Same. I've tried multiple monitor setups a few times, but I always ended up actually using just the main one with the other ones displaying Spotify or email inbox all day.
I don't need that, it's more comfortable to bring Spotify to the front on the main screen than turn my head anyway.
I however feel limited using anything less than a 5k screen.
27” is still a bit too small for my taste and bigger screens usually don’t gove above 4k. The best I could find at the moment is a 34” 5k2k ultrawide. Unfortunately a lot of those are curved, which I hate. I would love something like a 36” 16:9 monitor with 8k resolution.
I was on a 32in 5k ultrawide.. trying out a 42 4k oled just now. My eyes are thanking me for the bigger screen realestate, but I did get used to the wideness of the UltraWide. Definitely better to go massive single in my view.
That OLED video look though, just can't be beaten..
I’ve been running a Phillips 49” ultrawide for nearly 2 years now and it is simply the best thing I’ve ever used. The USB-C / display port KVM built in works a treat and makes swapping from my laptop to my desktop a single plug, and the monitor itself mostly behaves itself with every device I’ve tried it with including an iPad.
I wish it was higher resolution but I suspect going beyond its 5120x1440 current resolution is pushing the limits of most display connections and standards at this point.
Same here. I've gotten used to just having my laptop screen (14" mbp m1). It's fine. Having more screens is just confusing/distracting to me. The only time I use external screens is when presenting and I just put them in mirror mode.
Mostly using windows side by side is not a thing for me either. I look at one application at the time and I just give it the full screen. The sole exception to this seems to be finder windows for me.
There are lots of sub optimal things in the mac os UI. The key issue is feature interaction between features introduced over the years combined with obviously slipping standards on QA and UX. Steve Jobs would not have accepted a lot of the crap that slips through these days at Apple.
A good example is the the full screen mode in combination with the notch. You can't actually use the space next to the notch for anything else than the menu bar. Which just means full screen is a glorified "hide the menu bar thing". You don't actually gain any vertical space back if you use it with a lot of apps.
With the recent release, Mac OS defaults to having a transparent menu bar meaning that in dark mode and with the default background the menu bar is very bright. To fix this lovely bit of feature interaction, you just have to use a dark desktop image and turn off dynamic desktop backgrounds constantly changing the color. The sensible default of just making the menu bar background black isn't there because they want the dynamic desktop thing to always be visible unless you are full screen, which is not the same as having you window maximized. But obviously the maximize window button now makes your window full screen.
And speaking of desktop backgrounds. I don't care about them because there usually is something on top of my desktop. The only visible bit would be below the menu bar. The only time you see the damn background is when you are deliberately hiding all your applications. Why would you do that?
And of course full screen pretends that you have extra screens. So it's a hybrid that is like maximizing a window and plugging in a screen. So in terms of window management things get weird. Especially when you actually plugin an actual screen.
This stuff started escalating when they introduced full screen mode (aka. let's pretend hiding the menu is special), which is when they broke their dominant UX of always having the menubar visible and taking up space. Which now that we have the notch is the only use for that screen real estate.
Can we just loose the notch and get our screen real estate back? I just want to maximize windows and alt+tab between them. I mostly want the menubar unless I'm watching a video.
Apple itself is hopelessly confused on this topic. I recently experienced Apple TV on mac os. What were they smoking that it got released in that shape? It always plays the video in full screen but it keeps the main application window open separately. When you alt+tab away, you end back on the wrong thing. And sometimes when you hit escape it closes the full screen video but it keeps on playing. It's bizarrely buggy and dysfunctional. Complete amateur hour.
>The sensible default of just making the menu bar background black isn't there...
This may not apply to you since you mention using dark mode, but for those who use light mode, there is a hidden system preference you can use to force only the menu bar and dock to being dark. Easiest way to set this is with TinkerTool.
> I want one big display, something like 27" or 32"
27" is big? I'm really curious what sort of setups people are running that they feel this way. I ran a 40" 4K monitor for years, and I'd really like the option to go to 5K 40" or even higher.
The XDR is easily one of the best monitors on the market for coding if you value high resolution. I've never had issues with bloom on it either, seems more relevant for stress tests than daily usage.
100% agree. It absolutely sucks. It sometimes amazes me across all ability apple has that the experience is so atricously obnoxious to try to use more than one monitor with macos. All the points in the article are true and it's a frustrating experience anytime i try it.
Not to mention that macos renders fonts like crap on external displays.
Eh, but the "pro" features aren't really necessary for it to work just fine. Like XDR/HDR brightness upscaling, Picture in Picture, Teleprompter mode, EDID override, etc. Those are niche case bonus features.
I'd been using 2 external displays with my macbook pro for the past few years. The most annoying thing for me was waking the mac from sleep and getting it to detect the two of them. Once they were both detected I honestly thought the experience was OK. But the dance I needed to do every time to detect was so frustrating that I recently replaced the two of them DELL's new 40 inch 5K ultra wide: https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-ultrasharp-40-curved-wu.... I'm very happy with it. For my (slightly aging) eyes the pixel density is great, there's lots of space, and the waking from sleep detection issue is finally gone.
I don't think the issues of multi display really are only due the OS, my personal experience on multiple platform is that is suck regardless of whatever one thinks the solution would be. There are insolvable constraints implied by multi display:
- Screen going on and off is an asynchronous mechanism that the OS has to treat by an event driven implementation.
- All states must be valid (all graphical stuff must be put on display), as screen can go on and off at any time, for expected and unexpected events
- Those synchronous event must converge to an expected state for the user, whatever the final state is
- App developers mostly ignore those problems giving responsibility to the OS to deal with it. But sometimes they don't, sometimes ignoring the services provided by the OS to would help achieve predictable consensus, invalidating any assumption the OS could make.
- App windows positions state restoration have no definitive logic when there are moved and place across different dispositions, even it's manually by the other or programmatically by the OS.
Did you try to solve them? "Linux" doesn't really mean anything, which DE/window manager? X11 or Wayland? Which graphics drivers?
Every configuration will have a slightly different solution, but at least there is usually a solution and it makes somewhat sense. And you can customize it to make sense for _you_, not what someone else decides makes sense. Back when I used to work in an office and used to dock/undock my laptop, i3 worked well.
I assigned workspaces 1-5 on my left monitor and 6-10 on my right monitor. When I disconnected from the dock, workspaces 1-10 would appear on my single laptop screen. When I connected it back to the dock, they switched back. I am _pretty_ sure it was all handled by i3 in the config.
I don't doubt you figured out a stable setup. My original comment was just to point out that I don't believe there is a definitive, all purpose, acceptable solution to the multi display problems.
The idea is not that specific combination are not solvable, but for each setup, you will have to solve issues manually or live with inconvenience due to the nature of the problem.
For our specific case, I didn't meant I was annoyed every day with my setup. I just meant I always had to fiddle a little to end up with a workable solution, each time I had more than one screen.
Don't use outdated/old Linux Distros. I almost always find out someone is using a variant of Conical's Ubuntu CD marketing and it explains why they have some terrible experience.
Updated distros usually have everything working with modern hardware working together with software. Look into Fedora.
Ubuntu/Debian/Mint need to be avoided and we need to warn people.
I’m working with Linux mainly these days, and I think the “pain” for me usually is just getting the initial config right, and learning to live with the quirks on the specific platform.
Of course nothing is truly perfect, but I would say that after the initial learning curve, I had really pleasant and productive time with yabai.
Same. I started using ion3 in like 2002, switched to xmonad a couple years later, then sway for the last four years. Multi-monitor setups pretty much the whole time and it's been smooth.
I just recently had a really weird bug with Linux and external USB-C display. Basically after reboot with lid closed, system was gone into madness, like display flickers, laptop blinks with its led and eventually it just dies (probably kernel panic).
Turned out it's a dance between systemd putting system to sleep because external display is not connected and waking up because external display is connected. I might be wrong about it, but basically display takes some time to initialize and without input it'll turn off, so those events couldn't alight. What's worse it worked sometimes, so I spent some time distro-hopping, because I thought it's a bug in kernel or mesa.
In the end I just disabled sleep mode in systemd. I don't like this solution, but it's Linux, what could I say... At least I was able to disable it, LoL. Probably with Mac I would have to live with it.
I don't think that the problems should be insurmountable, but I agree that the apple operating systems are not the only (or perhaps even worst) offenders.
What I consider to be absolutely basic - if I am sat at my desk plugged into two other screens and I have a particular screen set up, then I disconnect and go off to a meeting and come back 30 minutes later, I want my set up to return to it's original layout. Bonus points for making the setup while on the move also useable (perhaps converting screens into workspaces or something).
For me it's okay. I've noticed only a glitch with menu bar apps (tray icons?) that sometimes I hit them on one monitor and menu appears on another, but it's been recently introduced and I hope will be fixed.
