11
kiki
2y

macOS facts:
- Darwin core is open-source (https://github.com/apple/darwin-xnu). Not the case with Windows.

- You can use macOS without using any Apple online service like Apple ID, FaceTime or iCloud. Terminal will still work without restrictions, and any app can be installed manually. It's totally different from Google services on Android, without which most of the apps won't work at all.

- macOS updates are trivially to disable. It's a matter of unchecking "Update this mac automatically" checkbox in software update settings. Not the case with Windows, Windows updates are universally hated among developers for intentionally complex UI and update services being very hard to disable.

- Almost every feature or default behavior you dislike can be trivially disabled with one console command. Features won't re-enable automatically like I heard update service does in Windows. The only feature I dislike that I wasn't able to disable was a notification about unsafely unplugging a USB flash drive.

- Out of the box, you get a sophisticated disk manager that allows all kinds of manipulation on drives, just like what you get in Ubuntu.

- Just like on smartphones, you can trivially restrict or provide access to certain features like camera, microphone, etc. on app to app basis. I don't know how to easily do it in Linux, let alone in Windows.

- Apart from mastodons like GIMP, I find open source apps for macOS to have better UI than their Linux alternatives.

- Objective-See offers useful FOSS apps for macOS, they help with privacy and malware detection: https://objective-see.com/products....

I don't want to start a fight. Please, abstain from commenting on one OS being better / worse than the other. Please, don't comment on Mac computers being better / worse than computers of some other vendor. I'm very confused now because of my Dunning-Krueger thing (read my previous rants), so I just want to present the facts about macOS that I think deserve more exposure.

Comments
  • 4
    macOS is surprisingly good tbh
  • 1
    Facts? 🤔💭
  • 3
    The macOS software was always pretty good...

    The only problem with them is the sometimes enormously, sometimes ridiculously overpriced hardware.

    And if you compare to Android... Why not against iOS? I bought an iPhone for my daughter two years ago because she preferred it over an Android phone. You cannot do anything on that dumb thing without Tim Cooks explicit permission... Even completely trivial things like turning an audio file into a ringtone are virtually impossible.
  • 0
    @jespersh that’s weird. It never happened with my MacBook 12 which my gf uses now. I disabled updates because I think it would gradually become slower. I literally unchecked the checkbox and that was it
  • 0
    @DirtEffect I once wanted to use that meme Arabic nokia ringtone in my iPhone. I googled the guide and set that ringtone in like two minutes
  • 1
    If they allowed macOS to run on non-Apple PCs without jumping a thousand hoops, I would gladly give it another try, although I doubt it would be anything more than messing around.
  • 1
    @prodigy214 can you give me concrete examples of what you want to customize that is not possible?

    For me it was the keyboard layout and I managed to customize it exactly as I wanted.
  • 0
    The vast majority of the updates for which I get notifications are for software I don't use, and never will: safari, itunes, facetime, xcode, and other apple-branded items. The apps I actually do use(Firefox, paw, alacritty, Alfred, witch, divvy, Vivaldi, KeePassxc, homebrew stuff, and nvim-qt) are all updated outside the official update means.

    This fractured system of updates puts MacOS squarely behind Linux.
  • 1
    Macs shine at exactly two things:

    1) Making apps to rip off suckers on iCrap

    2) Hanging out at Starbucks while being unaware of how much you suck.
  • 3
    Nothing really bad about these operating systems to be honest. My macbooks paid themselves in regards to the jobs I took that required them. I have never had an issue with the BSD based workstations that I get from these bad boys. I am not a game engine developer, but a mobile and web developer, for these things I have no issues with a macbook.

    I have also never needed to take an apple computer to get repairs, this , I cannot say for other vendors. So yeah, not bad products, just filled with hate from people online. Not like I care what online opinions are since they are not the ones working to pay my bills or buy my computes.
  • 2
    @AleCx04 yes. Even @Fast-Nop is a very smart guy, yet he can't contain his emotions when it comes to bashing Apple.

    Apple repairs are atrocious.
  • 1
    @DirtEffect yes, I admit that comparison to Android wasn't fair. Both iOS and Android are vendor-locked in terms of third-party apps: iOS explicitly cannot install apps without iCloud, Android on paper can do that, but the vast majority of apps require Google services.
  • 0
    @kiki That has nothing to do with emotions. Apple is simply a bad company with overpriced products that are usually also badly engineered and shoddily produced, and their bad customer service tops it off. It's all marketing.
  • 1
    @Fast-Nop that's quite an emotional message. My experience is different.

    I used to use elementaryos for years, and macOS worked better for what I do (basically full-stack stuff). When something wasn't working, I opened apple support page, and 10 minutes later I was talking to a support guy who was able to fix stuff I couldn't fix myself.

