Comment by horsawlarway
1 day ago
Honestly, forced to use a macbook for work and I get incredibly strong "windows 8" vibes from macos.
Apple still has pretty incredible hardware, although it's definitely priced with that in mind - but the software has been a constant slog. Change for change's sake, needless shifting in settings/config menus. Weird "we tried to make this similar to mobile" themes in some places but not others. Overly complex os navigation, without clear goals or direction.
Frankly - the OS apple is producing for their traditional computers feels like garbage. I use Arch/Gnome on my personal hardware and I feel like some time in the last 5ish years my opinion swapped - I used to think Gnome was mostly copying Apple design choices, but slightly worse. Now I think Gnome is just a more clear, more usable DE than what Apple is releasing. I moved my wife to Arch/Gnome on her personal laptop last year, and the sure sign was that she hasn't really had any problems with it.
All that said... I still keep a laptop around with Windows 11 on it, because I have a couple of legacy tools (CNCs, solar inverters) that still want it, and holy shit is modern Windows just absolute trash. I grew up on Windows, from windows 3.1 to windows 10, and it's the worst of the 3 by a good distance right now.
You know something's gone wrong with commercial tech companies when the only OS that actually feels like it's intentionally designed for users is the free product.
In what way does MacOS feels like garbage ? I use it everyday on a +5y MacBook and it’s an absolute blast. Powered on for weeks without reboot, 3x4K 32inch screens, hundred of chrome pages and apps opened and it’s all smooth. Ofc I don’t even hear a fan but the software is amazing for me. It all works, all the time.
I'm someone else, but I also feel like macOS is rubbish.
On linux, if I get a kernel panic, I can dig into the kernel, add debug logs, understand what's going on, and potentially fix it. If I want to swap to a scrolling window manager like niri, I can.
On macOS, it's a black box and any radar I file with apple vanishes in a black hole never to be seen again. There's hardly any customization, and the default UX is horribly undiscoverable and can't easily be driven with just a keyboard.
As a hacker, the above makes macOS garbage, and I'd assume anyone on hacker news would understand that desire to be able to understand and hack on the software you use.
I also like to hack things but you understand that what drive Mac sales are not people who’d like to hack the system but regular people on a massive scale. Linux does not have this problem because there isn’t the same kind of economics involved in year-round salaries. So I won’t consider trash an OS who’s main target by far is not hackers, even though there is still some margin for some customization. Your point still stands that for you the OS is garbage. But you’re probably not the main user they have in mind when they develop the OS
Presumably the way he described in the previous paragraph.
> Change for change's sake, needless shifting in settings/config menus. Weird "we tried to make this similar to mobile" themes in some places but not others. Overly complex os navigation
That is garbage ? Changing the UI of settings ? MacOS navigation has been the same for a decade. Who uses the settings daily ? I don’t even open settings once a month. Every single piece of UI evolve and must evolve. The ones that don’t are stuck in the past and belongs to a museum. I don’t see what complex and thus garbage.