Best thing there is on Mac is one app per desktop mode (maximise gives new desktop to the app) and a gesture to switch them
MacOS is perpetually losing the physical position of my displays. 95% of the time I plug my laptop in the display layout swaps them. I would understand if it was 50% of the time, although I'd still be frustrated, but the fact it happens reliably is beyond me.
I don’t understand why Apple doesn’t support daisy chaining multiple monitors using DisplayPort Multi-Stream Transport (MST). That would be an elegant solution that also would fit Apple’s style.
They noted that their monitor came with cables that didn't support daisy chaining, when they upgraded their cables to ones that supported 40 Gbit/s then everything was fine.
Probably because their benchmark for displays (>220dpi, plus 10bit HDR in some cases) chews through so much bandwidth that it's not really feasible to squeeze two of them onto a single DP1.4 connection. DP2.1 could do it but Apple doesn't support that yet, and even if they did the monitors would also need DP2.1 passthrough, which also none of them do yet.
MST over DP1.4 only really makes sense for traditional low DPI displays.
I've used multiple displays back when monitors were still pretty small in size but i can't find a good reason anymore to use more than one for a developer in the age of 27"/5K. It's more distracting than productive.
I'm very happy with my built in monitor on my 16" Macbook Pro. Brightness, HDR, local dimming, retina and 120 Hz. I have yet to find an external monitor with all those specs.
I don't get why the screens sometimes swap around. It makes no sense to me that sometimes when I log in, my extra screens are switched and I have to move all the contents. The machine has the serial numbers of the screens, and it knows what ports they are connected to. Why can they not just use that information to remember where stuff is supposed to be?
The other thing that annoys me is that it changes the background when I've already chosen just to have black as my background on all screen. Works for a few days, then next time I log in, there's a photo instead. Why, Apple?
They also don't let you use the native resolution of the screens very easily. I had to install BetterDisplay to get this working, and even that isn't great.
This is indeed the main problem. If you have two screens of the same model, the OS is unable to see which is which. This also goes for many USB devices (such as webcams that randomly swap).
Ok but then it could at least say "there is a screen plugged into port 1, and the same serial in port 2, so I'll draw the things that were on port 1 there again"?
That way it would be up to the user to plug the same screen into the same port, which I think I could handle.
Plus I can see the serials are actually different, so just going by serials should work.
Or it should just tell you "hey buddy, you've got two screens with the same serial and that's why I don't know what to do"
Agreed. In my case with a 15" MBP M1 Max and two LG UltraFine 5K's, which I always plug in the same ports, 99% of the time it remembers which display is which correctly. On my 2018 Intel, this was hit and miss. It's obviously not a trivial problem to solve...
>Ok but then it could at least say "there is a screen plugged into port 1, and the same serial in port 2, so I'll draw the things that were on port 1 there again"?
Yes, this is the strange thing. It's not like it's guessing which monitor is which, it's always swapped.
Just like the touchpad and mouse 'scroll direction' setting being tied together. It makes sense for Apple mice/external trackpad (which all have a touch surface), so sod the 100% of other far more prevalent mice that use a scroll wheel, for which 'natural scroll' is absurdly unnatural (but disable it, and lose it on the built-in trackpad too).
> scroll wheel, for which 'natural scroll' is absurdly unnatural
IMO there is no objective reason why turning a plastic wheel towards or away from the screen should be the natural choice for scrolling down a webpage. It's just something that some people are used to.
My head sees scrolling on a touchpad, the Magic Mouse and a wheeled mouse as the same thing — and I even set my Windows gaming machine so that the mouse scrolls "naturally" like my Mac.
Fair enough, but it is a different interface to touch, and it even has a separate (duplicated) home in settings. There's no good reason for it to be the same toggle.
(To me, the scroll wheel is reflecting the scroll bar on-screen, so I'm pushing it up or pulling it down. A touch area more naturally resembles the rest of the page/window, so I'm on board with 'natural scroll' - I'm pushing the page up or pulling it down.)
>IMO there is no objective reason why turning a plastic wheel towards or away from the screen should be the natural choice for scrolling down a webpage. It's just something that some people are used to.
Hard disagree. I move the mousewheel down to go down the page, and up to go up. That's natural.
Swiping around my desktop screens and apps like it's a tablet makes no sense. It's the very first thing I turn off on all Macs.
When I’m reading a piece of paper lying on the table and I need to focus on something at the bottom, I physically push the paper away from me, I don’t scoot backwards with the chair. Not saying that your preferences are wrong, I just firmly believe that “going down the page” itself is something that only happens on a computer screen and has no natural physical equivalent where moving something towards your body would make sense.
You pull the mouse body towards you to move the cursor down the screen, you pull the wheel towards you to go down the page.
The idea that you are touching the document and directly manipulating it and pushing the document up is a touch interaction model. Mouse interaction moves the cursor/view. It’s not “natural” but it’s in accordance with decades of mouse behaviour that “toward your body” is down.
Speaking of, “page down” acts like moving the page up. Mouse wheel down (towards you) matches page down, which is agreeable.
> I don't get why the screens sometimes swap around.
Windows had this problem for AGES if you had 1 or more DisplayPort monitors connected, and I think it was in 2020 that they finally fixed it. I used to use this utility [0] to remember my layout, then when I learned that the problem was DP I started making sure I had enough HDMI/DVI ports on my graphics card(s) to avoid DP altogether.
Now I keep it running anyway because it's incredibly convenient in case I accidentally minimize all my windows and then reopen one or something.
Check this [1] HN post from 10 days ago, the first problem listed, "Dual monitors swapped positions" and the cause ("The problem comes from vendors who flash the same exact firmware with the same EDID to multiple monitors in the same batch.") :D
I have two monitors plugged into some generic docking station, and I keep the lid open below those.
Found this from a post here on HN a few weeks ago, but apparently manufacturers of monitors don't bother to give the monitors unique machine ids, except in batches. Since everyone's two monitors are almost always from the same batch, they can't be told apart on a hardware level. I thought I had struck paydirt in that HN post (a tool that helped with this), but since the two monitors of mine aren't plugged directly into the Mac, the tool can't fix it for me. It would have to somehow work on the level of the docking station. If I didn't have bad luck, wouldn't have any at all?
But it's so much worse than you describe. In theory, I should be able to hit F3, see the little "desktops" at the top, and drag the one from the left monitor over to the right, and then vice versa. But somehow, there's always one virtual desktop that can't be dragged in this manner, and it's always the one with the applications.
I don’t experience most of them either. Windows do get shuffled occasionally but it’s not that frequent. My setup is a Studio Display and now quite old Thunderbolt Display.
The Dock issue for example isn’t a problem for me because I have mouse sensitivity on high and take advantage of Fitts’ law. Tossing my cursor to the left with a certain velocity lands it on my left side dock on the secondary monitor reliably.
My use of the second display is primarily sets of “secondary” apps divided into desktops. This setup keeps everything sorted and makes manual management of windows mostly unnecessary… just switch to the desktop with the windows you’re looking for.
I could probably get used to a single large display or ultrawide, but I’d gravely miss that mix and match aspect of virtual desktops on multiple monitors. It’s so much nicer than futzing around with tiling, splits, etc.
Yes - I noticed that the OP mentions they reboot a lot. If you just reboot for OS updates, and use sleep the rest of the time, most (all?) of these problems go away.
Same for closing apps - with modern OS's keeping an app open is likely not an issue as it'll not consume resources when not in focus, unless it's running a heap of background tasks.
OP has PTSD from wintel computers i guess. People move to macs and don't expect sleep to work, expect to need a mouse for their laptops etc.
I could contradict the entire article with my personal experiences if I took the time. Been using multiple monitor Macs (and Linux before them) for ages.
> When the Dock is on the side, it only appears on the display that is farthest to that side. Having to move the mouse across multiple displays just to get to the Dock is untenably slow and awkward.
Who uses the dock? What's wrong with Cmd+Tab and starting applications from Cmd+space? The dock is where I look for that app I only use every 3 weeks but I still keep open...
> If – in a typical horizontal arrangement – you give the two displays equal priority in placement, you end up with one to your left and one to your right, with a very irritating gap between them in the one place it’s natural to look – straight ahead of you.
> Whatever it is, I just cannot get comfortable moving between displays frequently.
Look at those items. It never ever occured to me to place two monitors symmetrically with the space between them exactly in front of my eyes. You have a primary and a secondary, the primary is in front of you and the secondary is on a side, and not parallel to the primary so you keep the same distance.
I'd rephrase it as "dual monitors sucks for me, and I happen to be on a Mac so I blame the Mac".
I think the OP is the target audience for those ultrawides...
> OP has PTSD from wintel computers i guess. People move to macs and don't expect sleep to work, expect to need a mouse for their laptops etc.
Say for yourself. My mac becomes unusuable after a week. I reboot at least every Monday, sometimes more. I used to do it more but looks like one of the updates fixed WiFi not being able to connect to anything and no amount of clicking or command line resetting would help.
Personal experiences. I'm on my 4th apple laptop since 2013, I never rebooted them except for OS updates and I never had any problems with wifi or lag.
