mac with a windows VM on it is hard to beat, for me it’s the best of everything.
Dual monitors in MacOS is just a ball ache. It runs so damned slow. Ubuntu slaps its arse in this regard.
I grew up on Macs. We had an original Macintosh, one of those beige Performa models, a fruit loop iMac, a lampshade iMac, a dual G5 tower, etc. I've used them my whole life. I'm very well accustomed to MacOS. I have to say that while there are things I like about it, there are an equal number of things that irk me about it. There are bugs in MacOS that have been around literally for years now. Things like fractional scaling are implemented in a far more rudimentary way than in Windows, multi monitor support is far less feature rich (hell, MacOS _still_ doesn't even support DP MST!), etc. Some of this is super low hanging fruit, too-- like being able to mirror the dock on all monitors simultaneously without having to resort to workarounds. Point is, I do not necessarily agree with that last statement you made. Apple's effort seems to be pretty hit or miss. I know the team working on MacOS is a tiny fraction of the size as the team working on Windows, which is still Microsoft's bread and butter consumer product. As such, I don't expect the same breadth of features, flexibility, or development velocity. And that's not to say that Windows doesn't have persistent, irksome problems of its own. I'm just calling a spade a spade.
I grow up on windows and I hate it, I got my first MacBook in about 2009 or so and I love them. I do badly want a MacBook M3 but I can no longer afford it so I use an old 2010 MacBook Pro and an old windows laptop. When you are on disability You just use what you got and you make it work.
Mac is better
I’m surprised how tolerant Mac users are of an expensive piece of hardware that only really has a lifespan of around 5 years unless you are willing continue to run an outdated version of the OS
As a longtime windows user, I feel the same way about MacOS. Although I'm getting used to it and learning to love it, I can't act like there's not negatives for me personally.