    About products being overpriced, I wasn't able to find a laptop that would fit the requirements I have, and my list of requirements doesn't include Apple-specific stuff like "there should be macOS out of the box". If there was a cheaper laptop that would fit, I'd bought it instead of a MacBook.

    About marketing, I try to ignore it when evaluating a product of any company, not just Apple. I don't like marketing as an institution.

    You are entitled to your own opinion and your own emotions.
  • 0
    @Fast-Nop though I really dislike working conditions of Foxconn and Chinese tech factories, but I hardly believe this is an Apple-specific issue and all the vendors there are except Apple provide better conditions.
  • 1
    @kiki Apple has struggled for years with basics such as proper voltage conversion circuits. Or using wrong solder and calling it a solution to put in a rubber cushion to press a chip onto the board. Or advertising "unibody" laptops that were actually shoddily glued together and would fall apart. Or struggling with producing keyboards.

    Apple even managed to produce HDD cables that failed - a failure mode unheard of in the rest of the industry.

    Louis Rossmann has a nice rundown: https://youtube.com/watch/...

    I've no idea why you constantly blabber about "emotions" when it's simply about technical facts on the ground. Maybe you are too emotional to see facts?

    Btw., I didn't even mention Foxconn and Chinese tech factories.
  • 0
    @kiki And with "bad customer service", I mean Apple's way of gaslighting their customers. "You're holding it wrong" wasn't an accident - it's Apple's company culture.

    E.g. Apple puts in non-resettable liquid sensors in their laptops so that they can refuse warranty. Only that these sensors already activate without liquid damage in humid climate such as Florida.

    At their premium price point, it's perfectly reasonable to demand a premium product. Hence, I wouldn't expect them to put their effort into denying warranty for liquid damage, but in making their keyboards spill resistant in the first place.

    But no, instead Apple went ahead and made that butterfly crap that can't even deal with dust that occurs in normal usage.

    That's of course HW, not macOS - but macOS only runs on that HW so that it's not two different things. Bundling that is the whole point of Macs.
  • 0
    @Fast-Nop all the facts you present are true as far as I'm concerned. Though I still consider calling some company "bad" and some other "good" is an emotional thing to do. Your replies with facts are way more on point
  • 0
    @Fast-Nop wait, it's all HW? But the rant itself was about macOS, FFS. Why all the fucking rants about something related to apple are doomed to start all the same fight again and again?
  • 0
    @Fast-Nop wait, it's all HW? But the rant itself was about macOS, FFS. Why all the fucking rants about something related to apple are doomed to start all the same fight again and again?
  • 0
    @kiki As I already explained: running exclusively on that HW is one of the central properties of macOS. It's deliberately crippled in that regard - other OSs aren't.
  • 1
    @Fast-Nop so basically those who want to use macOS are doomed to also get all the shortcomings of apple HW. got it
  • 0
    @Fast-Nop so basically those who want to use macOS are doomed to also get all the shortcomings of apple HW. got it
  • 0
    @kiki

    Is that so hard to swallow? That's been par for the course with company-provided MacBooks I've been issued over the years. Charging problems, ports malfunctioning, keys breaking, etc. The operating system's design is excellent, and allows for easy productivity for me, but the hardware issues have always been part of the package. That's a big reason I love running it in VFIO.
  • 1
    My pet peeve with OSX / MacOS is that the settings panel is completely useless. Many very basic things (granted: basic for me) are simply not possible. So then you need to search the interwebs for some random terminal command / hack for something as simple as deactivating the internal monitor.

    Also there's a bunch of hidden, opinionated things that'll bite you when you either don't know about them or when you're not happy with them. (e.g. "clamshell mode", which is short for "Apple decided when your computer goes to sleep and when it doesn't")

    I guess in the end it's just too opinionated for me and iOS has the same issue dialed to 11.
  • 0
    @prodigy214 you see, mac users don’t care about customization like icon packs. Sometimes it’s better to focus on one thing and to make it good rather than wasting resources to enable pointless options and configurations. (Pointless for the majority of users, that is.)

    About creating a file in the terminal:
    The functionality to create a file like a text document comes from the apps that the file is associated with. So, it makes sense that you create those files from the apps and not from the file browser. Now, on Windows, those apps create shortcuts for the file explorer to create empty files like .doc.
    That’s a convention. On mac, there is no such convention, so apps don’t do it.
    If I had to guess why, I’d say because most users simply don’t use/need it. They go to the app and create the files from there. If you want to create files directly in finder, just go ahead and create that function. It’s easy. Personally, I also prefer the Terminal.
  • 0
    @prodigy214 and btw, you are complaining about missing icon packs and say that mac is for users in their 80s… that’s a bit ironic 😄
    Because I picture people in their 80s to be exactly the kind of users who like icon packs
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