Besides I started a windows development contract this month which immediately reminded me why i pay the apple tax...
Jokes on you, my old janky custom PC sleeps much better than my iMac ever did.
I have a feeling that people who say that compare very expensive Macs to bottom of the barrel Windows machine where software/driver support is barely done, precisely because it costs so little it is expected that people buying them won't care.
For the most part it's true, people who can't be bothered to spend decent money on a computer don't care much about the finer things: the start it, do whatever task is needed and then shut it down; sometimes multiple days go by before the computer gets any use...
If you spend MacBook Pro money on a Windows laptop the experience will be mostly fine, even though it has its idiosyncrasies (just like macOS).
Yeah, I was a little bit baffled when I saw the post. I move between two different multi-screen setups with different arrangements (at home and at work), plus using my laptop alone. I haven't done like a study or whatever if it remembers my window positions, but I've never been annoyed with how macOS handles it, it's classic Apple "just works".
This seems to indicate that most devs at Apple are using a single, large display rather than multi setup. Otherwise, the devs themselves would have been frustrated into fixing it. I tried it for awhile but I just prefer a single myself. Command/Tab to switch around is just great and I don't have to turn my head hundreds of times a day.
I can relate to that. I tried a 4K dual monitor side-by-side setup some time ago (on a Windows PC), but my initial excitement at the available screen real estate was soon replaced by fatigue from eye and neck strain. Turning my head several times a day and forcing my eyes to refocus on a new target left me sore after a day's work.
Command/Tab is now my preferred way too. I've also come to really like Stage Manager on Mac and I don't feel like I need another screen anymore.
I agree with the author that having a display to the side means it’s not very useful for anything but documentation, but that still is a big use-case for me as a developer. Especially when you put the side display in portrait mode it’s absolutely perfect for viewing API docs or PDF files.
I have a display just outside my usual field of vision that I use for team chat. It's great. The stuff is really visible if I want to see it, but only if I want to.
> Side Docks aren’t practical.
When the Dock is on the side, it only appears on the display that is farthest to that side.
I experience this pain daily. The frustration is compounded by the fact that Apple did something in an OS update 3(?) major versions ago that causes the built in MacBook Pro display to freeze when connected to an external display. I move the mouse to the built in display, it freezes, I wait up to 5s and then I can use the dock!
> The Mac operating system still Just. Fucking. Sucks. at remembering where windows were, when relaunching apps.
I agree and it's confounding. For me it's even worse: when plugging back into my home office after some work on the road, it doesn't remember the window positions associated with that setup, and I have to reorganize my dozens of windows away from the laptop screen again.
It's particularly frustrating since Apple's most popular Mac product is their Macbooks, which have a rich docking and display ecosystem, so you'd think dynamically changing the desktop configuration would be solidly handled! But no.
Three times I tried switching from Windows to Mac and each time I bounced because of how janky basic window ergonomics were. I shouldn't have to buy single-dollar-programs to fix core OS functionality.
I wrote a hammerspoon script that moves my windows and the dock when I plug in to monitors. That's free, I agree we shouldn't have to have such a complex solution though. But I would bet that if Apple did provide a built in solution it would break the more complex solutions.
Huh. After years of mar I tried to go back to windows. I did it for 2 years but I'm so much happier on Mac again.
I did kind of like the windows thg of dragging a window to the top to maximise, but that stuff is easy to replace with an app or two. General OS slowness and instability and clunky design not so much.
Windows are not bad if you have control over them. But in corp env, you don't and the force updates, AV, FW, extra AV scans and other monitoring shit so even with 32 GB of RAM, fast SSD and latest i7 PC would start to act like it's Win98. That's why I switch to Mac M2, zero corporate shit and total control so it works great.
Not yet. But rest assured, they are just getting started. I know of one theory that suggests ATT was really just Apple preparing to launch its own Ads network.
> That's why I switch to Mac M2, zero corporate shit and total control so it works great.
Unless you work at an org that has all this stuff, like pretty much any org at scale that has compliance or security requirements. My work-issued MacBook has an AV that slows opening everything, forces updates and restarts and all that jazz.
Same. Our corporate-issue MBPs come with managed policies, AV software, and remote control services (remote wipe, lockout). It's why I'm never tempted to use work equipment for personal use.
I guess our org has chosen better management software, though, because it never results in restarts. The one exception is the requirement to keep the OS patched in order to log in to corporate systems.
The window position thing is really annoying though.
To be fair, that's only in part because Apple doesn't seem to have the level of device management Windows offers.
Many of the solutions I've seen in the corp environment try to make up for this with some frankly janky solutions. Apple seems to be slowly improving that, but give it time.
But at the end of the day, the crappy performance hits I've seen on both kinds kf devices are generally shitty monitoring solutions and restrictions that neither support natively.
My WindowServer is sitting at 30% CPU and 15% GPU on an M1 MacBook Pro and I have no idea why. I reboot the Mac more often than I rebooted my dogshit HP enterprise laptop.
MacOS is just a bad OS. It's good if you only ever use the MacBook as a laptop, but the moment you hook it up to a useful setup, it becomes a drag.
I blame this on trying to use non-Apple hardware with the MacBook. I'm sure if I had an Apple Display instead of a g-sync 165Hz-capable monitor and closed the lid when hooked up everything would be... perhaps not fine, but good enough.
The macbook is amazing when considered in isolation. Trying to use it in a workstation setting is definitely 'holding it wrong', which drives me nuts. Wasted potential and definitely undeserving of the 'Pro' moniker.
Huge plus one. I too bounce between environments with my MacBook. Never experienced any of the issues the gp describes, which to me sounds like something wrong with that device. Is it a Corp managed device?
I have a LG 38WN95C (3480x1600, 144hz, thunderbolt 3) monitor that's plugged into my Macbook Pro (M1 Pro _I think_, I'm not home to doulble check). The laptop is in clamshell and plugged in via Thunderbolt 3. IIRC, I had to turn the refresh rate down to 120hz, but otherwise it works well. The only hiccup is that if I unplug it, use it for a bit, and plug it back in I have to open the lid one time after plugging it in so it can realize it's plugged in to a display.
I have a M3 Pro MacBook Pro for work that I also swap between on the display using the single cable that I remove from one to plug into the other. The laptop travels with me to work where it plugs into a 16:9 4k 60hz monitor while it's open. I have the same clamshell issue as my personal laptop where I have to open it once after plugging it in, but otherwise it works pretty well.
I do however have to do some workspace rearranging when I go from clamshell->ultrawide to my work setup of open lid->16:9 monitor. But that's no a huge deal since I'm going from 1 screen to 2 screens.
I'm using one in a workstation setting with 1 big curved widescreen monitor and a multitude of keyboards and pointer devices, and it's great. It's fine in the workstation setting, you're holding it particularly wrong somewayhow
Most of the Apple Silicon praise is coming from delusional fanboys. It's only good for one thing and it is power efficiency.
For the majority of people that are really into computers, that means jack shit and it is basically just some nice thing you may want to have if you really have to use a laptop from time to time.
Most Apple laptops (especially the expensive ones) are used by executives and somewhat rich people who want to show off.
I was an Apple technician in the past so I know very well how marketing really doesn't match the typical user, then you get irrelevant "praise".
As someone who actually cared about Apple products, I wish they didn't switch their whole computer lineup to Apple Silicon. They could have kept making standard computers at the same time, but it would have been hard justifying such outrageous markup on ram and storage.
Are you using an actual USB-C to DisplayPort adapter or a software-enabled adapter? If you're driving more than one monitor, it might be the software-enabled type, which is NOT actually multiple monitors over DisplayPort but some other weirdness.
Not really, I would guess more of a personal workflow. I just have the same set of apps open the whole time, regardless of OS. Browser, test browser, code editor, terminal, chat, music player. That's enough windows to cause placement issues.
Yes I think it is, In Mac OS it has always been explicit that an application ≠ window (with only a few exceptions such as the calculator app). Closing an app window must not quit the application.
This is reinforced by the menu bar which is always at the top of the screen rather than attached to an application window.
Why is that?
I'm a gnome/Linux user who had to switch to Mac M3 for work.
Macos feels.... Half baked. I don't understand why apps should run after I close the window.
I'm also annoyed that I can't type the window I want when viewing all windows. If I open mission control, it takes 3 clicks on the dock to run the app. (Un-do mission control, focus the dock, run the app.)
That being said, I do like stage manager, I try to size my windows 90% so I can see the background windows.
The Mac could originally only run one major application at a time - although you did have 'desk accessories'. Andy Hertzfeld relatively soon wrote 'Switcher', a hack to allow multiple applications, which was released some time in early 1985. That wasn't virtual memory, it was real physical memory. The Mac wouldn't officially get virtual memory until System 7.
