I remember circa 2017 working for startups and traveling a lot. Most of the people were using macs but I had an Alienware because that way I could have a real GPU and train neural nets locally.
Back then a mac worked much better with the docks I could find and monitors that had a dock plugged in. It was close to instant and "just works" on the Mac whereas the Windows computer would take 45 seconds to enumerate the dock every time.
The other day we had a power failure that caused my home server which normally runs headless to go down and stay down. Right next to that server is a Mac with a Studio display which has no ordinary ports like HDMI, DVI, VGA, DisplayPort, whatever. I had to take the server upstairs and plug it into a old cheap monitor I had there and it turned out that somehow the *-extras package didn't get installed by Ubuntu and I had no network card drivers. Not hard to fix, but another illustration of how Apple products often are just a little less useful and valuable than they could be.
When Apple still had intel chips, I remember how long it used to take for external displays to be properly detected and to start working. The first time I used a M series chip, suddenly the displays were detected and started working in a second or two. I had assumed that that’s how long it always had to take, when in reality it could an order of magnitude quicker, and on a thunderbolt dock.
I would've said that at the tail end of Windows 10. I got my first Mac via work just as Windows 11 was coming out (having switched my personal devices to Linux), and my memories of Windows were much better than whatever version of MacOS I was using at the time. But my next work computer was Windows 11 (I got tired of the differences between MacOS's shell and Debian on all our servers so I just wanted to use WSL) and Windows 11 is the worst OS I've ever used
I agree with the criticisms of modern macOS. However, let’s not forget their competitor is Windows. So even if they aren’t going great, it’s not like they have stiff competiton. Thats before even getting into hardware where Microsoft is even further behind.
It’s unfortunate that it’s so hard to disrupt this space.
On the contrary, it’s unfortunate that this space can’t just be an island of stability, where things keep working the way they always have and new features are added unobtrusively. Instead we get surface-level change for the sake of change as well as slop and surveillance nobody asked for, and are still missing conveniences that have been table-stakes on mobile for years. It would be a a step in the right direction if Windows would simply stop disrupting itself.
I've been using a Macbook as my personal laptop since 2008 when they introduced the first aluminum chassis and still these things the author raises are still little quirks I wish Mac would resolve.
most of my nonengineer friends are using laptops that are built like junk and falling apart with dismal performance. a $600 mac thats easy to repair and does the basics is such an easy recommendation for so many of them
Have mostly had the same complaints with MacOS since the beginning. Also something I'd like to see mentioned is the refusal to add a tiny X on the corners of windows in the Mission Control view, and the only workaround I've found is some 8$ app on AppStore.
Still can't believe how much better it felt to log in to KDE (admittedly not my favorite) on my Steam Deck when I had to configure something and got to use the file manager. It just let me... do stuff that MacOS wants to hide from me. Cmd-shift-. to show hidden files, seriously? Cmd-shift-G to go to a path?!
I've been using MacOS exclusively for 5 years now and had forgotten how much I like working on linux - I definitely haven't forgotten how much I dislike Windows though...
I think this is fundamentally misdiagnosing why Macs haven’t dominated. It is actually not about the monitor support but about:
- government and corporate bulk contracts ?and this is usually a result of software only working on Windows.)
- expensive (thus affecting for most home users and also corporate bulk buyers who can not tell the difference.)
- lack of high end game support
That is why it doesn’t have more market share.
You are thinking too much about minor technical issues.
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[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 39.7 ms ] threadBack then a mac worked much better with the docks I could find and monitors that had a dock plugged in. It was close to instant and "just works" on the Mac whereas the Windows computer would take 45 seconds to enumerate the dock every time.
The other day we had a power failure that caused my home server which normally runs headless to go down and stay down. Right next to that server is a Mac with a Studio display which has no ordinary ports like HDMI, DVI, VGA, DisplayPort, whatever. I had to take the server upstairs and plug it into a old cheap monitor I had there and it turned out that somehow the *-extras package didn't get installed by Ubuntu and I had no network card drivers. Not hard to fix, but another illustration of how Apple products often are just a little less useful and valuable than they could be.
I will never buy an Apple device for private use.
It’s unfortunate that it’s so hard to disrupt this space.
For instance, they are arguing that Apple is pushing users toward a Thunderbolt dock - on a computer without Thunderbolt.
I still can’t get thumbnail previews of my Virtual Desktops at the top of my screen. I see the desktops but they’re blank.
And missing that context is tricky when you have four of them (:
Still can't believe how much better it felt to log in to KDE (admittedly not my favorite) on my Steam Deck when I had to configure something and got to use the file manager. It just let me... do stuff that MacOS wants to hide from me. Cmd-shift-. to show hidden files, seriously? Cmd-shift-G to go to a path?!
I've been using MacOS exclusively for 5 years now and had forgotten how much I like working on linux - I definitely haven't forgotten how much I dislike Windows though...
- government and corporate bulk contracts ?and this is usually a result of software only working on Windows.) - expensive (thus affecting for most home users and also corporate bulk buyers who can not tell the difference.) - lack of high end game support
That is why it doesn’t have more market share.
You are thinking too much about minor technical issues.