A more official solution wouldn't come until MultiFinder in 1987, and that was originally limited to one foreground and one background application. Wikipedia says:
"When an application is activated, all of its windows are brought forward as a single layer. This approach is necessary for backward compatibility with many of the windowing data structures that were already documented."
"With the release of System 7 [in 1991], the MultiFinder extension was integrated with the operating system, and it remains so in Mac OS 8 and Mac OS 9. However, the integration into the OS does nothing to fix MultiFinder's inherent idiosyncrasies and disadvantages."
By the time that OS X came out in 2001, the menu bar being at the top of the screen, and switching with the current app, was fully entrenched. After all, OS X initially had no native apps, still emulating the old OS 9 environment, and Carbon (essentially recompiling a "classic" Mac OS 9 app with relatively minor changes) would be the dominant API for some time too. Indeed Carbon wasn't removed until macOS 10.15 Catalina in late 2019.
An app is not a document in Mac OS (and other operating systems). Therefore it is logical that closing the document will not quit the application. Treating all applications as document is a flawed model which often breaks down as is made obvious when opening multiple documents in a MDI system.
It's even traceable all the way back to the user interface research at Xerox which Apple took and went with because it worked so well. Researchers such as Donald Norman also concluded that MDI interface were much worse at common actions such as drag-and-drop and standardised interface controls.
The macOS ideal (and arguably it’s somewhat correct) is that you shouldn’t have to think about it at all. You should be thinking about the documents/content of what you’re doing, not the internals of the OS.
The closest they’ve gotten is iOS itself where apps sleep forever without your interaction.
In the very early days of macOS before becoming a Unix it was actually noticeable because for ordinary people they apps they would use would always be around, and it was still faster to swap in running apps than load a closed app from disk.
My gnome workflow was:
* I have many windows open
* I press a key (super) to get the misson-control like overview.
I type in "Firefox"
* It will run the app if it's not already running, or switch to it.
If there's something that can emulate that, and... Not be a hacky work around.. then I'm all ears
That’s how it works on macOS. Command-space (or whatever way you want to trigger Spotlight) then type Firefox and it will bring it to the front, or launch it if it’s not running. No workarounds or third-party software needed.
The menu bar is at the top because it’s always been there, but moreover it makes it easier to click menus as you only have to flick your cursor to Y=0 and then move it in the X dimension laterally instead of having to find a small target on a window in the middle of the screen. On other OSs it’s more common to maximize windows.
Distinguishing between processes (applications) and windows just makes sense.
For example say you download something in your browser, then you open a new window, then you close the original window. If windows = processes then closing the original window should cancel the download (because you killed that process), but we all know that would be nonsensical. So user intuition is that there is one main process and multiple windows.
Apple does allow for closing the window to kill the process. However only if there is one main window, such as the calculator app. If there’s multiple windows possible (such as in a text editor or web browser), then closing all windows does not quit the application because the user may want to close a window and then open a new window (e.g. open document or new document).
I think the rule was (and probably still is) that closing a window in a document-based application keeps the app open but closing a window in a utility application (where you usually would have only one window anyway) closes the application.
I think it's less of a Mac thing, and more of a RAM thing.
More ram than you anticipate is like extra lung capacity and working memory. Also an extra year or two out of the laptop. Combined with horsepower it can be an advantage.
Instant switching of apps or screens can have it's benefits, but needs to be managed.
Similar to having more tabs open than normal. Tools like Firefox Spaces are invaluable for switching between multiple client projects.
Waiting for apps to open/load/close can add up significantly throughout a day depending on the variety.
Back in the day, there was this idea of some applications being "document" centered while others revolved around an "activity". On average you only want one instance of your calculator application open as it's what you use to do math and having two or three might be confusing. On the other hand, when you use Microsoft Word there's really one window per a document and having five Word documents open at once make sense.
This is another idea that has been somewhat lost over time. I believe the way it works now is that you can choose to have your application close when it's last window is closed, or not. That seems a reasonable compromise, it's never been clear to me why you'd want an application like Word with no window to continue running.
yabai is the closest you can get to i3/sway like tiling window management on macOS, and its config allows fixing an app always to open in a certain workspace.
Tools like Yabai are interesting. I found I've wanted to learn more about people's setups in how they keep one screen config whether there's only the laptop display or 1, 2, or 3 external displays and it looks like Yabai and another one listed here is a step forward.
I used yabai for a while, but its general bugginess (losing windows, mishandling native tabs, SIP disable required for some functionality) eventually convinced me to try Aerospace. I have been very happy with how stable it is in comparison, though it's still not quite as nice as actual sway/i3.
Oh god, and needing to make sure that I disable workspace reordering based upon how it feels I should work is right up as a priority when I deal with a new Mac.
The most frustrating part for me is that the spatial metaphor [1] was at the core of the Mac’s identity from the beginning. I think this is a classic example of how a company’s philosophy — its very identity — can be lost if it’s not carefully preserved through turnover of team members.
Works fine for me. I sit down, plug my MBP 14" into the studio display, close the lid and carry on where I was. It does a reasonable job of window placement.
If you feel insulted by this observation then you should probably introspect a little and reread the comment you've initially responded to tomorrow, because your initial response really was misguided.
Furthermore: I didn't insult you as such. I simply stated the only options I could determine from your behavior.
Literally, what other option is there? Your point is still "it works for me with my single monitor setup" as a response to "this doesn't work with a multi monitor setup".
> It's particularly frustrating since Apple's most popular Mac product is their Macbooks, which have a rich docking and display ecosystem, so you'd think dynamically changing the desktop configuration would be solidly handled! But no.
I hear what you’re saying, but the vast majority of MacBook pros are probably never plugged into an external display. I know on Hacker News it’s a very different story, but for the general population, they don’t use external displays.
Same here. I’d say my laptop is docked 99.99% of the time. I was just pointing out a possible reason as to why multi-monitor support is not a higher priority for Apple. It’s a subset (multi-monitor) of a subset (Mac) of their business.
I do wish it was better, but I’ve also found tools to work around all of my issues .
I've had the same problem on two MacBooks (one Intel, one M1), it restored the windows just fine when the (two) monitors were plugged black in until one day ... it stopped.
I would disagree about Apple having a "rich docking ecosystem".
Apple might be the only major manufacturer to not provide their own docking solution that work extremely well, beyond trying to do it with a display.
As soon as the "pro" moniker is used, 2, if not 3 monitors are completely normal. Extra wide monitors do not cut it. 3 24" 2k monitors at 2560x1440 can be far preferable to a single ultrawie that barely provides 2 monitors worth of pixels in the same space.
Lenovo, HP, Dell, Microsoft, all have it nailed. Used almost all of them before Apple.
It's also pretty bad if you have a personal computer and a work computer. It's mystifying that they sell $1000+ monitors with a single input. Like a terrible no name $100 POS these days will typically have two, if not 3 inputs.
Nowadays, Pro at Apple mainly means "extra expensive", often doesn't have much to do with professional use even though sometimes it is actually at the intersection.
they used to have a bug a few years ago and some windows got to be placed outside the visible area when switching displays. there was no direct way to drag them back and restarting the app most of the time did nothing, as it reopened in the same place.
there was a button somewhere on the display settings that had the purpose of moving every app to the current active screen, that one saved the day.
I've been running a Mac three display system for 5+ years now, maybe even longer. A 27" iMac with two 27" Thunderbolt displays on each side. It mostly works well... I haven't really seen (or been bothered by) most of the problems that OP complains about. The only thing is these thunderbolt displays are getting pretty old, and Apple isn't making any more similar displays in this category. I've already replaced the guts of both of them as parts have failed, and one of them has a persistent problem with the thunderbolt cable, to the point where I had to use a separate cable rather than the built-in one.
I admit I do get annoyed that even in a mostly unchanging environment (same monitors plugged into the same ports forever), macOS forgets where windows are supposed to go.
Another thing is the OS's handling of plug in events. When you have just one monitor on and plug in another one, the main monitor blanks briefly, then both monitors turn on and you're good to go. Not too bad. But when you have two monitors on, and you plug in a third, it first blanks the secondary monitor, that comes back on, then it blanks both the secondary and main monitor, then they both come back on, and then the new monitor turns on. Super irritating.
In the dock you can right click an app, and Options, Assign to Desktop N.
Luckily, when I plug my macbook into the dock with monitor, I actually want it to be a static desktop, showing just the website I'm working on. And I want the monitor to switch through desktops that have my applications.
This basically just works with one caveat. When switching from plugged in to unplugged, the macbook screen becomes desktop 1, and all the desktops shift over by one. So I just rearranged everything to be +1 (i.e. gmail/calendar are actually always desktop 2), and everything works seamlessly.
While MacOS does seem to rearrange windows occasionally for no clear reason, and there have been serious bugs in past releases, it does correctly restore my window positions across two 4k external displays when I connect them through a Thunderbolt 4 docking station.
Maybe some applications have custom window position management and fail at multiple displays? I haven't noticed any.
The only third party tool that I use to help with window management is BetterSnapTool. It restores some basic missing functionality that comes built in in Windows, most importantly the ability to maximize windows and snap them to the left and right half of the screen, plus a few other things.
FWIW I am by far at my most productive with a 43" 4K display in front of me with a sidecar 23" arranged vertically for long vertical documents. I do wish that 43" was an 8K to double the DPI though.
Yip. It always bugs me that so many fundamental things aren't implemented; no native calendar in the taskbar (well top/status bar) so I gotta use an app.
Finder fucking sucks, it doesn't remember which sort order I've set for which folder and I constantly have to change it between alphabetical and created date, mostly for the file open dialog (alphabet for vscode folder open, created date for slack or browser file upload).
For all of Apple's bluster they're really only as good as any other company when it comes to the "it just works" experience, often worse.
Does anyone else have a problem where secondary displays on mac just stop working, and the only way to fix it is to unplug and replug the display cable, or cycle inputs on the monitor? Nothing I've done seems to fix it. I don't know if its because its a 144hz monitor or what, but it never happened on my previous 60hz monitors and it never happens when i plug into my windows box.
Plenty, but fortunately the fix is just an unplug+replug. In the past, the secondary display kept working but a sneaky kernel task took over 200% CPU, and you had to 1) realize the computer is feeling even more sluggish than normal 2) know what the heck kernel task is 3) know that un/re-plugging will fix the CPU load
We have one particular model (P2419HC) of Dell display at work that seem to do this.
As best as I can tell, there's some kind of active component in the USB-C cable that is only powered by the monitor, and it doesn't "reset" itself properly.
I thought Mac had it better than Linux. But after reading this...
Anyway, I'm hopeful the situation for Linux will improve over the coming years with Wayland more-and-more becoming the default (so more people use it, and more will put effort to make it better) AND being a better foundation for building multi-monitor goodness on top (Xorg was getting old).
Would Windows do a better job at this than Mac? (havent used Windows in decades)
I have nearly zero problems with multi monitor setups under Wayland. I did experiment my monitors rearranging themselves once, and there was an interesting glitch regarding maximizing windows in displays that aren't horizontally aligned (that is now fixed), but beyond that I cannot recall any issues ever with Wayland multi display.
The external display limitations of Apple silicon Macs are inscrutable and infuriating.
I have an M3 Pro from work. At the office, I plug it into an HP dock with a single USB-C cable (which I believe is TB4). I have 3 displays connected to the dock and they all work.
I purchased the exact same dock for my home, but only 2 of my displays work there.
I think the M3 Pro is documented to support 2 displays; you have to get the Ultra to have 3 (absurd). The dock is able to do some kind of workaround with the displays at the office, but I can’t figure out what the displays at home are lacking for that to work.
It’s 2024! For gods sake I should be able to have a dozen displays if I want.
I'd love to use a Linux distribution and window manager on my MacBook, in particular KDE. Would be totally awesome, great hardware and a power-user friendly operating system. I resort to using a ThinkPad for my Linux needs and it's ok but the new Macs are just leagues ahead in terms of hardware.
See the table of supported hardware. Software/firmware wise I think no reason to think it's unstable in mainline Linux. Just as long as they have actually implemented everything you need.
(Mine's an M3, so complete non-starter for now. Others have missing support for various things like HDMI or fingerprint reader, etc., so just a case of whether there's enough there for you to consider it 'usable' for your own use.)
How does this happen? You accidentally get sold a Mac when you are 19 years old and going to college?
Like, you can get better EVERYTHING outside their hardware. I can't imagine ever being like:
You know what I really want 0 GPU and only 64GB ram for $2700!
I understand if you need to compile for Apple users, but if you are going to install Linux on it, get a GPU or some seriously significant amount of RAM.
> you can get better EVERYTHING outside their hardware
I'm pretty sure my M1 MacBook Air was the most powerful fanless laptop on the market when I bought it, and there were just a few laptops with comparable battery life.
I'm also pretty sure it had a GPU. (still has one)
> OH man! Victim of Apple marketing right here. You have an integrated GPU in your CPU.
Dude, I know what an integrated GPU is (and it's certainly not "GPU in your CPU").
You're not smarter than everyone else for having a laptop with a dedicated GPU and running Linux on it. You haven't found a magical loophole in the laptop market by not buying Apple. You're just prioritizing different stuff than Apple users.
>You're not smarter than everyone else for having a laptop with a dedicated GPU and running Linux on it.
Sure there are 7B people in the world!
But I'm def smarter than people who spend $2500 on a few GB ram and no GPU. Plato suggests its wrong for smart people to be humble, it allows dumb people to step up and make their points.
If you arent compiling for iOS, you made an inefficient decision. There is a reason Apple is found on low to middle income consumer households, and not found in B2B. Guess which is most susceptible to emotional marketing.
> I'm def smarter than people who spend $2500 on a few GB ram and no GPU
Tell that to Linus Torvalds, seen using a few different MacBooks over the years. So far, you've made the impression of an arrogant nobody who doesn't know what a GPU is.
> Apple is found on low to middle income consumer households
To be fair my personal anecdotal experience seems to match that sentiment (as an Apple technician).
It doesn't mean that rich people do also have Apple stuff (especially the iPhone) but at least for computers many of the rich people I know went with a Windows computer and stuck with it (because it made more financial sense).
The cliché is a struggling artist with a nice Apple laptop and it's not without any merit.
There was a time where indeed an Apple computer offered you some stuff that wasn't available elsewhere or at least in a significantly worse way (desktop print, illustration, audio type of stuff).
But then in the 2000s it leveled off. To the point Adobe made some marketing stating that an equivalently priced PC was faster to run their software. It wasn't that successful because at this point Macs were already iconic status symbol but still.
Nowadays I see a lot of creators just switching to Windows PC for convenience and power. I follow some YouTube channels where the person got his start on a Mac but then switched to PC because Premiere Pro is good enough and it is rather useful to have access to all the 3D software with a powerful GPU for rendering.
While Apple was busy creating their island walled garden software support has become way too atrocious because developers got tired both of their business practice and ever-changing APIs/framework that makes it not worthwhile to support a large software for the small userbase.
People can't shut up about Apple Silicon but outside of efficiency it is just about competitive and not so much in other ways (max power, GPU).
We will see how the ARM rollout pans out in the Windows world (I don't have much faith; the importance of efficiency is largely overstated and is a use case already met with Chromebooks for the most part) and if it works out it might be better for cross-compilation for macOS but then again Apple Silicon is not exactly standard ARM and it leaves the biggest problem of an exotic GPU with specific way of handling things.
I fear Apple may have put themselves into a corner just like in the PPC days by trying to be too different and "special" for short term gains.
College students often prioritize battery life because they are away from chargers for so many hours of the day. And you absolutely have to admit the M1 Macs really just destroy Windows and Linux in terms of battery life.
Regardless, there are very practical reasons to have different priorities than yours.
macOS has an accessibility feature which lets you set a second display to be a continuous zoomed-in presentation of the first display. It’s pretty good in use. But EVERY TIME you unplug the second display, macOS forgets that you wanted that set-up. It’s configured three or four layers deep in System Settings, so it’s fiddly to reach (more-so if your vision isn5 great and you’re squinting to find the controls in the first place). I’ve given up using the feature because the interruption to workflow is so infuriating.
Changing between set ups, also hurts. Itshould be built in that it knows I've been here before and rearrange to match this rig, not the one with the stifle giant monitor, and nit the times I'm just on the mac
I dislike the limitation on how many external displays you can have with a Mac, though by and large I've had very few problems with it. I can't really identify with any of the problems the author mentions, personally. The only problem that happens semi-frequently is that windows on external displays will swap displays when I resume from sleep.
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[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 290 ms ] threadEspecially, if your setup changes often, you can have various presets to make life easier
Me too. The extra wide ones are nice. I've got one gigantic 32" curved monitor, and use it with multiple workspaces.
I don't need that, it's more comfortable to bring Spotify to the front on the main screen than turn my head anyway.
I however feel limited using anything less than a 5k screen.
That OLED video look though, just can't be beaten..
I wish it was higher resolution but I suspect going beyond its 5120x1440 current resolution is pushing the limits of most display connections and standards at this point.
Overall though, I love it. Do recommend.
Mostly using windows side by side is not a thing for me either. I look at one application at the time and I just give it the full screen. The sole exception to this seems to be finder windows for me.
There are lots of sub optimal things in the mac os UI. The key issue is feature interaction between features introduced over the years combined with obviously slipping standards on QA and UX. Steve Jobs would not have accepted a lot of the crap that slips through these days at Apple.
A good example is the the full screen mode in combination with the notch. You can't actually use the space next to the notch for anything else than the menu bar. Which just means full screen is a glorified "hide the menu bar thing". You don't actually gain any vertical space back if you use it with a lot of apps.
With the recent release, Mac OS defaults to having a transparent menu bar meaning that in dark mode and with the default background the menu bar is very bright. To fix this lovely bit of feature interaction, you just have to use a dark desktop image and turn off dynamic desktop backgrounds constantly changing the color. The sensible default of just making the menu bar background black isn't there because they want the dynamic desktop thing to always be visible unless you are full screen, which is not the same as having you window maximized. But obviously the maximize window button now makes your window full screen.
And speaking of desktop backgrounds. I don't care about them because there usually is something on top of my desktop. The only visible bit would be below the menu bar. The only time you see the damn background is when you are deliberately hiding all your applications. Why would you do that?
And of course full screen pretends that you have extra screens. So it's a hybrid that is like maximizing a window and plugging in a screen. So in terms of window management things get weird. Especially when you actually plugin an actual screen.
This stuff started escalating when they introduced full screen mode (aka. let's pretend hiding the menu is special), which is when they broke their dominant UX of always having the menubar visible and taking up space. Which now that we have the notch is the only use for that screen real estate.
Can we just loose the notch and get our screen real estate back? I just want to maximize windows and alt+tab between them. I mostly want the menubar unless I'm watching a video.
Apple itself is hopelessly confused on this topic. I recently experienced Apple TV on mac os. What were they smoking that it got released in that shape? It always plays the video in full screen but it keeps the main application window open separately. When you alt+tab away, you end back on the wrong thing. And sometimes when you hit escape it closes the full screen video but it keeps on playing. It's bizarrely buggy and dysfunctional. Complete amateur hour.
This may not apply to you since you mention using dark mode, but for those who use light mode, there is a hidden system preference you can use to force only the menu bar and dock to being dark. Easiest way to set this is with TinkerTool.
27" is big? I'm really curious what sort of setups people are running that they feel this way. I ran a 40" 4K monitor for years, and I'd really like the option to go to 5K 40" or even higher.
Windows 11 does actually help this quite a bit by putting the Start Button in the middle of the screen.
Additionally using PowerToys FancyZones might actually make it usable.
Not to mention that macos renders fonts like crap on external displays.
https://github.com/waydabber/BetterDisplay/wiki/List-of-free...
This is literally on the linked page
- Screen going on and off is an asynchronous mechanism that the OS has to treat by an event driven implementation.
- All states must be valid (all graphical stuff must be put on display), as screen can go on and off at any time, for expected and unexpected events
- Those synchronous event must converge to an expected state for the user, whatever the final state is
- App developers mostly ignore those problems giving responsibility to the OS to deal with it. But sometimes they don't, sometimes ignoring the services provided by the OS to would help achieve predictable consensus, invalidating any assumption the OS could make.
- App windows positions state restoration have no definitive logic when there are moved and place across different dispositions, even it's manually by the other or programmatically by the OS.
Every configuration will have a slightly different solution, but at least there is usually a solution and it makes somewhat sense. And you can customize it to make sense for _you_, not what someone else decides makes sense. Back when I used to work in an office and used to dock/undock my laptop, i3 worked well.
I assigned workspaces 1-5 on my left monitor and 6-10 on my right monitor. When I disconnected from the dock, workspaces 1-10 would appear on my single laptop screen. When I connected it back to the dock, they switched back. I am _pretty_ sure it was all handled by i3 in the config.
The idea is not that specific combination are not solvable, but for each setup, you will have to solve issues manually or live with inconvenience due to the nature of the problem.
For our specific case, I didn't meant I was annoyed every day with my setup. I just meant I always had to fiddle a little to end up with a workable solution, each time I had more than one screen.
Don't use outdated/old Linux Distros. I almost always find out someone is using a variant of Conical's Ubuntu CD marketing and it explains why they have some terrible experience.
Updated distros usually have everything working with modern hardware working together with software. Look into Fedora.
Ubuntu/Debian/Mint need to be avoided and we need to warn people.
If you want to plug "new" at least go for silver blue or nix os, where it makes a difference.
That means no running NVIDIA GPUs for 1-2 years!
Or having broken software for 1-2 years!
When I was still using macOS one to two years ago, I was using yabai [1] and it was perfect
[1] https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai
Of course nothing is truly perfect, but I would say that after the initial learning curve, I had really pleasant and productive time with yabai.
Turned out it's a dance between systemd putting system to sleep because external display is not connected and waking up because external display is connected. I might be wrong about it, but basically display takes some time to initialize and without input it'll turn off, so those events couldn't alight. What's worse it worked sometimes, so I spent some time distro-hopping, because I thought it's a bug in kernel or mesa.
In the end I just disabled sleep mode in systemd. I don't like this solution, but it's Linux, what could I say... At least I was able to disable it, LoL. Probably with Mac I would have to live with it.
There's no fixing things. Lord Apple dictates you must use this broken thing, or pay for hacks on the app store
What I consider to be absolutely basic - if I am sat at my desk plugged into two other screens and I have a particular screen set up, then I disconnect and go off to a meeting and come back 30 minutes later, I want my set up to return to it's original layout. Bonus points for making the setup while on the move also useable (perhaps converting screens into workspaces or something).
I can't remember having any multi-display issues on Windows or Linux(after installing Nvidia).
Sound was always an issue for Windows.
Best thing there is on Mac is one app per desktop mode (maximise gives new desktop to the app) and a gesture to switch them
They noted that their monitor came with cables that didn't support daisy chaining, when they upgraded their cables to ones that supported 40 Gbit/s then everything was fine.
MST over DP1.4 only really makes sense for traditional low DPI displays.
The other thing that annoys me is that it changes the background when I've already chosen just to have black as my background on all screen. Works for a few days, then next time I log in, there's a photo instead. Why, Apple?
They also don't let you use the native resolution of the screens very easily. I had to install BetterDisplay to get this working, and even that isn't great.
Apparently a lot of manufacturers ship monitors with identical serial numbers, so the os can’t identify them.
That way it would be up to the user to plug the same screen into the same port, which I think I could handle.
Plus I can see the serials are actually different, so just going by serials should work.
Or it should just tell you "hey buddy, you've got two screens with the same serial and that's why I don't know what to do"
Yes, this is the strange thing. It's not like it's guessing which monitor is which, it's always swapped.
IMO there is no objective reason why turning a plastic wheel towards or away from the screen should be the natural choice for scrolling down a webpage. It's just something that some people are used to.
My head sees scrolling on a touchpad, the Magic Mouse and a wheeled mouse as the same thing — and I even set my Windows gaming machine so that the mouse scrolls "naturally" like my Mac.
(To me, the scroll wheel is reflecting the scroll bar on-screen, so I'm pushing it up or pulling it down. A touch area more naturally resembles the rest of the page/window, so I'm on board with 'natural scroll' - I'm pushing the page up or pulling it down.)
Hard disagree. I move the mousewheel down to go down the page, and up to go up. That's natural.
Swiping around my desktop screens and apps like it's a tablet makes no sense. It's the very first thing I turn off on all Macs.
The idea that you are touching the document and directly manipulating it and pushing the document up is a touch interaction model. Mouse interaction moves the cursor/view. It’s not “natural” but it’s in accordance with decades of mouse behaviour that “toward your body” is down.
Speaking of, “page down” acts like moving the page up. Mouse wheel down (towards you) matches page down, which is agreeable.
Windows had this problem for AGES if you had 1 or more DisplayPort monitors connected, and I think it was in 2020 that they finally fixed it. I used to use this utility [0] to remember my layout, then when I learned that the problem was DP I started making sure I had enough HDMI/DVI ports on my graphics card(s) to avoid DP altogether.
Now I keep it running anyway because it's incredibly convenient in case I accidentally minimize all my windows and then reopen one or something.
Maybe something similar exists for Mac?
[0] https://github.com/lapo-luchini/WindowsLayoutSnapshot
[1] Weird monitor bugs people sent me in the last 5 years (2022) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40038759
Found this from a post here on HN a few weeks ago, but apparently manufacturers of monitors don't bother to give the monitors unique machine ids, except in batches. Since everyone's two monitors are almost always from the same batch, they can't be told apart on a hardware level. I thought I had struck paydirt in that HN post (a tool that helped with this), but since the two monitors of mine aren't plugged directly into the Mac, the tool can't fix it for me. It would have to somehow work on the level of the docking station. If I didn't have bad luck, wouldn't have any at all?
But it's so much worse than you describe. In theory, I should be able to hit F3, see the little "desktops" at the top, and drag the one from the left monitor over to the right, and then vice versa. But somehow, there's always one virtual desktop that can't be dragged in this manner, and it's always the one with the applications.
Windows do open on the wrong screen, but I keep the same windows open for months at a time.
The Dock issue for example isn’t a problem for me because I have mouse sensitivity on high and take advantage of Fitts’ law. Tossing my cursor to the left with a certain velocity lands it on my left side dock on the secondary monitor reliably.
My use of the second display is primarily sets of “secondary” apps divided into desktops. This setup keeps everything sorted and makes manual management of windows mostly unnecessary… just switch to the desktop with the windows you’re looking for.
I could probably get used to a single large display or ultrawide, but I’d gravely miss that mix and match aspect of virtual desktops on multiple monitors. It’s so much nicer than futzing around with tiling, splits, etc.
Same for closing apps - with modern OS's keeping an app open is likely not an issue as it'll not consume resources when not in focus, unless it's running a heap of background tasks.
I could contradict the entire article with my personal experiences if I took the time. Been using multiple monitor Macs (and Linux before them) for ages.
> When the Dock is on the side, it only appears on the display that is farthest to that side. Having to move the mouse across multiple displays just to get to the Dock is untenably slow and awkward.
Who uses the dock? What's wrong with Cmd+Tab and starting applications from Cmd+space? The dock is where I look for that app I only use every 3 weeks but I still keep open...
> If – in a typical horizontal arrangement – you give the two displays equal priority in placement, you end up with one to your left and one to your right, with a very irritating gap between them in the one place it’s natural to look – straight ahead of you.
> Whatever it is, I just cannot get comfortable moving between displays frequently.
Look at those items. It never ever occured to me to place two monitors symmetrically with the space between them exactly in front of my eyes. You have a primary and a secondary, the primary is in front of you and the secondary is on a side, and not parallel to the primary so you keep the same distance.
I'd rephrase it as "dual monitors sucks for me, and I happen to be on a Mac so I blame the Mac".
I think the OP is the target audience for those ultrawides...
Right. Shame it can't be turned off then, nevermind just another user error right?
Btw, even if i rarely use it, i keep it on the bottom of my primary (the one in front of me) monitor. And not set to auto hide.
Say for yourself. My mac becomes unusuable after a week. I reboot at least every Monday, sometimes more. I used to do it more but looks like one of the updates fixed WiFi not being able to connect to anything and no amount of clicking or command line resetting would help.
Besides I started a windows development contract this month which immediately reminded me why i pay the apple tax...
For the most part it's true, people who can't be bothered to spend decent money on a computer don't care much about the finer things: the start it, do whatever task is needed and then shut it down; sometimes multiple days go by before the computer gets any use...
If you spend MacBook Pro money on a Windows laptop the experience will be mostly fine, even though it has its idiosyncrasies (just like macOS).
Command/Tab is now my preferred way too. I've also come to really like Stage Manager on Mac and I don't feel like I need another screen anymore.
I experience this pain daily. The frustration is compounded by the fact that Apple did something in an OS update 3(?) major versions ago that causes the built in MacBook Pro display to freeze when connected to an external display. I move the mouse to the built in display, it freezes, I wait up to 5s and then I can use the dock!
I agree and it's confounding. For me it's even worse: when plugging back into my home office after some work on the road, it doesn't remember the window positions associated with that setup, and I have to reorganize my dozens of windows away from the laptop screen again.
I've solved this through a 3rd-party tool, DisplayMaid https://funk-isoft.com/display-maid.html (which I found from a prior HN discussion)
It's particularly frustrating since Apple's most popular Mac product is their Macbooks, which have a rich docking and display ecosystem, so you'd think dynamically changing the desktop configuration would be solidly handled! But no.
I did kind of like the windows thg of dragging a window to the top to maximise, but that stuff is easy to replace with an app or two. General OS slowness and instability and clunky design not so much.
I can't tell whether you're talking about Windows or Mac here
I remember some problem with programs hanging and/or slow to start because the phoning home functionality was having issues.
edit: yep, it does https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/391379/does-macos-...
https://www.wired.com/story/apple-is-an-ad-company-now/
Unless you work at an org that has all this stuff, like pretty much any org at scale that has compliance or security requirements. My work-issued MacBook has an AV that slows opening everything, forces updates and restarts and all that jazz.
I guess our org has chosen better management software, though, because it never results in restarts. The one exception is the requirement to keep the OS patched in order to log in to corporate systems.
The window position thing is really annoying though.
Many of the solutions I've seen in the corp environment try to make up for this with some frankly janky solutions. Apple seems to be slowly improving that, but give it time.
But at the end of the day, the crappy performance hits I've seen on both kinds kf devices are generally shitty monitoring solutions and restrictions that neither support natively.
MacOS is just a bad OS. It's good if you only ever use the MacBook as a laptop, but the moment you hook it up to a useful setup, it becomes a drag.
Or do you think the rest of the world that has heaped praise on the Apple Silicon Macs has missed something you’ve seen?
The macbook is amazing when considered in isolation. Trying to use it in a workstation setting is definitely 'holding it wrong', which drives me nuts. Wasted potential and definitely undeserving of the 'Pro' moniker.
I dock at home into a dual monitor setup.
I go to work and dock into a dual monitor setup.
I keep my MacBook open, not closed.
Pretty much all my coworkers do the same. All with Apple silicon MacBook pros. No idea what you’re talking about.
I believe you — I just think you need to do a deeper dive into your kit instead of assuming the rest of the world must be wrong about these machines.
I have a M3 Pro MacBook Pro for work that I also swap between on the display using the single cable that I remove from one to plug into the other. The laptop travels with me to work where it plugs into a 16:9 4k 60hz monitor while it's open. I have the same clamshell issue as my personal laptop where I have to open it once after plugging it in, but otherwise it works pretty well.
I do however have to do some workspace rearranging when I go from clamshell->ultrawide to my work setup of open lid->16:9 monitor. But that's no a huge deal since I'm going from 1 screen to 2 screens.
If it isn't WindowServer losing its mind, it's some other buggy system daemon. Apple simply does not do stable versions of macOS any more.
For the majority of people that are really into computers, that means jack shit and it is basically just some nice thing you may want to have if you really have to use a laptop from time to time.
Most Apple laptops (especially the expensive ones) are used by executives and somewhat rich people who want to show off. I was an Apple technician in the past so I know very well how marketing really doesn't match the typical user, then you get irrelevant "praise".
As someone who actually cared about Apple products, I wish they didn't switch their whole computer lineup to Apple Silicon. They could have kept making standard computers at the same time, but it would have been hard justifying such outrageous markup on ram and storage.
(I switch between Windows and Mac throughout the day, so window tiling and Fancy Zones were things I missed)
It feels like someone is walking over to your desk and moving everything around, just to annoy you.
This is reinforced by the menu bar which is always at the top of the screen rather than attached to an application window.
Macos feels.... Half baked. I don't understand why apps should run after I close the window.
I'm also annoyed that I can't type the window I want when viewing all windows. If I open mission control, it takes 3 clicks on the dock to run the app. (Un-do mission control, focus the dock, run the app.)
That being said, I do like stage manager, I try to size my windows 90% so I can see the background windows.
Because that's what Steve Jobs decided and he was never wrong. /s
The Apple philosophy always was "we know what's best for our users, it's our way or the highway, deal with it".
The benefits seem less obvious with modern hardware like SSD’s, but it is still a net benefit once you’re used to it.
A more official solution wouldn't come until MultiFinder in 1987, and that was originally limited to one foreground and one background application. Wikipedia says:
"When an application is activated, all of its windows are brought forward as a single layer. This approach is necessary for backward compatibility with many of the windowing data structures that were already documented."
"With the release of System 7 [in 1991], the MultiFinder extension was integrated with the operating system, and it remains so in Mac OS 8 and Mac OS 9. However, the integration into the OS does nothing to fix MultiFinder's inherent idiosyncrasies and disadvantages."
By the time that OS X came out in 2001, the menu bar being at the top of the screen, and switching with the current app, was fully entrenched. After all, OS X initially had no native apps, still emulating the old OS 9 environment, and Carbon (essentially recompiling a "classic" Mac OS 9 app with relatively minor changes) would be the dominant API for some time too. Indeed Carbon wasn't removed until macOS 10.15 Catalina in late 2019.
It's even traceable all the way back to the user interface research at Xerox which Apple took and went with because it worked so well. Researchers such as Donald Norman also concluded that MDI interface were much worse at common actions such as drag-and-drop and standardised interface controls.
The closest they’ve gotten is iOS itself where apps sleep forever without your interaction.
In the very early days of macOS before becoming a Unix it was actually noticeable because for ordinary people they apps they would use would always be around, and it was still faster to swap in running apps than load a closed app from disk.
If there's something that can emulate that, and... Not be a hacky work around.. then I'm all ears
Distinguishing between processes (applications) and windows just makes sense.
For example say you download something in your browser, then you open a new window, then you close the original window. If windows = processes then closing the original window should cancel the download (because you killed that process), but we all know that would be nonsensical. So user intuition is that there is one main process and multiple windows.
Apple does allow for closing the window to kill the process. However only if there is one main window, such as the calculator app. If there’s multiple windows possible (such as in a text editor or web browser), then closing all windows does not quit the application because the user may want to close a window and then open a new window (e.g. open document or new document).
More ram than you anticipate is like extra lung capacity and working memory. Also an extra year or two out of the laptop. Combined with horsepower it can be an advantage.
Instant switching of apps or screens can have it's benefits, but needs to be managed.
Similar to having more tabs open than normal. Tools like Firefox Spaces are invaluable for switching between multiple client projects.
Waiting for apps to open/load/close can add up significantly throughout a day depending on the variety.
This is another idea that has been somewhat lost over time. I believe the way it works now is that you can choose to have your application close when it's last window is closed, or not. That seems a reasonable compromise, it's never been clear to me why you'd want an application like Word with no window to continue running.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2003/04/finder/
The arch of the CPU doesn't matter. I have the same issue on my M1 MacBook Pro 14"
I really don't care wherever windows does it worse or better either... so your other comment didn't add anything to the situation, really.
Furthermore: I didn't insult you as such. I simply stated the only options I could determine from your behavior. Literally, what other option is there? Your point is still "it works for me with my single monitor setup" as a response to "this doesn't work with a multi monitor setup".
'You're holding it wrong' is a classic. Nothing special about it.
I hear what you’re saying, but the vast majority of MacBook pros are probably never plugged into an external display. I know on Hacker News it’s a very different story, but for the general population, they don’t use external displays.
My replacement for it will be a Studio, whenever the M4 version comes out. I'll keep my current laptop as an "on the road" computer.
I do wish it was better, but I’ve also found tools to work around all of my issues .
Apple might be the only major manufacturer to not provide their own docking solution that work extremely well, beyond trying to do it with a display.
As soon as the "pro" moniker is used, 2, if not 3 monitors are completely normal. Extra wide monitors do not cut it. 3 24" 2k monitors at 2560x1440 can be far preferable to a single ultrawie that barely provides 2 monitors worth of pixels in the same space.
Lenovo, HP, Dell, Microsoft, all have it nailed. Used almost all of them before Apple.
The Matrox TripleHead2Go seems to remain relevant so many years after it's introduction, I used to run 3 monitors on my HP dock with one. Dynamite.
there was a button somewhere on the display settings that had the purpose of moving every app to the current active screen, that one saved the day.
I admit I do get annoyed that even in a mostly unchanging environment (same monitors plugged into the same ports forever), macOS forgets where windows are supposed to go.
Another thing is the OS's handling of plug in events. When you have just one monitor on and plug in another one, the main monitor blanks briefly, then both monitors turn on and you're good to go. Not too bad. But when you have two monitors on, and you plug in a third, it first blanks the secondary monitor, that comes back on, then it blanks both the secondary and main monitor, then they both come back on, and then the new monitor turns on. Super irritating.
I managed to get my system "working" without knowing about it.
I have a macbook and an external display, and I utilize "desktops" heavily.
Basically desktop: 1 = gmail/calendar | 2 = slack, messenger, imessage, etc. | 3 = chrome | 4 = terminal | 5 = vscode
In the dock you can right click an app, and Options, Assign to Desktop N.
Luckily, when I plug my macbook into the dock with monitor, I actually want it to be a static desktop, showing just the website I'm working on. And I want the monitor to switch through desktops that have my applications.
This basically just works with one caveat. When switching from plugged in to unplugged, the macbook screen becomes desktop 1, and all the desktops shift over by one. So I just rearranged everything to be +1 (i.e. gmail/calendar are actually always desktop 2), and everything works seamlessly.
Maybe some applications have custom window position management and fail at multiple displays? I haven't noticed any.
The only third party tool that I use to help with window management is BetterSnapTool. It restores some basic missing functionality that comes built in in Windows, most importantly the ability to maximize windows and snap them to the left and right half of the screen, plus a few other things.
FWIW I am by far at my most productive with a 43" 4K display in front of me with a sidecar 23" arranged vertically for long vertical documents. I do wish that 43" was an 8K to double the DPI though.
Finder fucking sucks, it doesn't remember which sort order I've set for which folder and I constantly have to change it between alphabetical and created date, mostly for the file open dialog (alphabet for vscode folder open, created date for slack or browser file upload).
For all of Apple's bluster they're really only as good as any other company when it comes to the "it just works" experience, often worse.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kppD1PotFw
As best as I can tell, there's some kind of active component in the USB-C cable that is only powered by the monitor, and it doesn't "reset" itself properly.
Anyway, I'm hopeful the situation for Linux will improve over the coming years with Wayland more-and-more becoming the default (so more people use it, and more will put effort to make it better) AND being a better foundation for building multi-monitor goodness on top (Xorg was getting old).
Would Windows do a better job at this than Mac? (havent used Windows in decades)
my issues were on KDE. i had also that the windows on a just unplugged monitor are not moved to a still active monitor. this used to work on Wayland.
I mean Windows doesn't have many of the issues that the article mentions, but Windows fails at being a Mac.
I have an M3 Pro from work. At the office, I plug it into an HP dock with a single USB-C cable (which I believe is TB4). I have 3 displays connected to the dock and they all work.
I purchased the exact same dock for my home, but only 2 of my displays work there.
I think the M3 Pro is documented to support 2 displays; you have to get the Ultra to have 3 (absurd). The dock is able to do some kind of workaround with the displays at the office, but I can’t figure out what the displays at home are lacking for that to work.
It’s 2024! For gods sake I should be able to have a dozen displays if I want.
There is a single dev (Sven Peter) working on Thunderbolt support which would enable external displays and he has limited dev time.
(Mine's an M3, so complete non-starter for now. Others have missing support for various things like HDMI or fingerprint reader, etc., so just a case of whether there's enough there for you to consider it 'usable' for your own use.)
Like, you can get better EVERYTHING outside their hardware. I can't imagine ever being like:
You know what I really want 0 GPU and only 64GB ram for $2700!
I understand if you need to compile for Apple users, but if you are going to install Linux on it, get a GPU or some seriously significant amount of RAM.
I'm pretty sure my M1 MacBook Air was the most powerful fanless laptop on the market when I bought it, and there were just a few laptops with comparable battery life.
I'm also pretty sure it had a GPU. (still has one)
Huh, my gaming laptop was the most powerful laptop with 3 USB-C ports and was the color blue. It also has an NVIDIA gpu.
Apple had 0 blue laptops with 3 USB-C ports or NVIDIA GPUS.
>I'm also pretty sure it had a GPU. (still has one)
OH man! Victim of Apple marketing right here. You have an integrated GPU in your CPU. This is industry standard for the last 25+ years.
Dude, I know what an integrated GPU is (and it's certainly not "GPU in your CPU").
You're not smarter than everyone else for having a laptop with a dedicated GPU and running Linux on it. You haven't found a magical loophole in the laptop market by not buying Apple. You're just prioritizing different stuff than Apple users.
Sure there are 7B people in the world!
But I'm def smarter than people who spend $2500 on a few GB ram and no GPU. Plato suggests its wrong for smart people to be humble, it allows dumb people to step up and make their points.
If you arent compiling for iOS, you made an inefficient decision. There is a reason Apple is found on low to middle income consumer households, and not found in B2B. Guess which is most susceptible to emotional marketing.
Tell that to Linus Torvalds, seen using a few different MacBooks over the years. So far, you've made the impression of an arrogant nobody who doesn't know what a GPU is.
> Apple is found on low to middle income consumer households
Citation needed.
It doesn't mean that rich people do also have Apple stuff (especially the iPhone) but at least for computers many of the rich people I know went with a Windows computer and stuck with it (because it made more financial sense).
The cliché is a struggling artist with a nice Apple laptop and it's not without any merit. There was a time where indeed an Apple computer offered you some stuff that wasn't available elsewhere or at least in a significantly worse way (desktop print, illustration, audio type of stuff). But then in the 2000s it leveled off. To the point Adobe made some marketing stating that an equivalently priced PC was faster to run their software. It wasn't that successful because at this point Macs were already iconic status symbol but still.
Nowadays I see a lot of creators just switching to Windows PC for convenience and power. I follow some YouTube channels where the person got his start on a Mac but then switched to PC because Premiere Pro is good enough and it is rather useful to have access to all the 3D software with a powerful GPU for rendering.
While Apple was busy creating their island walled garden software support has become way too atrocious because developers got tired both of their business practice and ever-changing APIs/framework that makes it not worthwhile to support a large software for the small userbase.
People can't shut up about Apple Silicon but outside of efficiency it is just about competitive and not so much in other ways (max power, GPU).
We will see how the ARM rollout pans out in the Windows world (I don't have much faith; the importance of efficiency is largely overstated and is a use case already met with Chromebooks for the most part) and if it works out it might be better for cross-compilation for macOS but then again Apple Silicon is not exactly standard ARM and it leaves the biggest problem of an exotic GPU with specific way of handling things.
I fear Apple may have put themselves into a corner just like in the PPC days by trying to be too different and "special" for short term gains.
Regardless, there are very practical reasons to have different priorities than yours.
Nah that is post purchase rationalization.
And yes. The answer is YES. Yes, college kids need to be on their laptop all freaking day.
Can you think of a reason why?
In my experience macOS doesn't even remember where spaces should be.